Arts funding

Nick Packwood has a suggestion for the arts community . . . or at least that part of the arts community which depends on public funds:

As an artist whose work is tax-payer supported to the tune of no dollars at all, I could not agree more. In fact, from what I can make out the musical genre I work in is ineligible for public funding of any kind be it municipal, provincial or federal. Perhaps as it should be.* But every cent I pay in taxes toward Polley's solipsistic vision is a cent I cannot put toward my own equally solipsistic - but I can assure you far more interesting - vision. I find it difficult to believe it has ever crossed her mind her subsidized work is in some sense stealing from those who have no interest in it. Still less that subsidizing her work is at the expense of other artists.

Here is a thought: Find a patron, build an audience or pay for it yourself. It was good enough for the Renaissance. And it is difficult to argue with the results then and now from the divine to the dire.** Though Sarah Polley really is very good in John Adams so props for that.

* Of course, I would be delighted should enterprising Flea-readers stumble across a martial industrial/neofolk fund to which I might apply. There are principles and then there is cash.

** That goes double for CBC television and publicly funded basketball stadiums. If we are going to throw money at sport it should at least be something gladiatorial.

Friends of ours (many years ago, now that I think on it) who were active in trying to increase government funding for the arts were mortified at the very notion of going back to the days of private patrons. Apparently the need to satisfy the paymaster is utterly beneath contempt for a true artist. Artists are the "soul of the culture" and should be free to explore, create, and ponder art to their hearts' content, we were earnestly informed. Let's just say that the conversation didn't go well from that point onwards . . .