Baraka_Guru

I came across this article today:
Metro - Starving and struggling

In summary, the average income of artists in Canada dropped by 14% in five years (2001–2006) when you account for inflation. We talking average earnings that went from $26,300 to $22,700. (As though it weren't low enough to begin with.)

As someone who works in the culture industry (book publishing), I am strongly in favour of government-supported arts for two reasons: 1) It often makes good business sense, and 2) the role of art within society should not be undervalued.

Especially where book publishing in Ontario is concerned, for every dollar the government puts into it, several are generated through such means as the book industry itself, the retail industry, and the printing industry, amongst others. Historically, government support of the arts has been rewarding if it's managed properly.

Also, I believe the value of art within society is often undervalued. In the grand scheme of things, one of the richest and most memorable aspect of a society is the art it produces. The challenge of Canada's arts communities is living through the cultural hegemony of the U.S. This affects all areas of the arts. This means that government's role in the arts affects, and is affected by, both these points: It's good for business and good for society.

So why are artists starving and struggling? Looking at the numbers, this, to me, is despicable. All things considered, there is no reason why an artist cannot feasibly have a go at creating art as a career and to live somewhat comfortably as a form of compensation. What gives?

I think a major problem here is that the "ivory tower" is taking the lion's share of the funding, leaving the others out in the cold. Also, certain arts industries (namely, film) take the lion's share, leaving other industries with the scraps.

• How are artists in your nation/state/province/community faring?
• Do you support government funding of the arts? (Why or why not?)
• Is your government doing enough to foster a vibrant and accessible arts scene?
• Do the arts matter to you? (Why or why not?)
• If you are an artist, what would you like to see changed?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Derwood

I would have no income if not for government funding for the arts. I think many don't realize that theatres, museums, etc. wouldn't exist without state and federal funding. the anti-NEA folks like to cite outliers like "Piss Christ" or whatever to support their side. I've seen criticism that their is $50 million in the stimulus bill for the NEA, when the truth is that a) many jobs would be lost without it, and b) it's a pitifully small amount of money to begin with.

I'm lucky to live in a city that supports it's theatre scene fairly well (though it's wrapped up in miles of red tape). The main theatre companies I work for have theatre spaces in a state owned building that also houses the offices for the state legislature. The theatres here seem to be doing okay through the recession, but I lived through the post 9/11 era in Chicago, which saw countless fantastic companies go under due to dried up funding. Ticket sales only cover about 30% of the costs to mount a show, so private donations, sponsorships and government funding are critical in keeping the doors open at theatres. I imagine that admission fees at museums don't cover much there either.

braisler

I don't know about government sponsoring the work of artists. It is a good idea on the face of it, but falls flat in the execution. Who decides what is art and what is crap? Since art is so subjective and intangible, it would be relatively easy to argue that anything and everything falls under the umbrella of art. Also I think there is a dichotomy of incompatible pursuits. Either you are good at art and dedicated to that as your life work, or you are good at applying for and getting government grants. I don't think there is a whole lot of cross-disciplinary practitioners there. Maybe I'm wrong.

So, while I support the idea of funding for the arts, I fail to see how it can be faithfully executed for the public good.

As for the bulk of funding going to film, I don't think that profit from sales qualifies as funding. Do you have data that suggests that filmmakers actually get more government based funding than other arts?

__________________
---
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
---

roachboy

* How are artists in your nation/state/province/community faring?

i don't know anyone who is able to make a living doing art of any kind.
i know folk who have periods that enable them to focus on their creative work--large grants or residencies---but everyone else splits their time up, doing one or another type of day gig to get over. what that means is a direct function of how much time they're willing to give away on maintenance. alot of my friends drift about in adjunct world because while the pay's shit and isolation can be a real problem, if you can rig things up you can steal time.
without any medical insurance of course.
caveat emptor i suppose.

one of the more depressing realizations i had, particularly in chicago where i started meeting a bunch of fairly well-known artists, writers and musicians, is that even in the more famous sectors of work lumped together as "experimental" or "underground" very few people can make a living doing what they love doing.

the exceptions have trust funds.

Do you support government funding of the arts? (Why or why not?)

yes. of course. both direct to artists and indirect to organizations that enable or foster creative work. the more the better.
one effect of the past 30 years of conservative hegemony in the states has been a destruction of what were diverse, decentralized art and music scenes--alot of new ones have grown up in the wastelands left behind--some last, some don't.

consistent funding enables folk to devote their time to creative work, which is every bit as socially important as other types of production.

to adopt the crass american capitalist way of talking for a minute--a vibrant creative economy (if you like) provides a host of benefits to straighter economic activities.--from real estate to design to sound work to architecture. on and on. you live in a designed world. someone had to design it.

i think it is an enormous waste of creative potential, this system that's in place in the states.

i also think it should be possible to start new radically interdisciplinary schools on the order of the bauhaus or black mountain. think of the impact these schools have had. what enabled them is (a) a cross-disciplinary cirriculum (b) a highly skilled and devoted faculty (c) a rigourous course of study.
straight schools operate with pretty strict divisions between disciplines.
even "interdisciplinary" programs function to affirm where one comes from.
specialization is limitation---trans-disciplinary education enables the generation of quite specialized work, but more importantly, it facilitates recursion and/or reflexive modes of thinking and working.
the era of single-minded devotion to a single task in isolation from everything else is well behind us all.
in the states, the educational system from top to bottom hasn't even started to catch up with this.

o yeah:
art funding underwrites process not outcomes.
it is of no consequence whether people like the outputs or not--the funding is not about you as a consumer. you can opt for what's available--if you don't like x go do something else.
so personally, i couldn't care less if people were offended by serrano's piss christ for example.
one thing's sure about them: they hadn't seen the prints.
the prints are awesome.
to argue that it's not art without having seen it is just stupid.
a particularly american kind of stupid.

Is your government doing enough to foster a vibrant and accessible arts scene?

hell no.

* Do the arts matter to you? (Why or why not?)

some are ways of life, others i enjoy, others i don't care about: all is important. if not to me then to others.
there should be lots of possibilities.
the more the better.

* If you are an artist, what would you like to see changed?

more sources of funding.
more coherent funding for individual artists across media.
more funding available for fashioning new intermediaries that enable a sense of ordering to new media projects (for example) that are already out there but that no-one knows about because there aren't enough intermediaries.
more funding for new media. more funding for print. more outlets, more writing.
more sound projects. more film. more everything.

look at it this way: more creative work done by more people in more places gives the straight world more options to steal. plus it generates a better social environment for everyone. plus it keeps artists from forming gangs and terrorizing suburbanites.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

guyy

Y'know, if we're going to have utterly useless jobs like toll-booth collectors, we might as well support the arts. Support the roads through taxes of one sort or another (and more on trucks, which don't pay their fair share of tolls), and make up for the loss of employment by supporting the arts.

Derwood

here are just a few of the NEA's initiatives this year:

National Initiatives

boink

if you don't work in the arts it may seem like a waste of money but it's true the arts create jobs when it's part of public works, at least in my experience.
I worked on projects that were paid for from 1% for the arts... bus tunnel (huge steel gates) and some other similar metal works. they were 100% art but involved a lot of heavy industrial processes. helping pay wages for metal workers, truck drivers, commercial scale painting shops, etc. so, I think adding on some form of public art to a project is a good thing. if your looking to employ more people, it shure kept me employed for a few years.

unless your buying just a painting painted by one person, most public art is made with artists working with some businesses to create their vision. just like any other kind of manufacturing.

__________________
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.