Letter to the editor that didn’t make the cut
Here is my letter to the editor, responding to someone elses whom I thought was quite ignorant. Its been 2 weeks and my letter to the editor wasn’t posted so I thought I’d throw it up on Scaledown.
Re: How to build a fab city, opinion column, by Anne Jarvis, Dec. 20.
I’m writing in regard to this article. Anne seems to believe that an arts hub would be the cure-all, end-all for downtown. Doesn’t she realize we already have an arts hub with The Art Gallery of Windsor, the Baby Museum, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and the Capitol Theatre, all within blocks of each other? All of these are money-sucking black holes which have never turned a profit.
The art gallery built this huge white elephant which has more employees than patrons. They should have stayed put in Devonshire Mall where they had more people pass through their doors in one week than they get in six months now. They also lost credibility when they had two shows which only those with the bluest blood would understand. Who remembers the cornflakes on the lawn fiasco, and the award-winning water bottles on the shelf extravaganza? The Baby Museum has been relegated to this small house that nobody knows exists and has a basement full of artifacts which will never see the light of day again. The Windsor Symphony Orchestra has never posted a profit, yet they expect taxpayers to buy the Armouries and remodel it. The Capitol Theatre has been used by budding thespians who put on plays that weren’t well attended and went bankrupt. All of these are unprofitable businesses that need to stand on their own two feet. If nobody is willing to pay to visit these various venues and support these arts, please don’t expect me to pick up the tab. Because the city has these arts doesn’t make us trendy or sophisticated. We cannot afford to support money-bleeding enterprises just because it is called art. They aren’t called starving artists for nothing. If nobody wants your product, get a real job. I guess I’m too blue collar rather than blue-blooded to understand.
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Wow… that is quite the ignorant post. I feel sorry for the author.
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival.” - C. S. Lewis
I often wonder what kind of medication allows some people to believe that the arts are a flop when they can’t sustain themselves from the box office draw, yet they fuel their cars, drive on roads and live in sub-divisions (to name a meagre few) which are all heavily subsidized - not being able to survive simply on user fees.
If user fees are what they want (and they’re not) than we should give them to them.
It must make their tummy’s a bit queezy with all their flip-flopping.
We even have examples right in front of our face
When the Devonshire mall housed the art gallery, it drew more visitors than ever before. Thats because when you situate residents near art institutions, they …… wait for it…….drumroll please……….USE THEM.
Proving once and for all the chosen profession of the residents is irrelevant, blue, white or green collar. (had to throw in green collar for the new solar panel and windmill employees)
I also threw in the plug of my automotive repair friend Peter Solly at MacDonald Automotive. He’s as blue collar as you can get and he creates art that many enjoy.
Guys like the letter writer are actually pride themselves on excluding art for their lives, I weep for their children who are being deprived a choice for themselves without being exposed to any art.
The muffler men are awesome. They are “real” art, though I doubt many stop to consider that. No pretension. No snob appeal. Something we as a city can relate to and bring a smile to our faces. I always look forward to driving by them on Howard.
Nothing seems to change. The letter above could have been written in Windsor in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and on and on.
This letter writer seems to forget the billions of dollars given his industry by the tax payers of Canada, some who are artists, gallery goers et al. So before he finishes spouting off about not making profits and subsidization, he should look at his own work place. The Anal Cavity!
The above letter writer might want to forget moving to the Waterloo Region any time soon?
Region of Waterloo Arts Fund awards $113,350 in grants to assist:
New Hamburg Live! to mount a five-day festival encompassing musical performances, visual arts and literary events;
The New Quarterly to produce Quarc, a special issue on science and the arts published jointly with the poetry journal Arc;
The MT Space to stage the 2011 edition of its highly successful international theatre festival, IMPACT.
KITCHENER - The Region of Waterloo Arts Fund announces that it has awarded grants totalling $113,350 to artists and arts organizations in response to proposals submitted from throughout the Region of Waterloo.
A total of 21 grants are being made in the Arts Fund’s fall 2010 grants cycle, providing support to projects in the visual arts, music, theatre, cinema, literature, community arts and multidisciplinary concepts. With the announcement of these grants, the Arts Fund has awarded more than $1,248,000 since its inception in 2002. The funds are generously made available through Regional Council’s allocation of 40 cents per capita.
Grants approved in this round were:
* $3,000 to tri-Pride for its Live Music Festival and other performances during tri-Pride Week.
* $3,000 to Lost & Found Theatre for its Young Company production of Jean Anouilh’s The Lark.
* $4,000 to NUMUS for the Great Canadian Piano Summit, a three-day festival of contemporary piano work.
* $4,000 to Robert Achtemichuk for Time Sensitive Urban Landscapes, a series of paintings of visual phenomena that can be seen from the artist’s window and back door…..
Full article and grant list here: http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2011/week1/Wednesday/010505.htm#anchor
Chris has a good point: these days what seems to be at the root of this open hostility towards the arts and culture is the attitude that a citizen is merely a taxpayer and lives in a pay-as-you-go society, which is not a society at all. These citizens do not want to see their tax money put towards services they do not use or support. Their prime targets in this argument are often theatres, galleries and museums, concert hallls, and even heritage properties. Following their logic, what if I’m not a swimmer? Should I allow my tax dollars go towards a public pool? I don’t ice-skate, so why should I help pay for public rinks? To follow this line of thinking to its absurd conclusion: I only drive on a few streets in the city so why should I help pay for all of them? This is probably the same kind of person that wouldn’t hesitate to drop $200 on Leaf tickets.
The writer said that Windsor already has a cultural hub. It does not. The point of the hub would be to create a central body that would, among other things, help the various institutions pool their marketing resources, coordinate community outreach, and create a cultural calendar where they would complement each other’s efforts and bring focus where focus was needed.
Lastly, there were some good examples of “blue collar” art mentioned earlier. One that always comes to my mind are Cape Breton’s “Men of the Deeps,” who have been singing about their experiences in the coal mines since 1967.