85 Replies to “ReImagine The Arts”

    1. +1. They gave us a lot of places to actually provide feedback, except for one page.

      Current Strategic Plan 2016-2021 (multiple selection boxes follow)
      All selections above are useless. As listed “Good” can mean either “so give us more money” or “this has been achieved and needs less funding now”. Every single answer on this page can be taken in at least 2 different ways, so this page should be removed from the results.

    3. That was very fun! I especially liked priorities. Shut down, Fire employees and do nothing

  4. I had a lot of “no more deserving of public funding than any other leisure activity.” and “arts funding promotes political activism, cronyism and identity politics at the expense of artistic merit”. And that it promotes the dehumanizing, ugly and intellectually insulting.

    2. I told them that because tRUDEau calls us a “racists” nation, we have nothing to offer the world … and because of that we lost a seat/bid in the UN. We have nothing for the international stage.

  5. My sexual preference was that I am other and sexually attracted to fire hydrants.

    Oh, and defund the whole thing.

    1. Don’t be surprised if their next survey includes fire hydrants. Of course they will want to know if they are male or female hydrants or are you bi-hydral.

      1. Aha! Someone else who knows a bit about radio and related subjects!

  6. I too expressed a “get off the taxpayers’ teat” theme in my responses. Even more fun was screwing with the demographic questions at the end. What a joke of a survey.

    1. I too had the most mischief with the demographic questions. My fav was the sexual preference one. I asked if they could supply one legitimate reason why my sexual preference mattered about anything outside of the privacy of my own bedroom, then I would answer.

      1. But which answers the question anyway. Who but a privileged, hetero, white supremacist would ever say such a thing, after all?

      3. It matters to them because it is important to them to give the opinions of various deviants, mentally ill persons and identity grievers more weight than yours and mine.

  7. My theme was over-saturation – we’re tripping over art in the street around here. I’d say that cheapens the experience; existential threats and all that.

    1. My bete noir is the Stratford Festival, which appears to have abandoned the notion of producing Shakespeare (or indeed, plays people want to see).

      The $100 million Tom Patterson Theatre sits unfinished while the Festival begs Parliament for an $8 million handout. All while expanding well beyond demand and producing unwatchable woke crap.

    2. You are right on. I pretty much filled out that survey with that very thought in mind. I also whined about the waste of tax dollars on the marginal talents that line-up at the trough. Perhaps as much as 5% of Canadian art and music is worth paying for.

      Many artists are actually lazy bums who are the ‘less-motivated’ citizenry … But being artists means you have to give them money for pretty much nothing.

      Why I saw a large canvas with three stripes painted on it for a million dollars. Of course it was purchased by the federal government of Canada. So you see what they think is art worth paying for … with your money.

      1. The only lovely indigenous Canadian art that i like is made in the north and west coast bc. They are well paid, so just raise prices.

  8. I told em I like BANANAS…
    Defund yourselves and move to Venezuela. Along with more than once telling them to have their IMBECILE in Charge quit pissing away Billions to shithole countries.

    And apparently I’m a Korean..who apparently self Identifies as a Maple Tree…

    …a most enjoyable survey. LMAO.

  9. It seems that the number one factor in receiving a Canada Council grant is whether you have previously received one. Talent is way down the list. You end up having loads of mediocre artists who are de facto welfare bums because they get paid to produce nothing of value, despite what they think of their own work. I used to know one of these types, a self proclaimed “ creative genius “ who insisted that he was entitled to taxpayer largesse because nobody else would give him the money to produce art. I asked why he thought nobody wanted to give him money to make his art and he just went off on a rant about capitalism. Parasite.

    1. As a former musician I can testify firsthand to the amount of waste and silliness. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is a fellow musician who’s played with bands you might know if you’re under 55 getting a $10K to go live in Nashville, TN to support her while she took clawhammer banjo lessons. Not sure how the broader Cdn society benefitted from that nor how excited tradesmen, servers, nurses, etc would be to find out their hard-earned tax dollars went towards someone’s fun holiday in Nashville.

    2. Al, I don’t believe talent is on the list at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if talent was seen as detrimental. After all talent suggests popularity and if it’s popular that must be the result of systemic racism created by old white guys and the women under their control, hence no need.
      Apparently, only these clowns can recognize what is worthwhile.

      1. I had fun with that one too.

        What is currently working well in terms of making art in Canada?
        Can you see that using the skin colour or host culture of an artist as a criterion for whether their art is worthy of public support is the soft bigotry of low expectations? “Well, if you were White then this wouldn’t be good enough. But it’s very good for a lesbian Francophone of colour.” (because we all know that they’re not as good as the rest of us and can’t be held to the same standards, so they need help – which is not what is said, but what most of us infer.)

  10. Most amusing. I would love to see the pack of assholes that run this thing reading some of the responses but they will likely be filtered out and put in the response from deplorables bin. More of these Kate, even if it is hard to remain polite at times.

  11. Terms like “cringy” “richer more disconnected Arts People” and “garbage on a wall” came up.

    1. It was a slog OWG but give it a shot, they need your input! The professor of the Psychology of Aging course I took for my degree used to start the course each year by stating “there are two periods of the human experience that are hell to live through. The first is adolescence as no one will pay attention to what you have to say as you don’t yet know anything. The second is old age because no one will pay attention to what you have to say as you know too much”.

    2. I tried but many of the limited closed ended responses were so off base I couldn’t choose the required three. Maybe they were screening out Old White Guys?

  14. I have long wanted a forum to tell them how I really feel about the government involvement in the arts. Has anyone else noticed that people who suck money out of this trough are those who self identify as artists but have no capability to create anything of lasting value? In other words, they live only to suck out free money from those who really earn it.

    Many many thanks for putting this one up Kate.

    1. Vancouver modern city public art is a disgrace, with the exception of West Coast Indian art that I love a lot.

      On my street, we have a fake tree with a bunch of squashed cars on top of it. Oh my, how cleverly subtle is the artistic point. Truly an eye sore .. Very subtle meaning .. the artist hates cars and is a tree hugger.

      My taxes paid for this. I welcome Antifa to take it down any time.

  15. De-fund all diversity/marxist/activist related art & causes.
    Promote Canada’s historical and philosophical heritage (in art and education), i.e. English, French, European, Western.

  16. This lesbian black woman from an urban location in Ontario with a disability also used the word DEFUND a lot.

  17. Rigged survey, they often insist that you check 3 boxes when the only one that is valid is “other:please explain”

    I am taking every opportunity to let them know that the funding of crap is hurting real art by diluting the audience.

    1. You can use the “other:please explain” box to tell them why the other choices don’t apply, and how forcing choices invalidates the survey.

      They won’t care, obviously, but it never hurts to let them know you can see their BS for what it is.

      1. Rigged survey, they often insist that you check 3 boxes when the only one that is valid is “other:please explain”

        I am taking every opportunity to let them know that the funding of crap is hurting real art by diluting the audience.

        I told them their survey was invalid on the next section when they asked to rate their impact on various aspects, and how they would use any answer given as an excuse to double down, as excellent they would say see, we need to do more, if inadequate they would say see we need to do more.

        When they asked for my expectations of them over the next five years, I told them I expect to be disappointed.

        I answered legit for the questions where the questions were legit. A lot of explaining that funding crap dilutes the audience for real art preventing it from finding a sustainable audience, for collaborative art like TV, film, and Theater funding too many productions dilutes the talent pool preventing productions with potential from competently covering all required roles and leading to that “Canadian production” syndrome where you can always find one aspect that is substandard and in the long run hurts development as nothing can achieve the quality to be self sustaining.

        For their future priorities, I told them to give priority to the art, not the artist (or their political or identity checkboxes), and if more work and creativity went into the grant proposal and artists statement than the art itself, it is a failure.

        I also use the words incestuous and parasite in a few answers, not to be mean, but because I was answering honestly.

  18. My stated wishes for the arts in Canada:

    Whatever free individuals in a free market economy are willing to support.

    My gender is “dormant.”

  19. I have a good friend who applied for a Canada Council grant and his application was denied because the project “had the prospect of commercial success”. In other words, only failures are to be rewarded with taxpayer money.

  20. That was fun. I enjoyed checking “other” and then criticizing the question. Particularly the gender and sexual orientation questions. What business does any government institution have knowing stuff like that, much less the Canada Arts Council?

  21. I answered honestly and candidly. However, I am a white, straight, middle-aged Anglophone. I don’t think they care what I think. No art for me.

  22. I tried it in French but had to give up.

    Sane is a gender, isn’t it?
    Who are you to question that, hater?

  23. So, I’m
    -an Artist- motif> buttocks photo-copying
    -allows me to publicly take my clothes off with impunity
    -currently working well making art- the Xerox 6840 Photocopier
    -hindrances- the police, the courts
    -works well to access- Smart cars
    -barriers- polar bears and moose
    *
    *
    -Needed for strong leadership- Polar Ice Vodka.

  24. Any art that reflects, truth, beauty and reason would likely pass my simple requirements. Most Gubmint Approved Art is usualyl GAAD awful.

  25. I picked “Other” for sexual orientation and sexual identity.
    Then explained that I am a Man and that “sexual ” is fake.
    That last long list I chose “I don’t know” for each item,
    then explained in the comment to read that as “I don’t care”.
    Everywhere else I chose “Other” with comments to close all arts school,
    fire all art teachers, and put the money into STEM and defense.
    The words “parasites” was also used but I forget which question.
    Also mentioned “The arts are degraded” wherever that applied.

    FWIW.

    –Bad News

  26. Call me mad (some people here do), but I decided to answer at least their multiple choice questions properly.

    I suggested that allowing Ottawa to destroy the Canadian economy with measures intended to control Wuhan flu that won’t work and aren’t needed isn’t likely to make it any easier to fund arts, whether the funding is picked from the pocket of taxpayers or shareholders.

  27. I mostly pontificated that public sector art is a Librano vote buying scheme for the talent-less. Also art is best used to dress up product packaging.

  28. Anglophone vegan Martian here, living in some isolated rural area in Quebec, asking to DEFUND the CBC.

  29. Art is objective. You look at a painting or listen to a performance and it either appeals to your rational mind or it doesnt. Therefore the more appeal it has, the more the marketplace wants of it.

    Irrational artwork finds its home in government handouts. A measurement of how any artform is perceived is by its acceptance by the marketplace.

    1. Well said.
      What role would you like to see the arts play in Canada over the next five years?
      No direct governmental sponsorship. The patron determines the outcome. Much of the present cultural divide is caused by “artists” who are divisive, abusive, and intolerant supremacists being given megaphones with taxpayer dollars to produce things that insult, demean, or are irrelevant to most citizens. Remove public sponsorship, allow more tax deductions for patrons. Public resources should not be used to divide us. If a private individual wishes to fund these divisive and demeaning “works”, that is on them.

  30. That was fun. Thank you for your diligence in making your readers aware of such inane questionnaires.
    I didn’t cheat by looking at the comments first. Many of my answers were similar though. Defund the damn things. If the elites want to aggrandize themselves let them do so on their on dollar not those of citizens. In any event any art created today will be deemed sexist, racist, species or whatever in a couple generations and be replaced anyways. I made it clear that being one legged or three legged or hollow legged or of questionable or normal gender was of no significance.

    1. +1. For both the call-out to Kate for finding this, and for approaching this honestly like I did.

      I expected to find many similar takes in the comments after I had filled it out, but I’m not surprised that there’s such a diversity of thought on how to express ourselves. It’s almost artistic how many ways there are to get one’s point across. Maybe we should apply for a grant?

  31. I racistly asked them why we need any State funded art when now there is the option of crowd funding.
    You can crowd fund for anything these days, it it’s worth a shit.

    1. Good point. Except the requirement that it be worth a shit, you can crowd fund for stuff that isn’t worth a shit as well. Some of the platforms like kickstarter have been taken over by the far left of California and they will promote the shit over quality stuff.

      They even had an option for barriers to artists being access to internet platforms (phrased differently however).
      Bet they are unaware that anyone can “publish” their art on deviantart.com for free, and make money selling digital prints. Yes a lot of it is as bad as the website name may suggest, but there is also a lot of talented work being done there, and there are almost always free options for software that compare well with or surpass commercial products (GIMP instead of Photoshop, Blender for 3D modelling, Daz Studio for rendering etc. ).

  32. The art a society produces is an excellent indicator of where that society is heading.

  33. I started off with a definition of what art used to be:
    Are there any other reasons the arts are important to you?
    We are each in our own world, or our own bubble. Arts give us windows into the worlds of others. It is a way to bring transcendent beauty into the lives of those bent by toil. I object when someone flings poo through my window at me.

  34. Write your own art grant application with this hand ‘artybollocks generator’.

    https://artybollocks.com

    “My work explores the relationship between Bauhausian sensibilities and unwanted gifts.”

    “My work explores the relationship between new class identities and life as performance. With influences as diverse as Derrida and Roy Lichtenstein, new tensions are created from both traditional and modern narratives.
    Ever since I was a pre-adolescent I have been fascinated by the ephemeral nature of relationships. What starts out as hope soon becomes corroded into a cacophony of futility, leaving only a sense of dread and the chance of a new beginning.
    As intermittent replicas become distorted through boundaried and academic practice, the viewer is left with a clue to the inaccuracies of our culture.”

    Profound, no?

  35. Well, that was therapeutic.
    Thank Kate for letting me blow off some steam.
    When it asked what the council will do in the next five years, my response was: You’ll say “screw the tax payer” and continue just like you are.

  36. When they asked their question about what should be done regarding Canadian art on the international stage I answered that Justin Trudeau’s India Dance Tour had done enough damage to our international reputation.

  37. What do I expect from them in their next Strategic Plan? Continued waste of incredibly scarce taxpayer dollars.
    Priority 1? Disband the Canada Council for the Arts.
    Priority 2? Return any remaining funds to government general revenues after disbandment.

    Black suburban woman aged 18-34 who prefers not to give their sexual preference.

  38. I filled out the questionaire with my honest thoughts. I am fully aware that doing so is like pi**ing into the hurricane. My thoughts included the use of the free market as a revenue generator. That, of course, would require producing work that people would look at and would buy. Not being willing to do that is a major (or it should be), roadblock to artistic success. I suggested that the Canada Council for the Arts should become an advocate for historical works regardless of the ideological views of people of the present.
    I told them I was from Alberta and that I live in an urban area. I “preferred not to tell” them which ethnic or sexual box they should put me into which probably did tell them I’m not a member of a favored group.

    I’ve never before seen an ethnicity listing where one of the choices was “White”. Do you think that whomever set up the list has been fired or otherwise required to attend a diversity class for topping the list with “White” above all those “Brown” or “Yellow” ethnicities?

    1. Yes I noticed that. There were, how many? a dozen but only one “white” category. Even many of the “non-white” categories were mostly white.

      Why weren’t the categories
      White
      Red
      Black
      Yellow
      Brown

  39. Looks like some folks had a lot of fun. However, it is historically unlikely that any of that “blowback” will have achieved anything beyond the gaining or confirming of one’s place on a list of “undesirables”.

    Like most such exercises, the “responses” were “collated” long before the questions were even finalized. This is in keeping with the long-standing parliamentary dictum:

    “NEVER ask a question to which you do not already have the answer”.

    1. Exactly. They collated the answers before asking the questions. On all the “role of the Council” questions, only the last one allowed you to say that you do not want a Canada Counicl of the Arts.

  41. There’s a reason why one can abbreviate “Fine Arts” to “F. Arts” or, better, “F. A.”

  42. As a guy who actually made a living from my talents – and drive – I was able to pay off my mortgage, save for retirement, raise a family and have a pretty good life. I made stuff people wanted and when they gave me a cheque they did so with a smile and appreciation. The problem with most erstwhile ‘artists’ is that they either don’t understand or hate the idea of operating as a for profit business. That takes work. It requires discipline. It’s not the fun part.

    My answers were basically get out of the way of genuine artists the public wants and let them succeed on their merits, not on grants. I wonder how much time and money were spent on putting this faux survey together?

    1. I was a professional musician and worked at it for 15 years full time before packing it in and doing something more lucrative. In that time I never asked for a handout from anyone. It was feast and and famine which was part of the excitement of doing something very different. That was between 1962 – 1978. Most of those years were in the USA …. Canada didn’t have much to offer musicians back then. The venues were tightly controlled , no walking around with your drink, no table hopping, no dancing … etc … So I went south …. Those were much better days than what we are experiencing now.

  43. Give it a couple of weeks, then someone should file an FOIA request for all the results.

  44. For the future of the Arts Council I wrote:
    Defund,
    Disband,
    Forbid future councils.

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