The Space Between Us

Into roughly the 8th week(??) of isolation (time has become incredibly fluid for me), and as the days pass, I think increasingly about what will be in the “time after.” Everyone is in such a rush to “get back to normal,” to reopen businesses and relax some of the protocols that have kept many of us safe and healthy – if not employed. I do absolutely sympathize with those who want to re-open their businesses, who are desperate to earn an income to support themselves and their families. It’s at least as frightening to have the economic rug pulled suddenly out from under you as it is to come face to face with a pandemic. This is about survival, on so many levels.

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https://www.carfac.ca/news/2020/03/30/a-notice-to-our-members-and-our-community-regarding-covid-19/

BUT. I am going to articulate  massively unpopular opinion.

I DO NOT WANT to get back to “normal life.” Not soon, and if I am honest, not ever.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about how ‘normal life’ breaks people and communities through its enactment of privilege, how many people are silenced in so many ways, how at its root this is all about the trade of labour and creativity to enrich the few on the backs of many – and at the expense of the environment and all other beings. How I desperately, urgently, passionately want it all to CHANGE for the better on the other side of this. How afraid I am that it won’t. And how I feel increasingly paralyzed by the prospect of a ‘return to before.’

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This is true for me in relation to the broader culture in which I live, and for the sector in which I work. This is a moment in which we could – and should – recognize that not only will the ‘new normal’ be with us for a long time (2 metres for the win!), but the ‘old normal’ is something that we should neither wish for nor return to. It also may be moot – because the ‘old normal’ may not exist for much longer, regardless of what some (or most) people desire.

“Normal” or “business as usual” has been exposed with utter clarity by the pandemic:  the glaring gaps in care, the enormous disparities that are actively cultivated and maintained by the systems in which we live and work. How many people have no choice but to risk their health and that of their loved ones & work in this time, in order to survive; how the most vulnerable of us have even fewer options to remain safe and healthy.

How many of us have seen our entire sector shut down, cancelled, income evaporated, in already tenuous livelihoods.

So this is a point in which we can CHOOSE what kind of world we want to live in moving forward. And we need to ask these questions of ourselves – NOW – while we have the time and opportunity to do so.

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What are you prepared to do to create a more equitable culture and community as we come out of this? How can we work together to make that happen?

What aspects of ‘normal life’ are you happy to see gone?

I leave you with these questions – and encourage your replies … and also with an excellent essay by Lou Sheppard; they articulate far more eloquently than I some of the things that have been worrying me about what comes next.

Take Care of Each Other.

Speechless.

Just back from an amazing, life-and-practice affirming few days on Lethbridge at IAST 2018. More on that later, when I aim more grounded and in a better space.

Being immersed in such a creative and positive environment made the return to ‘the news of the day’ perhaps more jarring & disheartening, I don’t know.

What I do know is that what is going on globally, and most certainly to the immediate south of Canada is deeply disturbing, more so by the day. And it is mirrored elsewhere in the world, including in my home province (to a lesser degree, to be sure – for now).

But I wonder increasingly about the entire notion of ‘humanity’ and ‘civil society’ in a time in which we are witness to fewer and fewer examples of both.

So, for the moment, I must sit with this reality, in order to move forward in a positive way.

Wishing you all peace and safety.

*feature image for this post from the work of Micheal Pederson)

Residencies: A Primer

I will be presenting a Professional Development talk in Edmonton on March 27th 2018. This will be an all-access Webinar, so anyone interested outside of Edmonton can participate as well. Please see the details below to register.

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Free for Visual Arts Alberta ~ CARFAC members, $45 to non-members.
RSVP by 4pm on Friday, March 23. For more information, contact Sharon at (780) 421-1731 or email us.

If you prefer learning in the company of others, you may participate in Edmonton at the Visual Arts Alberta ~ CARFAC Project Space. 3rd Floor, 10215 112 St. Edmonton, AB.

Old Boats Recycled Into Sheds

After working this summer in Parrsboro with Scott Smallwood on a project
that explores the interconnections between the tide, the land, and the human history of the area (which included shipbuilding), these beautiful structures speak volumes to me – about change, and resilience, and different ways of looking at the idea of abundance.

I am also a total sucker for the ways in which these boat-houses help to retain the many generations of work and relationship to the sea in these coastal places.

My thanks to eMorphes for bringing these structures to our collective attention!

Tomorrow!

The CARFAC National Conference and AGM is tomorrow – Saturday, June 3rd!

It’s going to be a good weekend, and it’s exciting to know that here will be visual artists from all over the country here this weekend, discussing issues  and advocacy initiatives pertinent to artists’ careers.

There’s also going to be programming Saturday Evening and Sunday afternoon – so it’s not ‘all work and no play.’

I’m looking forward very much to hearing from other parts of the country, and to reconnecting with artists I haven’t seen for far too long.

Information below – there’s still time to register and join us:

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Bursaries for Artists!

The CARFAC National Conference is coming up soon in Edmonton!

Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC wants to help artists attend, so they are offering bursaries to help with conference costs:

Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC is offering up to six bursaries of $200.00 each to Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC members living outside of the Greater Edmonton area who will be attending the CARFAC National Conference in Edmonton on the weekend of June 2nd to 4th.

These bursaries are based on need.

Applicants need to write an up-to-one page letter describing why a bursary would help. Applications must be in by Thursday May 18th  at 4:00pm. Send the letter to chris@visualartsalberta.com.

They will notify the winners by Saturday, May 20th at 4:00pm.

PLEASE pass this on to any visual artists who may want to attend, but would find the costs of travel a hinderance.

Draw More Income – a new Podcast on iTunes

Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC has just launched a Podcast! It’s a really interesting listen for anyone interested in the ways in which visual artists manage the realities for earning money to sustain their creative practice. And appropriately, it’s called “Draw More Income.”

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The podcast launch is part of the larger three-month  Draw More Income initiative that Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC is presenting to the community, as a way to stimulate conversations and provide awareness and information regarding the real circumstances of working artists in Alberta (and elsewhere in Canada).

You can find the podcast HERE on iTunes.

Become part of the conversation – it’s one we need to be having right here, right now.

Listen to what other artists have to say, and get in touch on Facebook, , twitter, tumblr, the website, or via email or phone. Tell Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC what you do to draw more income – or what’s holding you back from doing that from your creative practice.

 

A Declaration

I came across this in a street front window in Halifax, during a tromp through the streets to see Nocturne, the city’s annual night of art.

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There’s a lot of ground covered here.

I wasn’t able to get any information on the source of this screed (I welcome any opportunity to be educated about it, who wrote it, etc from anyone reading), but I applaud the directness with which this text points to many of the very serious issues at play in the tricky world of making art and making a living at making art (yes, often mutually exclusive things).

I would love to have some conversations with people about what ‘making it up ourselves’ would look like … I’ve had a few already with some people I know, but I think the more we all talk to one another – especially outside our regular ‘home’ communities – the more that can happen. I am hearing frequently from artists of all disciplines: the systems currently in place are working for very few people, and most if those benefitting aren’t the artists themselves.

There have been several tidbits making the internet rounds in the last while about the correlation between work and worth and payment for artists that point to many of the same issues outlined here, including Jessica Hische’s witty flowchart.

That CARFAC is still having to advocate for the establishment of the Artist Resale Right in Canada, and face the National Gallery in court (again) to try to establish a minimum fee schedule for artists speaks volumes about how difficult it is to be a professional artist in Canada, and how crucial it is that artists derive income relating to their artistic practice from as many sources as possible in order to do what they do best.

The Autumn issue of C Magazine was devoted entirely to a critical examination of artist residencies as an aspect of artistic practice. An interesting article by Laura Kenins points to the various aspects of viability and sustainability of residencies that need to be considered, not the least of which is that there are situations for younger artists in which “residency-hopping” replaces having a fixed address, simply because funding to be able to make work (but only elsewhere) is sometimes easier to access than it is to make enough money to have a full-time practice on home turf.

So. Some things need to shift, and that shift has to come from all kinds of directions, including the artists themselves.

There are questions about value: the value placed on the work artists do within the broader cultural context. The value placed by artists on art-making as a profession. The value placed on the art itself, and who benefits from the sale.

There are questions about economic realities. According to the Hill Strategies report issued in 2009, the average earnings of artists (from all sources of their income) are $22,700, compared with an average of $36,300 for all Canadian workers. Furthermore, over half of visual artist make less then $8,000 a year on their art practice alone. The gap between artists’ average earnings and overall labour force earnings is 37%. The average earnings of artists are only 9% higher than Statistics Canada’s low-income cutoff for a single person living in a community of 500,000 people or more.  Median earnings are only $12,900 for artists, compared with median earnings of $26,900 for all Canadian workers; 62% of artists earn less than $20,000.

As a practicing artist, I have more questions than answers at this point.

The New Year is coming … may it present many opportunities for positive and creative change.