Black Dot Diary

Hello every­one, I am so new to Word­press that I acci­den­tally “cut” a blog post that was gen­er­at­ing some inter­est: “Canada & BC Arts Cuts: Deep Insult, Shal­low Think­ing,” first posted on Octo­ber 10^th, 2009. I have to say there’s a strange les­son in cut­ting this blog — when you cut some­thing that is a unique cre­ation of an indi­vid­ual, you often can never get it back. You can’t unring a bell. Les­son learned for me. If only the Harper and Camp­bell gov­ern­ments would learn the same thing about cut­ting the arts. Their cuts have far more dire con­se­quences than the mere dele­tion of a blog. Below is my attempt to recre­ate what I had written:

When­ever our econ­omy goes into a slump, arts fund­ing always seems to come under the knife. It’s like the arts are some kind of can­cer to be extracted by the polit­i­cal scalpel.

These cuts have hap­pened fed­er­ally in Canada to the tune of $45 mil­lion (and no, Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper’s piano play­ing doesn’t make up for it). They have also hap­pened in British Colum­bia. Our poorly named BC Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts will appar­ently cut 50% this com­ing year from arts fund­ing, 90% in 2011, and 91%-94% the fol­low­ing year. Accord­ing to The Hook, the cuts pulled fund­ing from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Book Pub­lish­ers of British Colum­bia ($45,000), BC Book­World ($31,000) and the BC Asso­ci­a­tion of Mag­a­zine Pub­lish­ers ($20,000).

Some peo­ple have asked, “Why should I have to pay for arts fund­ing? I don’t read much. I never go to the the­atre.” My answer to that is that I haven’t been to provin­cial parks in a while but I still see the value in fund­ing them. Whether we are dis­cussing arts or the envi­ron­ment, it is vital to look beyond our own lives and real­ize the impact on the greater good.

I’ve heard peo­ple say, “In a cap­i­tal­ist soci­ety, shouldn’t the amount some­one is will­ing to pay dic­tate the true value of a work?” Tell it to Vivaldi who died poor on the streets of Vienna after his patron, the Church, aban­doned him. Tell that to Gwen­dolyn MacEwen, one of Canada’s great­est poets. This two-​time Gov­er­nor General’s Award win­ner died in poverty. Imag­ine a world with­out the legacy of Vivaldi or MacEwen. We would be lesser for it.

At one time, for­tu­nate artists may have had patrons to help sup­port their work. Cer­tainly Beethoven did, as did Michelan­gelo who received fund­ing from sev­eral popes as well as the House of Medici, Italy’s first fam­ily of Renais­sance arts and archi­tec­ture. In fact, the Medicis were respon­si­ble for the major­ity of Flo­ren­tine art dur­ing their years in polit­i­cal power. True, Michelan­gelo often cursed them, but with­out their fund­ing he would not have had the funds to pur­chase his pre­cious mar­ble. Imag­ine a world with­out the art of Michelangelo?

Today, gov­ern­ment has largely assumed the role of the patron in Canada but it is clear that this patron does not see the value of arts to our cul­ture. It does not see that sup­port for the arts is essen­tial to our evo­lu­tion as a peo­ple. Arts nour­ish our abil­ity to appre­ci­ate other people’s points of view and to stim­u­late intel­li­gent thought and dis­cus­sion. The arts also nour­ish our economies and boost tourism. Would Paris be as com­pelling to visit with­out the Lou­vre? Would New York be the same with­out Broad­way? It always amazes me that Cana­di­ans will travel far and wide in search of great art and archi­tec­ture, yet the arts are sadly not well sup­ported here at home.

In terms of arts fund­ing, I know of no artist in Canada who has become wealthy on this fund­ing alone. Believe me, the starv­ing artist is alive and well in our coun­try. They cre­ate because they are born to cre­ate. Indeed, they are com­pelled to do so. They enrich us all through their work. In his speech to the Federal-​Provincial Cul­ture Min­is­ters Con­fer­ence in Hal­i­fax in 2004, Simon Brault, then-​head of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, per­fectly cap­tured the role of the artist in our soci­ety.

“These artists do their work, often with­out wor­ry­ing about its direct and indi­rect impacts. This work is of value in itself, and we can­not, nor should we, “instru­men­tal­ize” artists for eco­nomic or social pur­poses, how­ever wor­thy they may be. But it is our job to place this work in con­text and to show how it con­tributes to the well-​being of indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties. Now more than ever, arts and cul­ture appear as the key to three basic skills: learn­ing to be, learn­ing to know and learn­ing to live together.

We must do more to sup­port our artists, to fully rec­og­nize their sta­tus, to pro­vide high qual­ity train­ing at the ini­tial and pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment lev­els, to ensure they are fairly com­pen­sated and to pro­tect and cel­e­brate their cre­ative freedom.”

That speech was five years ago. What a shame the gov­ern­ment did not lis­ten and has cho­sen a short sighted approach. William Gib­son, author of Necro­mancer, wrote, “As a futurist, someone with some expe­ri­ence in long-​range scenario-​based cor­po­rate and munic­i­pal planning, I’ve seen my share of jaw-​droppingly short­sighted pro­pos­als. But these pro­posed cuts to sup­port for the arts in BC (almost 90% by 2011) really take the cake. This is gov­er­nance guar­an­teed to rot the fab­ric of our province’s future…”

In 1956, John F. Kennedy spoke at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity about the arts. I only wish I could find such inspi­ra­tion from Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper or Pre­mier Gor­don Camp­bell. John F. Kennedy said:

“When power leads man towards arro­gance, poetry reminds him of his lim­i­ta­tions. When power nar­rows the area of man’s con­cern, poetry reminds him of the rich­ness and diver­sity of his exis­tence. When power cor­rupts, poetry cleanses. If more politi­cians knew poetry, and more poets knew pol­i­tics, I am con­vinced the world would be a lit­tle bet­ter place in which to live.”

In defend­ing the arts, per­haps the poets are learn­ing pol­i­tics. When will the politi­cians learn poetry?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Art, Books, Community, Mind, Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.