My Inaugural Address
As this is my first post as an official Scaledown contributor, I would like to firstly thank all of you for having me here. The fact that a community like this exists gives me hope in a city full of shadows. Again, I thank Chris, Mark, James and all of our readers and contributors for allowing me to contribute.
Where have all the social clubs gone? Remember the Flintstones, when Fred and Barney would go to the Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo meetings? They’d have to wear those pseudo-Viking style hats that must have been roasting in the summer months in the prehistoric age, but I digress.
The social club was so much a part of the American culture at the time that the writers felt it totally acceptable and necessary to include as a plot device the two male leads to be members in a fraternal club.
What did Fred and Barney do at these meetings? They spoke to the other cavemen, forged friendships with the other cavemen, and longed for the days when brakes would be invented due to the ghastly sores and calluses on the soles of their feet.
The Freemasons, for instance, were established, (depending on if you believe Dan Brown or not) at the beginning of the sixteenth century as a fraternal organization. They got together and discussed politics, forged business and inter-personal relationships, and developed a great deal of political power in their respective communities.
We here at Scaledown are a modern version of a social club. We get together and discuss politics, issues in our neighbourhoods, and we strive to make Windsor a better place to live for everyone. Yet, we differ from the old fraternal organizations of the past, as anyone who wants to can voice their opinion, and this is how change truly begins.
I often read on this website the refrain “If more people got involved…” or “Gosh, people in this city just don’t care.” That may be true to some extent at the present time, but believe me there is a change coming, and we will be at the spearhead.
Chris Holt was exactly right when he wrote “The power that a unified group of people, whether they be motivated by profit or standard of living, can gain by joining forces and working together is infinite”. The act of simply banding together and speaking up can be illustrated throughout history as being the only catalyst for change.
I think we all agree that the arts are something to be funded and something to be celebrated in our city and it brings in a lot of money. It also brings out an entrepreneurial spirit in people as they want to have their work seen, appreciated and purchased by people. This helps the economy a great deal and improves our quality of life.
In researching this article, I deliberately looked for examples of the arts not helping a city and I found no examples. I did find, however so many examples of positive results due to an even minimal funding of the arts that for a city not to fund the arts is an act of sheer stupidity and idiocy. The attitude that some of our councillors have towards arts funding makes them look like oblivious dinosaurs who cannot step down from their semi detached perch long enough to see the groundswell below them. They obviously NEED a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
We have the website. We need the place. We need what the Centre for Social Innovation has: a place where like-minded people can work, network and connect the old fashioned way, face to face on a daily basis. There is currently a waiting list at CSI for office space in their 20,000 sq foot converted warehouse. Writers could gather and research and do their work, and network with each other. Artists rent studio space depending on the size of their workspace. Social action groups could get together and hold meetings and develop new ideas and initiatives. Throw everyone in a big stewing pot and let them influence each other. CSI helped bring down a lot of walls and separatism, and spawn dialogue and the inherent “power in numbers”, in Toronto between action groups and between artists. Could you imagine if Windsor had such a place?
I know that this is a big step forward. It’s a big idea; perhaps it is crazy in some of the readers’ minds. I’ll probably get lambasted after writing this article, but I believe it is a discussion we have to have. I believe no idea is too big for us. I’m sick and tired of reading sentiments by people doubting our ability to reach the next level. We have grown up enough, and gone through too much in the past for us not to have a place like this in this city.
For us not to have a place like this would imply that we aren’t artistic, forward thinking people in this city and that we are all a bunch of artless hacks, and that we don’t care about the issues we go through in our neighbourhoods. It would also imply that we cannot bond together and certain people in power love when citizens just resign themselves to the way it is. It is a dream scenario for them: they can do and implement anything they want and people just don’t DO anything about it. Sure, they complain, but complaints are just mere noises to them. A simple distraction on the road to absolute power.
The root of every issue we have, every story we cover, every painting we paint, film we film, every piece of clay we sculpt is forged in the idea of making Windsor a great place to live.
imgresOne step at a time.
Tags: arts funding, local economic development, local writer
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LOL, oops. Rookie mistake, still getting used to the system…
Lets pretend I posted on Friday, October 10th…
It gets easier over time, Brendan.
I’m glad you also see the value in coworking space and what CSI is accomplishing. It sort of takes the whole “Blog” world to a new level, doesn’t it? Participatory democracy face-to-face within four walls, and all those creative juices flowing around to inspire even the most black-hearted amongst us. It is the natural progression from where we are standing.
Remeber when we were told that with the internet we would be able to work anywhere, from a mountaintop in Nepal, to a sailboat in the Turks and Cacos, to my couch in my underwear? One thing that people forget about is the fact that we anthropods are social creatures and we thrive on the innuendo and interplay between our peers.
That’s something that I miss and want back in my life. I want to put my clothes back on and get off this couch!
Yes! exactly, because people crave interaction, we thrive from it. could you imagine an action group for educational reform, lets say, being in a space next to a conceptual artist? Or an independant novelist being in an office next to a guy editing his independant film he made that weekend? The conversations that would happen, lol. Everyone would inspire each other, and that is when awesome things happen.
It’s like any other cultural “scene” in the past, exept it is all under one roof, which makes it old fashioned and futuristic at the same time…
The space could host out of town speakers, open forums and open houses for the community to come in, schools, etc, so that kids will say “Wow, I want to be an artist, so I can work HERE.”, Now that would be transcendant.
The Salvation Army building on the corner of Victoria Avenue and University would be the place to start a Centre of Social Interaction, are there any entrepreneurial types reading this!
Welcome Brendan!
Investing in Creativity: A Study of the Support Structure for U.S. Artists (Culture, Creativity & Communities Program: Urban Institute)
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411311_investing_in_creativity.pdf
In part:
Why Artists Need More than Creativity To Survive
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.”
– Berthold Brecht
Throughout our history, artists in the U.S. (and Canada) have utilized their skills as a vehicle to illuminate the human condition, contribute to the vitality of their communities and to the broader aesthetic landscape, as well as to promote social change and democratic dialogue. Artists have also helped us interpret our past, define the present, and imagine the future. In spite of these significant contributions, there’s been an inadequate set of support structures to help artists, especially younger, more marginal or controversial ones, to realize their best work. Many artists have struggled and continue to struggle to make ends meet. They often lack adequate resources for health care coverage, housing, and for space to make their work. Still, public as well as private funding for artists has been an uneven, often limited source of support even in the best of times economically.
Compounding these material problems is the fact that the public often views the profession of “artist” as not serious. The way artists earn a living may seem frivolous, and artists are often seen as indulging in their own passions and desires which bear no relation to the everyday experiences of most workers. This too contributes to a devaluing of the artist as a citizen with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else.
In the mid 1990s, problems for artists escalated in the wake of federal
funding declines (as Harper has done with a 45 million cut to Canadian Arts), resulting in significant cutbacks in fellowship programs at
institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts and the National
Endowment for the Humanities(the same has happened in Canada under Harper) . In response to this new crisis, the Ford
Foundation decided to put the plight of individual artists on our agenda
You will find the report worth reading, although done in the U.S., it totally reflects the situation of artists in Canada. When I have time later today will pump some more current Canadian studies that found what the arts/culture in Canada contributes.
Funny thing Urbanrat, the first building I thought of too was the Sally Am building. Main level is an open space and the lower level has very few columns. It could be broken into any number of configurations.
Urbanrat, the types needed are reading this… Who knows what the future holds.
But we hold the power.
Very well said, Urbanrat. This perception of artists as “loafers” or “hippies”, or the arts as a profession as a useless endeavor for people who don’t want a “real” job has to be eradicated in the minds of the populace.
I believe mixing political action groups, indie journalists, artists and flimmakers together in the same building will be a major catalyst for social change, due to the fact that artists too often cling together and create insular “scenes” and “groups” due to their inheirant sense of isolation from being shunned by society at large. In the same lexicon, political action groups and lobbyists feel the same way when their ideas are passed over by people due to a lack of mainstream media awareness.
This atmosphere will bring out the best in people. It will be, in a sense, an “Idea Factory” where art and political change will be churned out due to the communal, supportive atmosphere. People who have new ideas will suddenly have a place to express it, where it will be critiqued and appreciated by all facets of the forward thinking community.
We have many large, vacant warehouses and open concept buildings in this city that could be had for a lot cheaper than we realise. This type of building should be donated for such a cause in my mind by the city, due to its incredibly beneficial side effects that it will cause in this city. It will create jobs, and attract more employers and people into the city, which is never a bad thing.
The old Sally Ann would be an ideal location for such a place. It would be a romantic place for it, right in the heart of “city centre west”, the proposed site of our Urban Village.
Andrew, you are exactly right, the types of people we need to help us start this up are reading this, so I ask them, please help us start this organization and help us start the cultural revolution this city needs.
So I am reaching out to people who feel the same way I do, please email me or anyone here at scaledown if you want to help, in any way. Anything anyone can do will be totally crucial.