Coming from the States, one of the most impressive things about arts culture in Canada is precisely that it isn’t centered on commercial exhibition spaces (unsurprising, since there are comparatively fewer such venues, in this country) and market dynamics. The arts councils fund individual artists simply because it’s the decent thing to do. That said, though, it’s not exactly tenable for most artists to try and make a living on project grants and CARFAC fees alone. Sometimes it can be helpful to sell things.

Not that selling things doesn’t have its disadvantages–it doesn’t take much looking around, after all, to see that the American art market, though vigorous (for the time being, anyway), can, in some instances, have a limiting effect on the kind of work that gets made, and, just as importantly, shown. But, again, sometimes it can be helpful to just sell things.

Which is why the Own Art program run by the British Arts Council is so intriguing. The subsidiary councils (the English and Scottish Arts Councils, and an analogous program in Wales) have entered into a partnership with a third party creditor to offer 10-month, interest-free loans (the Arts Councils pick up the interest that would have been incurred, as I understand it),  ranging from £100-2000 ($200-4000, roughly), to people looking to buy original artworks.  The paperwork is handled at the gallery level, and everything afterwards is handled directly between the purchaser and the creditor. The buyer gets to take home the piece(s) immediately, and, so far as I can tell, the artist gets payed up front, too.  People who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford original art are more able to, and artists aren’t forced (as much) to undersell themselves or sell nothing at all.

There are certainly some things that wouldn’t quite work, in the Canadian system, except maybe in the major urban centers, where some semblance of an art market already exists: the landscape tends to be dominated by artist-run centres and ICAs, were sales aren’t the order of the day, of course. But still, it does seem like an awfully win-win situation for all parties. I’m thinking especially where city and provincial arts councils are catching flack from their governmental backers–sales are something any municipality should be able to get behind. And it might do something to quell the ire of the “as a taxpayer” types who seem to live only for trashing any and all forms of arts funding, via chest-thumping letters to the editor. If the arts councils were what allowed them to buy that maritime scene or fancy handmade basket, or whatever, they just might get distracted enough to shut the hell up, for once.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really understand how the process of having one’s work shown, uh, works. I think it has something to do with nepotism. However, as I don’t know anybody, anywhere, I suppose my best bet is to just answer calls for submission indiscriminately and hope something sticks. Clearly, the chances of someone with a nonexistent exhibition record–who’s still in grad school, at that–getting a solo or two-person show are more or less nonexistent, but I should think that answering calls would at least increase one’s chances of being considered for group shows. Or something? I realize that applying for theme-specific group events is a safer bet, but, uhm, I don’t make video art. Or work about the environment. Or work which “engages with issues of contemporary urbanism,” or any of the other standard-issue themes that generate 90% of the calls one sees (and if you think that’s not what 90% of the calls are for, you probably make work that meets one or more of those criteria. Mmm-hmm. That’s what I thought).

So I think I’m stuck going after general programming calls, and, given that artist-run centres usually book at least two years in advance, for me to have any chance of showing at all between now and 2012 (which, hello! End of the world, much?), I need to be engaging in a submission and self-promotion blitz, like, immediately. Which, of course, makes me feel like an idiot.

I’m pretty confident about my work, in some regards. Overly so, I’m sure some would say. But when it comes to things like answering calls or applying for grants, I usually fall back on feeling like I’m just some dumb kid who shouldn’t be wasting grownup persons’ time.

But to dispense with that. I went through my huge list of all the artist-run centres in Canada and organized their general programming calls by date, and I figured that information might be useful to other people, too. So, after the jump, I have a list of about forty-five different centres with direct links to their submission criteria. I should note that I skipped over centres with websites that hadn’t been updated in more than a year, photography and “media arts”-focused galleries, venues specifically for women/Aboriginal artists/other minority groups (I am none of those things, and this is my list, after all), as well as any place that didn’t have submission information in English (which is sort of wrongheaded, I guess, as, if francophone persons only answered calls available in French, they’d only ever be able to show in Quebec, New Brunswick, and Ottawa, but still). There were also some places that didn’t have general programming calls posted, and they, likewise, have been excluded.

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MIAMI BASS CHASER!

Good Christ. I think it’s time to get out of the apartment.

Grumble grumble grumble, scowl scowl scowl.

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It’s a good thing I’m not in the States, right now. Because hearing that sonofabitch hand-wringingly eulogized nonstop for the next few days would surely cause me to either a: die of a frustration-induced brain aneurysm, or b: take out the better part of the American Middle West when I exploded into a supernova of cascading hate-lasers.

It’s no Legend of a Cowgirl, but I’ll take it.

Which you won’t, since it seems to be just me and Ryan, but still.

Girl Talk - Still Here

I can see how it might be irritating to many if not most people, and, really, the days when I could even sort of present a face of being abreast of trends in contemporary popular music are long past. But the new Girl Talk couldn’t me more perfect for extended studio time, if nothing else. You can’t go longer than two minutes without some kinds of “oh shit!” affirmation, and they never last long enough to actually derail whatever it is you’re doing.  By the time you’ve fully absorbed the fact that No Diggity just crossfaded into a pitch-shifted The Weight, you’ve already moved onto a meeting of My Drink N’ My 2 Step and All that She Wants. That those two songs ever existed separately seems kind of remarkable, now.

And then next thing you know, it’s Paula Cole. Or Quad City DJs. Or both the Ini Kamoze cribbing of Land of 1000 Dances and the Wilson Pickett. Or R. Kelly vs. Bizarre Inc. vs. Fleetwood Mac. Or Rebel Rebel vs. I Wanna Rock (you may recall it as “Doo Doo Brown”) vs. Boyz vs. the Cranberries. Or whatever. Fifty-plus minutes of novel-stalgic fist-bumping. I don’t see what more anyone could really want.

And you’re not even required to pay for it.

I managed assemble and use my new wet tile saw without losing any fingers, which is kind of miraculous.

Those are just 4×6″ off-cuts. I figured I’d try out some cloudscapes on those before committing to the full 8×12″ slabs, which are going to have the sunsets plus a series of banderoles with the lyrics of this song’s chorus on them (seriously, that capella? Eat yr heart out, Gregorian chant) . In the mean time, I’m having quite a time finding examples of paintings with banderoles in them to use as references. The many alternate spellings aren’t helping: banerol, banaroll, bannerall, bandroule, banrol, bannerolle, banneroll, banner-roll, banderol, bannerol, bannerole, banderole, bandarole, and bandrol, to say nothing of the original Italian banderuola, which, judging from the Google Image Search results, is also Italian for “weather-vane.”

I put in about six hours at the studio, and I’m actually thinking of going back in, tonight. My summer tuition bill came in, a couple days ago, and I’m determined to get my full $2500’s-worth out the of the facilities, before fall. If that’s even possible (hint: it’s not).

I also did a quick tally of all the things I need to order from Stevenson (gotta love that website. Eesh). After the linen, the damar crystals, the rabbit-skin glue, the genuine lead oil ground, the 10-pound box of chalk dust, the gallons of stand oil and whatnot, it’s looking like about $300. I’d be lying if I said the prospect of making the order wasn’t a bit exciting. But I was also the kid who spent all summer waiting with bated breath for the arrival of the coming school-year’s supply list.

Also, I really like buying things.