Rant 30: Waving or Drowning ?

Postscript from Guardian: Universities across the country are preparing to axe thousands of teaching jobs, close campuses and ditch courses to cope with government funding cuts, the Guardian has learned. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/07/job-losses-universities-cuts So there are three buckets to chuck your hard-earned tax in which one will get the most.. Health: Education or the Arts? Easy to see where we headed...

All arts funding should go to expanding art education. Significant expansion of art in schools and universities would create a future of educated world citizens who would understand the value of their culture. And this message might best be delivered by a new kind of artist. Someone who can see beyond their own shadow.

A large portion of arts funding should go to saving and revitalizing art education. The proliferation of art in schools and universities will create our future culture. This message may need to be delivered by a new kind of artist - who sees beyond their own shadow.

There is a serious lack of cash looming and having just heard someone arguing for cancer drugs it hard to take the arts case seriously any more. If there was cast-iron proof that handing out dollops of cash to individuals resulted in better art then I have not seen it around here. Most were well deserving enough but frankly would have produced exactly the same art without the funding. The arguments for organisations to be properly funded bear more weight but the Arts Councils have always favoured the middle-class arenas......now even they could have to trim their sails.

Will the future be Catastrophic or Redemptive? http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=298720557484

British Broadcasters could do more to support the arts especially channel four which should get back to its remit to be different.

I am not too surprised that artists seem reluctant to comment on this subject 1) For fear of being seen as some way 'rightist' 2) Because fearful that any biting of the hand that feeds in current climate will make being fed even more difficult. However there must come a point where the old 'ACE will pay' model either collapses or simply disappears. Just this weekend I listened to an irritating monologue by a nameless young graduate and it the same mantra I have been hearing for years......we have put in a ACE application..we are waiting to hear.... Isn't it time all these so-called creatives stopped regarding ACE as both charity and some kind of critical 'recognition' because it simply isn't either? Isn't it time for a bit of 'out of the white cube' thinking?

i feel like a traitor to myself for criticising an institution which i'd really prefer would just give me the money.

there's nothing wrong with money. look at banksy.

Bob, your second post sounds a bit more honest, Education is important but, the purpose of the Arts council is to prevent the cultural voice of a nation from falling to that of the commercial market, or representing only those who can fund themselves.

Michael, My second post is not at all honest, since at this time I live in Toronto (Canada) and don't qualify for british arts council funding. My first posts (sorry for the multiple names) reflect my true feeling that money spent creating an audience capable of appreciating their own culture, is simply more valuable than paying for the creation of art - which after all should come from the soul and not the desire for support. In this discussion I find myself agreeing with Shaun Belcher's point of view. Best wishes from the Colonies, b

I see the arts as being like the Olympics when the money is put into it we do better, as in recent years. As for the profile of people who engage with the arts , without dumbing everything down To the lowest common denominator. we may have to accept that visiting an art gallery or the theatre just isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

Sorry, I have to disagree, and yet agree, at the same time! Much art is funded not because of its artistic integrity (its soul) but because it fulfils, often hidden criteria, tick box assessments, required objectives etc. Funding should be based upon artistic integrity and quality not its strategic fit. What you suggest, "from the soul not a desire for support" leads to the exploitation of art. There is never a need to fund art if society is conditioned to getting it for free. There are many who are experts at making successful funding applications, forgoing the said criteria of quality and integrity in order to secure their artistic career. It is curious that artists are encouraged to adopt a professional attitude and rightly so. However those same encouragers retreat behind a flurry of forms and other criteria at the first mention of payment for artists. Artists are professional people and likewise, they too have bills to pay. Society without art would be a very grey place.

I think we in an era of 'institutionalisation' and 'exploitation' of art as never before and yet art itself is bottom of the agenda. I call this the 'Tate effect'. Tate Modern is a successful franchise sandwiching art into a 'visitor experience'. So successful is this model (Alton Towers for the middle classes) that we sometimes forget that the majority of people visiting are not actually that interested in art. It is a spectacle. It does not mean the public actually any more engaged with the artists and processes. Tate Modern would be just as successful as a shopping centre (if it ever failed commercially that would certainly be its future). We have a outpost of that franchise here in Nottingham and it will be interesting to see how visitor numbers fair come the summer when other attractions compete with it. In that climate what exactly is the Arts Council funding....theatre of art or art itself..my contention is that it is theatre ...nothing more....

Original comment to Leo Hickman of the Guardian.

I was very interested to read your article about “Dying Crafts”. It is a subject which seems to be coming more and more to the fore and I don’t think it’s by accident. Very recent history has left the world reeling. We’ve tried “having it all and having it now” and realised it doesn’t work, not only because it is an untenable and unsustainable situation but also because in getting straight to our destination we miss out on the journey. There is no denying that it is human nature to try to take the shortest route, that’s what progress is and how we’ve come thus far but it is also human nature to take the time to create the things we need and desire by hand from the raw materials we find around us and if we can’t do it ourselves we love the people who can. Denying ourselves that privilege has had very obvious undesirable consequences. However, we are told that public interest in certain crafts is waning and that is why they are dying due to, either the lack of devotees to take up these skills and carry them forward or the need for existing craftsmen to charge prohibitive prices for their products in order that they might continue doing what they do. Yet the media is full to bursting with programmes and articles about skilled craftsmanship of the past (and now the present) when we hear things like “feast your eyes on the detail” and “take a look at the workmanship”, not to mention the fact that these articles are still standing and in practical use hundreds of years later. We do value these things because they have the mark of “man” and guess what, the world is full of them.

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There are those who would have all remaining craftspeople installed in a museum and have the rest of us file past with the obligatory “oohs” and “aahs” escaping from our lips. Very entertaining I’m sure. Then there are those who will lobby the government of the day and appeal to their sense of guilt or desire to win votes (whichever you prefer, wishful thinking either way) to “do something” about it. I feel neither of these approaches bring a full long term solution, although creating awareness is never a bad thing but that is all it is. We need a market, in the good old fashioned sense of the word. Now, there is no doubt some economists who will happily argue about whether it is the need that creates the market or the market that creates the need. I think we can safely say that in today’s world, both are true and it is this fact that can be utilised to great advantage. The Handmakers and Craftspeople need to bring their wares to market (those market places need to be acquired or made available) and then those who need or desire them will come to buy and those who didn’t know they needed or desired them will come to look and possibly buy, certainly if not at the first visit then the second. It’s commerce and yes, if we talk about commerce then we will inevitably talk about money. But it is not the dirty word that some suggest.

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Since the beginning of modern civilization people have exchanged goods and services for money. Given what I am about to do, I’m bound to say that. I’m going to make money out of these poor, long suffering folk. There’s just one snag. I won’t make a penny unless they do. It’s the perfect non abusive, symbiotic relationship. I and others like me provide the market place, the exposure, the promotion to remind the world that these people exist and what they provide is practical, beautiful, long wearing; an antithesis to a possibly disposable, disconnected life that some people find themselves living, not because they want to but because they aren’t exposed to alternatives. Then who knows, those people, the majority of whom still possess hands by the way, may become curious enough to want to find out how it’s done and even have a go themselves (with resources readily available for them to find out) and before you know it you’ve got people carrying these arts and crafts into the future.