Being Rigourous and Responsible...

Had several very good conversations tonight about Arts Funding and what makes Art edgy and that sort of thing. The first discussion was just prior to the Walterdale Board Meeting. About 4 of us were there early and one of us had been to a recent meeting with the Arts and Culture Minister where the news was delivered that there was likely to be cuts to Arts Funding in the new budget. There was a lot of 'preaching to the choir' and I mentioned that I thought a major problem was the way the message was delivered. The Average Joe does not respond to the arguments that Artists make about why Art is important. Until we realize that and change the message or they way we deliver the message we are not going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced. You can say the "art is not a luxury" in a room full of theatre goers and you will get a tonne of support, but on the playground and in the hockey arena, you need to change the message. This frustrates me because you would think writers and actors would be better communicators. The problem is we cannot ever step out of our own agenda and our own belief system to understand the point of view of the non-arts supporter (who actually probably do support art in theory, but not at the expense of health care, policing, education, roads and infrastructure and athletics). I don't know myself what exactly the message should be and how it should be delivered, but I do know that what has been presented in the past has not worked and that alone should indicate that we need to find a different way to sell ourselves.



Anyhow, it got me thinking about one of the other major flaws with our arts community. The big one was that in our desire to support ALL art, we fail ourselves by not being rigorous with each other. As artists, we are not allowed to offer a negative critical opinion without censure from the community. I learned this the hard way with what I like to refer to as Blog Gate and if you don't know what that was, then you don't know me... Anyhow, if we dare to point out publicly Art that is perhaps substandard or even just the flaws within a competent work, the finger pointer will endure censure. There is a strong push to blindly cheer-lead everything just because it is ART - EXCEPT "popular art" (think flashy musicals). You can critique the crap out of anything that 'everyone likes' and not endure censure. In fact, critical comments about popular art is encouraged. It's idiotic. We should be demanding rigour so that we know we are doing good work. It's hard. Yeah, yeah, I had had reviews of my own work that weren't necessarily positive, but even with those people will tell me to disregard them. I shouldn't. I should look at them and look to my work and see if I can make it better based on the feedback. We can't be honest. It's a fatal flaw to our artistic world. We should be. We often do it in private conversations and spread the word that way, but how much of that will make it back to the artist? I was very frustrated at the Fringe last summer for this very reason. There was a discouragement to criticize anything for fear it would affect people's box office. We need to adopt the sports philosophy a little. When a hockey player is not playing well, his fans will let him know. The sport casters will trash him and the fans will not jump to his defense, they will join in. We should do the same with our actors and directors and demand more from them when they don't deliver. We should not tolerate 'phoning it in' on the ice or on the stage. Now, I am not saying just trashing everything, but we have created a field where the members are not held accountable for poor work. I have seen crap and paid a lot of money for said crap and I shouldn't have to. Someone should have warned me. I think it would make us better artists and make some people realize that to do this work you need to work very, very hard or else be very, very talented... And if you aren't good enough - someone should tell you.



I don't know. I guess I felt like ranting. I should probably go to bed...

An Addendum...

I have been thinking about this since last night. One of the responses that I got from the Team when I asked why they hadn't come to me for help was that "they didn't want me to burn out". This has been expressed to me in the past, but I really don't know why. I always ask, "Do I look like I'm burning out?" and the responses is usually "no, but so and so did and we don't want to lose good people by wearing them out". I understand the concern, but I am very good about only taking on what I can handle. I have learned to say "no" when needed and I only take on what I really want to or need to. There is a point when the same people keep getting asked and I think we need to expand the pool that we pick from and talk to different people so we don't over tax certain people, but as AD I certainly want the membership to come to me if needed.