Stockwell Day on Culture

[rob parker]

Hi everybody,

Below is an email that my wife, Carol, sent to Stockwell Day yesterday in
response to Ron's posting.  Hope everyone's having a happy Halloween.

-Rob Parker


Dear Mr. Day,

This note to Mr. Chambers eloquently reveals the true nature of the
"Alliance" (with whom I wonder) party's "Survival of the fittest" mentality.
  Would you actually suggest that because the arts cannot support themselves
in a free market society that they should be allowed to decline?  What about
the ‘Canadian culture’ you politicians like to boast about on your junkets?
What would you show off?  You really like to pull this rabbit out whenever
you can, but fund it, no.  Can we say exploitation?  Can you imagine a world
that did not have dance, music, theatre, and painting?  Can you imagine a
Canada that had no totem poles - OH MY GOD?  Are you suggesting that only
those arts that can support themselves should live and everything else
become, what, hobbies?  How would you actually administer this -- cut all
funding, or most of it, and even scarier, is this what you will do if you
take power?  Do you really want to live in a world where the arts are
reduced to a ‘product’?  Mass manufactured, spit out and presented for the
'paying public' who would see the same carbon copies everywhere.  Perhaps
there would be McShows, McPaintings, McDance; who cares right?  As long as
the public is buying, who the hell cares.   What you would have is not Art
at all.  Do you know what art is?

It's a way of exploring the world.  Most often it requires an observer
because it is essentially communicative.  The artist invites the observer on
a journey, sometimes it is not pleasant, sometimes it is, and good art
reflects back to the observer some truth about his/her world.  There is a
learning, most often about the observer herself.  Performing arts are not
sports, just as dance is not gymnastics, and painting is not high jump.
Sports can be artistic, just as some arts are athletic, but sports are
entertainment, the arts are contemplative.  We admire and respond to sports,
we are enlightened and transformed by Art.  Art lends credibility to our
endeavours - why do most public buildings have statues? Leaders get painted
(a photo would do right?), It gives us a sense of elevation, purpose and
approval, and it educates, confronts, irritates and reminds.  And just in
case you can’t recall this happening to you, think of your favourate movie.
It might not have done well at the box office, but it told you some truth
that you appreciate.

Are you aware that the greatest artists who ever lived had patrons; usually
the governments of the day.  There has always been a need to subsidize art,
for the same reason there has always been a need to subsidize pure
scientific research.  The state of funding for the arts in our country is
already terrible.  A young artist today will spend more time slinging coffee
than making art, and is almost guaranteed never to make a living at it no
matter how hard he tries. Tell me how he will ever become good if he has no
time to practice, and he has no time because he's slinging coffee to pay the
rent.  Tell me.  I would like to know how.  At night?  As a hobby?   Most
excellent artists have become good because they had the time to pursue their
training and art making and this can only be done with money.   Most famous
artistic Canadians have become so despite our cultural policies and then
been forced across the border to make a living.  There’s a joke in our
community -  famous Americans need bodyguards - famous Canadians need
nameplates.  As a country we do not do enough to promote our arts and
artists in and outside of the country.  Most Canadians have no idea who are
famous artists are  and that’s not the fault of artists - it’s the fault of
governments who do nothing to support and promote Canadian art and artists.
Your argument is usually made by people who have no interest in art, do not
believe that they consume art (although they really do without realizing
they do - think about the graphics on your website, the architecture of your
home, the design of your car, your publicity photos, the paintings on your
walls.), and deep-down consider most artists to be lazy freeloads dumping
their goofy ideas on a hard-working public who mostly isn't interested.
That you agree with this statement is obvious.  It is already hard enough to
make a living as an artist in this country, working damn hard 18 hours a
day.   You continue the ignorance and create a lot of harm to this country
and her ‘cultural workers’ by your cultural policies and statements like
this to Ron Chambers. Why don’t you get some art education, attend a few
seminars, just so you know what you’re talking about.  Why should the
government fund art?  Because it is essential and doesn’t come into
existence all by itself.

___
Carol Sykes
Webmaster & Designer
cheapaccommodation.com
email: csykes at cheapaccommodation.com



>From: Ron Chambers <ron.chambers at ULETH.CA>
>Reply-To: Ron Chambers <ron.chambers at ULETH.CA>
>To: CANDRAMA at LISTSERV.UNB.CA
>Subject: Stockwell Day on Culture
>Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 10:36:08 -0800
>
>Hi all,
>
>In the fall of 1996, there was a reading of the beginnings of my play
>Respectable at the Banff Centre.  About three weeks later, I received a
>cc of a letter that two audience members sent to several Alberta MLAs.
>The letter protested the language and content of the play and went on
>suggest that I should be fired from my job at the University of
>Lethbridge.  One of the recepients of that letter was, of course,
>Stockwell Day.  I fired off a letter in my defence and about two weeks
>later received a handwritten note from Day himself.  (He was the only
>MLA that responded, we must give him credit for that I suppose.)  I
>think the contents of that note outlines quite clearly Day's position on
>culture and the arts:
>
>
>                Dec 20, 1996
>
>                Ron,
>
>                Thanks for taking time to write.  Frankly,
>                there are similarities between your
>                occupation and mine.  That is, we both
>                face harsh (and sometimes inaccurate)
>                critics.  If you or I can't take the heat
>                maybe we should get out of the kitchen.
>                Freedom of speech cuts both ways.
>
>                My ongoing concern is the public funding
>                issue.  The critics' reports which you
>                attached indicated some tiny audiences.
>                Should taxpayers support what the market
>                won't?  (And I include professional sports
>                in this question.)
>
>                Another thing makes me scratch my head.
>                Why does the Edmonton Fringe festival, a
>                supposed "freedom of expression" venue,
>                refuse entry to overtly Christian drama
>                groups?  Go figure.
>
>                Stockwell Day
>
>You might be interested in knowing that Respectable, the play that
>prompted all this, will be premiering at Alberta Theatre Project's
>panCanadian playrites festival in February, and will be produced again
>in March at Workshop West Theatre in Edmonton.
>
>Ron Chambers
>
>
>
>
>--
>You think therefore I am.
>http://home.uleth.ca/~ron.chambers/Ronhome.htm
>
><< vcard.vcf >>

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