Really great material here from Kate Armstrong writing at Granvilleonline.ca
I excerpt here and comment:
1. Artists are not spending their time at champagne soirees. Kate adds “at taxpayer expense”, but I’ll point out they don’t do it on their own dime either. If you see artists at a ’soiree’ of any kind, chances are they are there getting money out of the rich people who attend these things so that they don’t have to rely on taxpayer funds. Yes, you stupid Neandrethal conservative fuck, you should be encouraging champagne soirees, not trashing them as something you don’t understand or would be caught dead at.
To quote Stephen Harper: “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see … a bunch of people … at a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough when they know those subsidies have actually gone up, I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.”
2. Culture is an industry. I get kind of sick of quoting these stats, so I’ll spare you the particulars and remind you that the culture industry in Canada is larger than the auto industry, the forest industry, and the mining industry. Just because it is decentralized, don’t allow others to pretend that it is small-time.
3. Art is not about artists, it is about community and culture. Or put another way, you want to be proud of being Canadian, you better support the artists, or be overrun by the Mouse.
4. Culture is not a hobby. Just because you can do it in your spare time, doesn’t make you an artist any more than changing a tire makes you an auto mechanic. It’s time some artists behaved like auto mechanics and told people where to stick it when they pretend artists don’t have “real jobs”. What’s the artistic equivalent of a lug wrench?
5. We work all day so you can play all night. Culture doesn’t just “happen”. Just because you enjoy it in your free time, does not mean we produce it in our free time. i dare say the arts and culture industry has a far higher level of expectation of perfection than most other non-technology industries. Hours of preparation are required to get minutes of cultural content prepared.
6. Artists are not “fancy”. (here I’ll quote Kate entirely, it is so great): Art is a hugely important part of our shared culture. Were the cave paintings fancy? Do you like written language? Have you ever seen a movie or worn a nice shirt or walked through a public space?
7. Just ’cause you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Most people don’t understand what you do either, minister, nor do they appreciate how hard it is. Most people don’t understand the internal combustion engine, but they appreciate it.
8. Grants keep the lights on, they don’t keep the doors open. The grants being discussed are likely a small fraction of the overall revenues for any decent sized organization (for smaller orgs they can be significantly larger percentages). Moreover, the total amount going to the arts is a thimble full in an ocean of government appropriations, recently as small as 1/20th of 1 percent. That’s .0005 for the math-challenged.
More math: Let’s say your annual salary of $100,000 was the Provincial budget. You’d allocate $50 a year to support the arts, then split that amount among hundreds of organizations. You know what you probably spend $50 a year on? Toothpaste.
9. Arts jobs are “real” jobs. People who work in the arts and culture industry do so to support families, pay the rent and send kids to school with decent clothes on their backs and lunches in their backpacks. We aren’t a bunch of black turtleneck wearing sissies, prancing from club to club in between rehearsals or studio time. We kind of got that out of our system the same time most people did – in our 20’s.
10. If you want to be “from” somewhere, there’s go to be something there. To quote Gertrude Stein: “The trouble with Oakland is when you get there, there’s no there there.” Artists help create the culture, they are there to put the “quality” in “quality of life”. Abandon and forsake them at your own peril. Whatever city you live in, it is probably not famous for whatever it is the critics of the arts do for a living. Unless perhaps you live in Milwaukee.
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