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Spirit Festival Comments

On August 30, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, BC Arts Council, Leadership, Opinion, Spirit Festivals, by John McLachlan

Last week I wrote a blog post that was picked up by the Georgia Straight where I shared my views of the Spirit Festival grant program.

Thanks to all who responded, commented (60+), Retweeted (60+) and “liked” on Facebook (700+).

Here is a sample of some of the comments people made. The positive comments far out numbered the negative comments. In fact, there was really only one negative commenter who left a few comments.

POSITIVE COMMENTS

Bravo! You’ve said what surely everyone is thinking.

Hear hear!

Thanks for speaking up. I agree with you completely.

Starting a festival just to access a grant is the same as buying a rope to hang yourself with.

Another brilliant, articulate and bang on assessment from John McLachlan.

Brilliant & great incite from the voice of experience. Thank You John.

Thank you John. You said it.

Few festivals thrive in February (other than maybe the Push Festival — which is brilliant) — but BC spirit festivals?? They’re kidding, right? They aren’t? Oh my freaking god.

Thanks you John! we don’t need spirit festivals, or retractable roofs or whatever. Its just a little too ‘art for the state’ flavoured for this jew…..

Thanks, John. Too bad we can’t draft you onto the BC Arts Council. The gagged silence from those who are supposed to be the custodians of culture in BC is deafening.

Amen, John. This is without doubt the worst example of incompetent mismanagement of the cultural sector in Canadian history. The BC Arts Council does need to take a very strong public stand now, but the real villains are Minister Krueger and Premier Campbell whose unprecedented political interference in the cultural life of this province makes us the laughingstock of the whole country. The only artistic production in this province that needs its funding cut is Liberals du Soleil.

Well said and thank you, John McLachlan. These Spirit of BC festivals grants for artistic propaganda promoting the BC so-called So-Cred-Liberal government on the backs of struggling arts organizations sound suspiciously like Leni Riefenstahl’s work for Hitler’s Germany. Let’s remember that artists like Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, George Grosz, Kurt Schwitters, Otto Dix and others left Nazi Germany. Can BC afford this kind of exodus because it’s already begun – Crystal Pite, Kika Thorne, Cheyanne Turions and others. Elaine Carol, Artistic Director, MISCELLANEOUS Productions

This has Campbell written all over it. He’s just looking for another expensive party for his rich friends and a chance to wave his fucking red mitts in the air. There’s sea of drunks on Granville street already and it’s free! Give the money BACK to the real arts.

Agreed!

BC Spirit festival? The spirit of fascism, is being celebrated, attempting to thwart the spirit of artistic creation? pulling funding from that which goes against their corporate business like ideological spirit..? thats what this is about. Cant wait for these pigs to wake up to a complete rejection by the citizens of BC. sooner than their 3 year nondate. I can say I never once darkened the door of any BORELYMPIC festival during those horrible 2 weeks.

Well said. Haven’t business types always assumed that the art community lacks acumen of any kind? Are they trickling some scraps our way to appease us? Please, we must not re-elect them.

This program is worse than those stupid Millennium grants. How many arts organizations and artists were looking for ways to celebrate the Millennium? The quintessential top-down policy.

In this case, how many arts organizations in the north want to hold festivals in February? Another fine business model from the supposedly fiscally-prudent govt.

I can’t wait for winter with hordes of people driving to Wells from the Lower Mainland and Victoria in their all-season tires :-o

How about a Spirit of BC Rail Festival? We could set up model trains all over BC and then sell them to the highest bidder – after a few insider shenanigans!

Or a Spirit of PST Festival? Set up yard sales & kiosks and charge the good ol’ pre-HST %.

No doubt there are many Spirits lurking in the wings that would make excellent themes. Otherwise, I hope every arts group boycotts this nonsense.

These ‘Spirit Festival’ organizers should have taken a look at Calgary’s desperate attempts to keep their ‘Olympic Spirt’ on life support after the 1988 Games. There’s a reason why you’ve never heard of the Calgary Winter Festival.

It’s like the people who won’t take their Xmas decorations down until well into February – give it up and move on already.

Well said, John. Thanks for the straight talk.

We need the BC government to restore arms-length funding of culture and art, and stop bleeding real artists and cultural organizations dry!

Diverting funds from real art to a blatant propaganda event is reprehensible behavior and indicates no respect or understanding of what art or culture is. Real art and culture creates a real legacy.

John, In complete agreement with your thoughts on this issue. It’s really disheartening to see the BCAC on life support and the adverse affect the radical funding cuts are having on the provincial arts sector. Spirit Festival concept is complete rubbish designed to buy votes in non urban communities and simultaneously to tell the “real cultural workers” in the community exactly what they (Liberal gov’t) think of them. The gov’t just doesn’t give a damn about culture and art. That much seems pretty clear.

Totally agree. Everyone I talk to think that the idea of ‘Spirit Festivals’ is really tacky.

Is there any chance that the government will back down on this ill-conceived and incredibly gauche idea? Is this REALLY going to happen? Maybe it’s a government conspiracy…they’re hoping that all the arts orgs will be so upset that everyone will boycott, so they can shrug ‘your loss’ and put the money back in their pockets ?

Given the unanimous opposition to the BC Spirit Festival expressed here, will artists take the next step and boycott it?

Artists and concerned citizens can complain all they want – but what does any of it mean if grant applications continue to be submitted?

If you hate what the government is doing to the arts – if you hate this festival in particular – you have to unite and, in solidarity, declare you will have nothing to do with it.

Boycott the BC Spirit Festival.

Consider this folks – the ‘Spirit Festival’ grant can only be applied for by Members of the Assembly of BC Arts Councils, or Aboriginal Friendship Centres, Band Councils or other Aboriginal cultural organizations.

Too bad they didn’t resurrect the BC Festival of the Arts. Every year a different city took it on, it supported all manner of art and artists, all at the same time. It was uplifting to be present at one whether or not you were a delegate.

And February? A bad storm and there go your participants

Right on John. I was wondering when someone would speak the truth about this ridiculous idea. 30 million thrown away while bonafide groups, like mine, the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, limp along after 100% cuts. It;s sheer insanity.These Liberals wouldn’t know art from a f-art. These are scary times for democracy and the arts, two things that go hand in hand.

Right on!!! Thanks for speaking up when so many of us feel we can’t . Millions of dollars being sucked up by/for the Olympic Games…AGAIN, instead of being used for and by the community at large. It would be laughable if not so devastating.

BRAVO!

Well put, John. And yes, shameless hussy productions will boycott this BC Spirit Festival grant crap. Why not go out in flames?!

Boycott the Spirit Festival!

I applaud John McLachlan and Jane Danzo for standing up and telling everyone that what the Campbell Liberals are doing to the Arts in BC is unacceptable. They give us something to cheer for but unless we stand with them and form a united artistic protest we lack a strong enough voice. If we apply for these Spirit Grants and implement the government’s vision of what artists should do, we sell out our own community and our own visions. Let’s do what artists do best – show people what is and what is possible!

This is bang on. The only art gallery in my northern B.C. town lost all it’s funding from the province and is now fundraising locally in order to keep its doors open so that local artists have a place to show their work. It’s sad times and a festival celebrating last year’s news isn’t new or innovative.

I did NOT vote for this. Stop killing the Arts.

Oh yeah, Spirit Festivals. Those are those parades Kim Jong Il throws, right?

Sorry but if you had worked in industry and business as I have for many years, you’d be well aware of the handouts given to that sector not involved in the arts (Sun-Rype, mining companies, lumber, and the list goes on and on)!

The more restrictions you put on arts-based funding, the less art that gets made…. so, are we all to assume that this province, and this country are becoming too elitist for the majority of the citizens to actually live here?!

The cultural crème de la crème are replying to you Mr. Campbell and Mr. Krueger in these comments in support of John’s position. And we are only the tip of the iceberg.

When are each and every one of us finally going to take back the power into our own hands and start demanding that this government remember that we are their employers and we pay their salary and we have the power to fire them? Now that’s a festival I could get behind!!!

We must address public mistrust of government funding of the arts. We are a province of people who don’t get the business, jobs, and value impact culture plays in our quality of life and our prosperity as a province. Perhaps it’s from too long and so recently being solely reliant on resource based industries.

Providing seed money to the arts is economic stimulus and is the lifeblood of our ability to fully join the knowledge based economy, fight the brain drain, and lure central business activity like head offices to BC

NEGATIVE COMMENT

If the arts community cannot sustain itself as opposed to perpetual reliance on the taxpayer for funding, then it has no reason to exist.

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Arts Advocates Need a Marketer

On August 29, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, BC Arts Council, Leadership, Opinion, by John McLachlan

The arts community faces a huge challenge in British Columbia and its relationship to public funding. How do we change our situation from the mess we are in where the Minister feels we are “vicious” and the public doesn’t even know there’s an issue at stake.

The traditional view of where economic value comes from in this province needs to be updated. The population is still stuck thinking it’s only from resources, tourism, and good public sector jobs. Though it’s true, this accounts for a huge amount, the general public just doesn’t really get how much cultural economic activity exists and how much it adds to our economy.

Money is just one half the battle. In fact, it’s often said that making the economic argument is the weakest approach. The other half is that we need to show the value of supporting arts and how it filters through to making the lives of people better in so many ways. The general public (voters) don’t see this now.

The public’s worldview just doesn’t include the value of arts either economically or socially. Until that changes, we are stuck in our ghetto.

We have our work cut out for us. And it will be hard because we are a varied group of people working in many different areas of the arts.

We don’t have a natural way to be united as one and that is what works against us. The BC Arts Council could be the way, but in its current state, it can’t be because it has no power or authority.

Somehow, we need an organization with a strong leader to come forward and do two things: Lead and Organize. I don’t know who that is. It is not the Assembly of BC Arts Councils as its mandate is too closed and it’s now dealing with giving out grants. It could be the Alliance for Arts and Culture, but its mandate is strictly Metro Vancouver and if its mandate were to change it would make those “not in Vancouver” nervous.

We need an organization and a person who wants to lead.

We need someone who we can rally around who has the guts to stand up and be noticed and who can take the message to the people in an effective and clear way. If a person or organization showed this in any way, I’d donate time and money to help.

We need to put forward the reason for arts funding support like a marketer would by understanding who we are selling to and moving the needle of support where it’s possible to be moved and ignoring it where it’s not.

It would be a huge undertaking.

Who? Where? What? When? How?

Am I completely off-base or dreaming? What are you thoughts?

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DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT

On August 21, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, Leadership, Opinion, by Tom Durrie

DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT

If what you’re doing isn’t working, do something different. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

Sound advice which the arts community does not seem to be heeding.

Yesterday, I asked a random dozen or so people if they knew who Jane Danzo was. No one had heard of her. So much for the dramatic resignation!

Then David Diamond (Headlines Theatre) spoke, on the CBC’s Early Edition, in definitive terms. That is, he did not appeal, in polite terms, to government generosity.

Now, I fear that will be the end of it.

David also said that his colleagues in the arts community had advised him not to speak out.

What are we afraid of?

A number of years ago, I proposed the formation of a provincial union of artists and arts groups to create a powerful lobby and an articulate and passionate public voice. The response was, “Oh, that sounds too much like biting the hand that feeds us.” You can see where the.cautious and humble approach has gotten us.

What are you doing that is different?

Unless we were to have an enlightened government that would take a leadership role in the arts, we will see the continued erosion of support for the arts. And I believe it’s safe to say that private and corporation philanthropy will take its cues from government. Change can only happen when the arts become an election issue. That means taking risks. That means engaging the public—all those people who never heard of Jane Danzo, or David Diamond, for that matter.

So far, there have been mild protests, extensive letter and postcard campaigns addressed to government, and two people who have spoken out. No wonder arts advocates are looked at as a “special interest group.” We’re preaching to the converted and to the unconvertible.

What are you going to do to make a difference?

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BC Arts Council Board: Speak up or forever hold your peace!

On August 19, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, Leadership, Opinion, by John McLachlan

Last week, the Chair of the BC Arts Council, Jane Danzo, resigned stating that it was her best way of advocating for change and to show her displeasure with the way the BC Arts Council is required to operate by the Government.

See letter here

I don’t know Jane and I don’t know all the machinery at the BC Arts Council so I could be completely “off” on what I am about to say, but here goes.

Many in the arts community seems to be applauding Ms. Danzo for her bold and courageous move (see Alliance for Arts and Culture’s response) and I join them in saying it’s great to hear her reasons and frustrations but…

It seems to me that if she’d spoken her mind while she still held the position and made the Government very uncomfortable, they would have fired her which would have had a much bigger impact than the footnote articles the story is now getting in the media.

The move would have made the Government look bad (which they are). We are left now with one more person (soldier in the battle for arts funding) like the rest of us, on the outside but with no explosive impact.

My challenge to the rest of the BC Arts Council board? SPEAK OUT NOW before your term is up or you decide to resign.

Make the Government very uncomfortable.

Get removed.

At least it will have some impact.

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If it ain’t broke, fix it – non profit arts

On August 14, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, Opinion, by John McLachlan

This is a post from John McLachlan’s blog here.

The trick to surviving in this small, cash-strapped world of non-profit arts seems to me to be about taking the long view and using all the tools you have whether they be knowledge of opportunities, knowledge of the landscape and the world around you or even your “spidey” sense of where things are headed.

Cuts to arts funding are raging through the system right now in my home province of British Columbia. Organizations are freaking out as they receive letters telling them their funding is being cut by 50%, 60% and even 100% in some cases.

The hornets nest has been disturbed. Everyone is buzzing like crazy and looking for people to sting such as the Minister, the Premier, the Government in general and even other arts organizations who “got more than we did.”

Yes, having funding cut to zero is an emergency. Yes, having funding cut by 50% is serious. Organizations need to deal with it or maybe decide to fold and put their efforts to better use in a newer, more effective way.

Provided an organization isn’t dead and there is some chance of a future, even if it’s remote, then they’ve just been handed a great opportunity to remake themselves and be better because of it.

The biggest danger

The biggest danger I see for non-profits are the ones that have been funded to the point that they are still ok. It’s very easy to be lulled into complacency and not make the changes necessary to be more fit and strong.

“If it ain’t broke, you just haven’t looked hard enough” business author and strategist Tom Peters has been known to say. I think this advice for the non-profit arts sector is very timely.

I believe organizations should be opening up to new ideas and getting their ear to the ground, listening to members, talking to people outside their usual focus and, yes, looking down the road to how they could see the world being and how they could see their organization working in that new world.

What if they’d done that five years ago? Would they be in such dire shape today?

A common theme:

  • So many non-profits:
  • start out small and smart
  • grow
  • get funding
  • start new projects
  • get more funding
  • go after projects in different areas
  • get funding from only one or two sources
  • start feeling entitled to what they get
  • get sloppy
  • have too much staff
  • have an office space they can’t really afford
  • morph themselves to fit other project funding
  • lose their way and become mediocre
  • receive funding cuts
  • scream and rant
  • cut back
  • refuse to change
  • struggle along on life-support slowly becoming less and less relevant but taking years to die.

For god’s sake, if you are running a non-profit arts organization and you still have a pulse, REMAKE YOURSELF NOW.

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Cultural Democracy Equals Money for Guitar Strings

On July 18, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, Democracy, Opinion, by John McLachlan

By John McLachlan: This is a response to the idea of Cultural Democracy. discussed in the previous post on this site.

I wonder, do we really want cultural democracy? What would it look like?

I am conflicted on this issue.

We can talk in abstract terms but there comes a time when we have to narrow this down to actual examples of how the arts funding scene would change if a different model were developed.

Let’s look at a real example and how changing from this curatorial model could work. I co-ordinate the Community Presenters Assistance which is a program of the BC Arts Council and administered by the BC Touring Council.

The program provides funding to community presenters throughout the province who book touring artists as part of a season in their community. It includes both volunteer and professional presenters.

Once per year these presenters apply for a grant to assist with fees they pay professional artists. Only performances of professional artists are able to be supported through the program.

There are two levels of “curatorial” work done here. One is at the grants level itself where a peer review committee looks at each application to ensure it meets the requirements of the program and makes recommendations on funding level. In my opinion, the primary purpose of this committee is to be oversight of public funds. There is very little “artistic” meddling which frankly, is a good thing.

The other level of curatorial work is done by the presenters themselves when they choose who to book to perform in their communities.

The benefits of the current system are that you have people in each community choosing who will come and perform. I highly favour this method. If you didn’t do it this way, you’d have organizations like the BC Arts Council deciding which artists would work and where. Or, heaven forbid, you’d have governments telling you what you’d be doing. In some ways, the Canada Council, in choosing which artists to support is also saying who will thrive/who will die. It is always done with the best intentions as in “your heart is in the right place but your head is up your @%%”

Is the program perfect? Does it address everyone’s needs? Is it truly democratic? No, but… if we were to remove the curatorial aspect of this, what would we be left with? The program I’ve just described would be gone. And with it, a whole lot of small concert series and a whole lot less work for emerging artists who wish to tour. Is that a good thing? I don’t think so.

Perhaps, if we want to be democratic about this, we should just remove all funding for professional artists, companies and organizations. Let’s just give all the money to the arts councils around the province to set up programs for people to do art. But wait, isn’t that curatorial?

Let’s get really democratic and just give each citizen a cheque to spend on arts as they see fit. Based on how much our government spends now per capita on arts funding, I could buy a new set of guitar strings and a paintbrush.

I guess my point is, I think we still need both types of support.

We often talk of democracy as if it’s the height of a civilized world but since when is democracy perfect? We have elections now where fewer people voted for the party in power than didn’t. Is that democratic and fair? No, it’s messy.

I think we need the messy system we have but be open to making changes and adjustments.

What are your thoughts?

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CULTURAL DEMOCRACY

On July 18, 2010, in Democracy, Opinion, Popular culture, by Tom Durrie

AABC  board member Lynn Curtis sends us the following. We’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Subject: AFC Lecture: Cultural Democracy in a Time of Diminished Resources

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin
Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Cultural Democracy in a Time of Diminished Resources

presented by Bau Graves, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago

July 22, 2010, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of
Congress

Simply stated, “Cultural Democracy” is the notion that everybody’s
heritage and cultural expression is worthwhile and deserving of an
equitable share of whatever resources are available. In recent years,
Cultural Democracy has also gained traction as a descriptor for the
whole realm of participatory, community-centered arts activities,
practiced by millions of Americans everyday in their homes,
backyards, public parks, places of worship, schools – pretty much
everywhere except in the designated art spaces of our museums and
concert halls, where they happen infrequently.

The mechanisms that we have inherited for the support of public
culture were inspired by the practices of the fine arts economy of
the first half of the 20th century, and were designed to validate
curatorial authority.

This is the top-down version of culture.

Financial and programmatic decision-making is vested in highly-
trained, credentialed individuals who are positioned to determine
what the entire community should see, hear and experience.

Cultural Democracy requires a paradigm shift away from this curatorial model,
and towards a process of continuous and intense community engagement,
using culture as a catalyst for addressing social issues: art of the
people, made by the people, and presented for the people.

James Bau Graves is Executive Director of the Old Town School of Folk
Music, in Chicago, Illinois, the largest community school of the arts
in the United States.

His work is focused on exploration of the personal, political, aesthetic and
ethical issues embedded in the concept and practice of public culture.
He is the past Director of the Jefferson Center Foundation, in Roanoke, Virginia,
and co-founder of the Center for Cultural Exchange in Maine, where he facilitated
the creation of an extended series of programs, in close
collaboration with community groups and artists, addressing grass
roots cultural aspirations, questions of identity and social/
financial power relations.

Bau’s work as a field researcher, arts presenter, community organizer,
project manager and tour director has been prolific, winning numerous
awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wallace Foundation,
Americans for the Arts’ Animating Democracy program, the Rockefeller Foundation,
and many others.

Bau has performed and recorded with several jazz and
traditional music ensembles, and composed original scores for two
collaborative projects with dancer/director Ann Carlson. He holds a
Masters degree in ethnomusicology from Tufts University, has
published essays concerning cultural issues in both the academic and
popular press, and has appeared on and/or produced numerous
recordings.

Bau Graves’ first book, Cultural Democracy, was published
in 2005 by the University of Illinois Press.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/
botkin-lectures.html#july22 or call 202-707-5510.

Jo Rasi
American Folklife Center
Library of Congress
jrasi@loc.gov

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Who the hell is Mr. St. Pierre?

On June 13, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, Opinion, by John McLachlan

A brief story first, then I’ll get to my point…

A friend of mine who worked in an elementary school told me a story about a 7th grade student who was somewhat problematic and was often getting into trouble.

One day he was found misbehaving in the hallway so my friend told him he would have to go see Mr. St. Pierre (the principal), to which the student replied “Who the hell is Mr. St. Pierre?”

What does this have to do with arts advocacy? I’ll get there, but one more story…

Yesterday, a friend of mine who is a chartered accountant (and my landlord at the moment) was dropping by as we were having some painting done by a man who once worked as a CGA, but had chosen to do house repair and general contracting. In other words, both, educated people

We were speaking about various options for changing the blinds on our windows to get better blockage from the sun. One of them said, “you want to make sure they are opaque.” True enough, and I remarked that we didn’t want them to be like one of Margaret Atwood’s favourite words “diaphanous.”

I’m not surprised they didn’t know what diaphanous meant (I didn’t until I’d heard Margaret Atwood refer to it) but I was surprised that neither of them had ever heard who Margaret Atwood was!

I’m not laughing at them or feeling superior because I knew who Margaret Atwood was and they didn’t. I’m thankful for the exchange because it was a good reminder that we make incredible assumptions in our own little worlds about everything else. In the case of our student earlier on, one would automatically assume he would have known the name of the principal.

I thought about some of the amazing things Margaret Atwood has said about the arts and how we (in the arts world) copy and paste her comments everywhere and send them to our politicians and the general public as evidence that even big names support the arts and so they should, too. We essentially say, “Isn’t it obvious?

We forget that many people don’t even know who Margaret Atwood is and so don’t even register the same significance that we see.

If we want to tip the needle of support for the arts, we’re going to have go a lot further afield than our own world.

I believe this comes about by having people in other fields getting on board as spokesmen in a similar way that boards of arts organizations often have business people on them. We also need members of the public telling their politicians directly why the arts matters to them.

Sitting around in circles of arts-only people talking about this is not going to go far. Haven’t we learned this yet?

John McLachlan

PS – Who the hell is Lady Gaga?

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CULTURAL TOURISM – What “IT” is? – my vision and a definition.

On June 6, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, Opinion, by John McLachlan

GUEST POST BY BUSINESS OF THE ARTS

Why do we want cultural tourism development in our communities?

When you ask that question of a tourism promoter, the answer is: to generate revenue for the municipality/region, to create jobs, to provide economic opportunity, to support a host of activities that we couldn’t support just with our own local population.

That’s all true but that’s not the root of the answer.

The root of the answer is: We encourage tourism development to improve the quality of life for our local community. And it’s against that measuring stick that everything we do to promote tourism in our communities must be measured. If you’re not generating a means for improving the quality of life in your community that is equal to or greater than any adverse impact you may be having on your community, you’re not stepping forward.

Stakeholders

Local Entrepreneurs:

Cultural heritage has a strong human dimension and only becomes authentic if it’s owned and driven by locals and integrated in their everyday life. Getting locals involved and encouraging them to promote “their own” cultural tourism oriented business can contribute to the economic development of the region and to better standards of living for the locals, as it can reduce unemployment and create additional income.

Furthermore, it increases the likelihood of sustainable tourism initiatives, because the benefits of tourism will be reaped by the local population rather than by big tourism operators.

Potentials of the stakeholders involved:

Small local entrepreneurs make “their” tourism offer more appealing, as they create the framework for building a cultural tourist destination atmosphere.

They offer the infrastructure in accommodation, crafting, traditional cooking and local customs, which personalizes and enriches the region’s tourism offer with coherence and strengthens identity.

This raises the potential of the town/region for selling its cultural offering on the tourism market.

My current involvement in Cultural Tourism initiatives:

This is a beginning – or, if I may so bold, a “re-beginning” of an initiative that garnered a deal great support in the 1980’s – worth a “re-visit”, no doubt.

I am currently involved in 3 Cultural Tourism Events in 3 different locations around the world that engage many different and diverse cultures.

A picture is worth “1000” words.

CT IMAGE

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We’re Advocating for the Arts All Wrong

On June 3, 2010, in Arts Advocacy, Opinion, by John McLachlan

Being professionally involved in the arts for over 25 years as an artist and as an arts administrator I’ve noticed a common refrain, “Why aren’t we better organized?”. The feeling is that if we were, we’d have more clout with policy makers and an increased awareness in the general population.

My opinion on this is: Hogwash!

We look at groups that are very well organized and that speak with one voice such as teachers, nurses, business councils, trade unions, civic employees and wonder if this is something that would work for artists.

People in these groups may disagree with me, but when they speak, Government listens, the public listens and action is usually taken.

What they all have in common is, a unified voice, well-paid jobs (yes, they are, compared to artists), large numbers and most of all, they represent a significant amount of dollars in the economy and they let everybody know that.

Has this ever happened with artists? Have we (all artists) ever been organized? NO!

The most we’ve been organized is when arts organizations like arts councils or alliances of arts organizations try to form groups and create campaigns to unite with a common voice. Who joins in on these? A handful of artists and people who work for arts organizations.

This would all be fine except that it is not seen as being significant. The fact that many of the organizations that take part in these campaigns represent hundreds or even thousands of members goes completely unnoticed. It ends up looking like a few whining organizations are complaining and it’s a blip in the media and in the eyes of Government.

What would it take to go from being a blip to being spark that ignites action? Two options to consider:

1. The Public
The public will only react if it hurts them in carrying out their daily lives. When the teachers are on strike, parents have to find ways of looking after their kids. When nurses are on strike, health care suffers. When the garbage isn’t picked up, lots of people suffer. In other words, the impact of their actions is noticed and draws passion from the public (which gets well reported in the media because it’s entertainment and it sells advertising).

If artists went on strike, very few people would notice or care. In other words, this is not an effective way to advocate.

I think it’s naive to think that artists will ever unite. The very nature of their work is not inclined to this approach, not to mention the various disciplines they are in. I think we are dreaming to think this will ever happen.

2. The Government
Government will only react if it hurts them where it counts: at the ballot box. The problem is, even if artists could unite—more on that later—the numbers are still low. We can’t really talk about the whole “cultural sector” here because people employed in industries such as movies, are well-paid and have no interest and see no need to rise up and be heard.

We’re left with ad hoc groups, individual artists, arts organizations (volunteer and paid) and the members of these organizations. Members of arts organizations could include artists or members of the public in organizations such as a local concert society, gallery or community theatre society.

When you start adding all those people up, you now have significant numbers and a very broad reach geographically. You now have enough people who would have a significant voice that would be heard by Government.

The hard part is motivating those people to take action so their voices will be heard. I’ll use an example of a provincial organization I know something about, the BC Touring Council. Ideally, the BCTC expects when it speaks for its members and all the members of its members (the patrons of the hundreds of performances that take place every year) that they are representing tens of thousands of people who participate and benefit from the arts that are presented in BC.

The diagram shows how when you get down a few levels, the number of people increases significantly (I’m only showing a representation of them – in fact there are probably tens of thousands of people).

Chart of who access the arts

The problem is, this is not what the Government hears. The message they hear is: “Here’s an organization with a few hundred members clamoring for more money for the arts.” What’s a few hundred voters spread out over the province?

The people the government needs to hear from are those down the line. It needs to hear from the people who are members of the sub-organizations. If their voices were heard, you’d truly have a significant impact because those voices vote.

How do you this? The smaller organizations in communities all over BC need to take the lead and motivate their members and patrons to take action. A gallery attendee in Terrace is not going to be motivated to do anything by messages sent from provincial organizations. They will take action because a human being in the gallery itself talked to them and inspired them to take action.

Every arts organization, artist or enthusiastic arts participant in every community in BC needs to start motivating others at that level to do something such as call their MLA, write to the local paper, talk to the mayor, talk to the local chamber of commerce.

I truly believe that the initiative has to come from this grass-roots level. It’s why I support the idea of ArtsAdvocacyBC.

Yes, we desperately need our larger arts organizations to be taking a lead on this as they have been, but somehow, the message of action from them needs to get filtered down to the level where there will be real impact: individual voters.

Reality Check
Is any of this possible? Truthfully, I don’t think so, but it’s worth trying.

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