The Big Picture Revisted Part One: Support for Individual Artists

There’s something cruel in talking about artistic survival in Hamilton, particularly when the event kicks off at 9:30 in the morning and artists are made to mill about the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre dolefully slurping coffee and wondering why they’re awake, upright and wearing pants this early in the morning after an art crawl. Thankfully, between the exceptional coffee - kudos to Bread and Roses Cafe - and the blinding sunlight pouring through the main gallery’s heritage windowpanes, everyone was awake enough to tackle some of the problems of the Hamilton art community with the guidance of the City of Hamilton’s Arts Advisory Commission.

WAHC’s Main Gallery minus 80-odd arts professionals; currently showing ‘Harvest Pilgrims’ by Vincenzo Pietropaolo

With introductions from Mayor Fred Eisenberger and Anna Bradford of the city’s Culture Division promptly chased down by three topical lectures and a keynote on new zoning by-laws (only in Hamilton would zoning by-laws be a hot topic), the day’s schedule had already yielded a vast quantity of revelations well before lunch time was over. Afternoon discussion groups focused on Engaging City Hall, Sustainability for Arts Organizations and Support for Individual Artists piled it on even heavier, such that my first attempt to report on the day was expanding beyond any web-based attention span not engaged in porn. I’ve therefore decided to separate the forum into three parts, the better to focus upon some of the more tangible findings, those that speak most directly to the experience of the living arts.

Today: Support for Individual Artists

This is the discussion group I signed up for during registration, and it proved the most popular with three separate and not particularly small groups devoted to the problem. I have to admit that the popularity of the subject did not readily lend itself to sharply honed solutions, as the conversation in my group was divided amongst a truly diverse range of arts professionals, from critically engaged artists to street performers to retired Sunday painters. Those for whom art was merely a passionate hobby alongside a paying career were consequently dismissive of the importance of financial compensation for one’s work, which proved frustrating and at times counterproductive insofar as the artist who has devoted herself full-time to her work has little recourse outside her practice by which to earn a living.

The morning’s speaker on this issue was Susan Wright of the Toronto Arts Council, who opened her short lecture with the simple but profoundly fundamental point that artist-generated content is the key component of culture. Galleries, concert halls, theatres, museums - all depend on artists to produce the content for their audiences, and the economic benefits of culture demands that artists receive fair compensation for creating that landscape.

As part of its mandate, the Toronto Arts Council receives funds from the City of Toronto ($1.2 million last year, or approximately 0.00014% of the City’s 2008 budget) to be dispersed as individual grants to artists; the average successful candidate receives $5000 for the fiscal year to offset the expense of their practice. While far from extravagant, that amount represents a quarter of an average artist’s annual income of $20,000, and comes with benefits that extend beyond the immediate financial relief provided.

The process by which an artist is awarded a grant validates an artist’s professional status through peer recognition and provides valuable credibility for their practice. With professional recognition on a local level, artists are better positioned to seek opportunities in their communities and beyond, and statistically are more likely to receive support from provincial and national granting bodies such as the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Artist grants on a municipal level are only possible through the establishment of an arms-length arts council that is itself the recipient of city funds for grants - City Hall itself cannot legally grant funding to individual artists. At present, Hamilton lacks a council functioning on this level; therefore, the formation of a robust arts council for Hamilton, one equipped to administer grants to individual artists, emerged as a top priority.

The purpose of the afternoon discussion groups was to find such solutions as these within the scope of the Arts Advisory Commission’s work with City Hall. Some of the more concrete suggestions to emerge from the afternoon discussion groups:

1. Advocate for the professional status of artists while educating the public on the importance of culture in Hamilton’s economic development.

2. Facilitate professional development and job creation programs that would train artists to locally undertake specialized arts jobs currently being outsourced to Toronto-based firms (a Powerpoint image of one of our public sculptures being trucked out of town for restoration seemed to have made an impact on the audience).

3. Institute a Buy Local policy for the arts - civic offices would purchase and display the work of local artists rather than Ikea prints, and give works by local artists and artisans as gifts to visiting dignitaries.

4. Establish artist partnerships with non-arts professionals to ensure access to legal services, healthcare and other services typically beyond the reach of an artist’s wage.

5. Improved media coverage of the arts in Hamilton, with advertising space (both public and print-based) dedicated to local promotion of the arts.

Some of these initiatives share concerns with the suggestions brought up by the groups discussing Sustainability for Arts Organizations and Engaging with City Hall, which will be discussed in upcoming posts according to the following schedule (note: schedule is subject to my capricious whims):

Wednesday: The Big Picture Revisited Part Two: Sustainability for Arts Organizations

Friday: The Big Picture Revisited Part Three: Engaging with City Hall