Red Green White

All roads point to the Elves' Workshop (not Elvis) on Saturday, December 17 here at the gallery.  Now that the Affordable Art Fair is on the walls, we focus on the last big event of the season - the madness that is our final Family Saturdays project for the year.  The workshop will have four art-making stations doing stuff we've never done before!  It will be a Christmas miracle if it all comes together.  The DIA is doing a Santa breakfast that morning, then the workshops start at 11am.  If we don't eat all the muffins and end up napping in front of our digital fireplace, then four large-sized elves will be welcoming young families to make stuff for the rest of the afternoon.  It's thanks to Scotiabank and Culinary Inspirations that we can offer this workshop for free.  Generous businesses make the downtown a wonderful place.

All I want for Christmas is my telephone

We can fit 32 gigabytes of memory into an object the size of a postage stamp, we can send hundreds of satellites into space, beaming back thousands of tv channels... why can't Telus make two phone numbers ring on one line?  For the last three days, we've been thrown back to the dark ages with our phones, trying to amalgamate the Art Gallery and Arts Council phone lines.  They can't do it this way, they can't do it that way, reconfigure this, reconfigure that, oh if you have it this way it won't go to voice mail, if you do it that way it won't call forward.  For goodness sakes!  I thought it was going to be simple!  That sound you hear is me pulling my hair out.  Long story short, be patient when trying to call the Art Gallery or Arts Council for the next five business days.  Perhaps use the ol' stand-by... email.

My Dream Council

Only a week or so remains until municipal election day here in Salmon Arm. I'm quite delighted that most of the candidates have indicated that they are willing to hammer out a fee-for-service agreement between the City and the Arts Centre.  On November 15 I will be sending out a list of candidates who signed the letter of support.  Vote culture!

Election Issues

Less than three weeks remain in the municipal election campaign.  In light of the recent developments, as we at the Arts Council/Art Gallery research the City's funding practices, we have turned arts and culture funding into an election issue.  I am hopeful that the eighteen council candidates will sign the letter of support indicating they would be willing to work on a fee-for-service agreement for operations at the Arts Centre.  Of course we would continue to generate about 80% of our own revenue, as we have always done.  We are only asking for about 20%, a security blanket, to provide stability and allow us to plan for the future.  I have put the brakes on a number of projects and ideas because of the lack of stable funding.  If the City ponies up, we will finally have some capacity to put important community projects into action.  To help us in this cause, ask your candidates how they feel about a fee-for-service agreement with the Arts Centre.  It's your money.  Why should it all go to sports and business?

What do we have to do?

Last year, when we received municipal funding for the two organizations to use for operating, it was the difference between staying open and closing. The 2009 Direct Access cuts were far too devastating to recover from, and the reduction in BC Arts Council funding of 40% was an additional blow. The crisis spurred our generous supporters to donate funds for the "Buy a Day at the Gallery" program. After a year and a half, things have settled out now that we appear to not be in crisis, donations have dropped off. That proposal to the City was for a service agreement to provide secure funding for all the cultural services we provide. It wasn't exactly what we wanted, but it saved our behinds.

Last month I prepared the proposal to the City again, stating how happy we are to be the recipient of some stable funding, and I was just today told "that was a one-time grant." Hmm. Apparently, my 2010 proposal for a service agreement was voted down, and they approved $25,000 as a one-time grant. Me and my limited thinking, I thought that just meant I had to come every year to show what we've done with their money, ask them for more and we'd have this lovely relationship. I guess not. My stomach is in knots. What does an organization have to do to get a commitment from funders? I had hoped 18 years of providing excellent services in visual arts, performing arts, community engagement, children's programs and maintaining an beautiful cultural venue would be enough. Perhaps not. Perhaps we should on slap on some ice skates and ask for $6 million to build one more skating rink. That seems to get approval. The real question is, what does the budget line "Recreation and Culture" really mean? Nearly $3 million operating funds is in that budget each year for the Recreation Centre. Are we not the Cultural Centre? $25,000 is only 1% of that budget. A measly 1%, which is quite in line with the crumbs the arts and culture sector is accustomed to receiving. What do we have to do to get 1%? I'm open to suggestions.

The Pillar That Wasn't

I'm not worldly.  I've never been to the Louvre, MOMA, or the Tate.  I've been to our National Gallery, which was a total hoot, as a supplement to my Canadian Art History course in my fourth year of university.  I'm a member of Vancouver Art Gallery, and get down there at least twice a year to see the exhibitions. However, I still feel a certain, how shall we say... backwardness? when it comes to knowing what contemporary art looks like. I guess I mean relevant art. It's easy in hindsight to see what was important art, but to know it in its time?  How many masters died in poverty because they weren't recognized in their time... it's a funny little quirk in our industry - not to know what's great when it's current.  Blah, blah, what I'm really trying to say is that "Peak Year" is awesome, and I think I'm looking at some of the greatest contemporary art being produced today.  With every drop of melting ice that I hear hitting that metal bucket, every person I see leaning over the viewing platform railing, and every visitor who walks by Otto's white pillar thinking it to be another white pillar and finding on their third pass that it's a sculpture... I marvel.  This is it folks, this is what it's like to look upon art that is relevant to its time.  This ecological crisis is one of many crises that our species is facing, and who knows which will take us all in the end, but for now, these ten works are doing what excellent art does - stares us in the face and dares us to think about it.

Peak Year coming in

Today was delivery day for the ten artists of Peak Year, the exhibition opening on Friday.  As the work was coming in, I was floored by their ingenuity, their brilliance, and the perfect construction of their ideas.  The tower that Otto built - it held me for several moments before I was able to look away from the salmon eye that stared down at me.  The trash bits in Patrick's salmon kept me peering inside looking for more things I could identify.  It was like "Where's Waldo" only better.  Cindy's stained glass was just stunning with the light behind it.  I'm absolutely thrilled to present this exhibition, and so proud of these artists, who did this on a fairly tight deadline and with very little direction from me - only to interpret that amazing salmon run of 2010.  I stepped up onto Eric's viewing platform and leaned on the railing, just like I do every year at the Adams River run, staring into the tumbling river.  Except this time I wasn't trying to hold onto my kids.  It's going to be a fantastic show.