Toronto has nothing on Thunder Bay and the
region when it comes to quality artists, proportionally speaking of course. I’m
biased as I live here and I’ve met with talented artists and seen their work in
local galleries and in their studios. So when I was going through a massive
stack of nearly 150 submissions for the Chalmers Arts Fellowship, I was
startled. Why were so many of the applications poorly written, even when the
work was good? And in the professional category, why did much of the work lack
talent, when so much talent exists in Ontario? My expectations were higher.
For the seven of us jurors in Toronto last
week, the numbers we used to rate the applications for artistic merit, viability,
and impact were not surprising, except for the most contemporary work. Two jurors
supported a modernist aesthetic cause when they had the chance. They were fair
and balanced, but even for them, there were few applications they were willing
to throw their weight behind wholeheartedly.
The results however,
were not bad. We gave away over $640,000.There were some wonderful musicians, a
couple painters, a few theatre people, a couple sculptors, and a few under the
description of media arts and interdisciplinary. I was happy with the result, like
most jurors, and was proud to be part of the process. However, most of the
winning applicants were from Toronto.
A juror on my left, (I’m not yet allowed to
reveal the winners and the jurors), was disappointed by the low number of
submissions from Frist Nations/Metis origins. I could think of a number of
local artists who fit that description, because of where they are in their
careers, and could have submitted. They would be totally worthy applicants for
the Chalmers. As are many other artists from Thunder Bay who are non-native.
So this is a call to local artists.
Submit!! There’s money out there for you to help you in your career. And your
chances are really good. Living in Thunder Bay is difficult enough as an
artist, but there are people very willing to help you (namely the Ontario Arts
Council), because the benefits of having thriving artistic communities spread
across our section of the country are enormous. And the competition, along with
the process, is not what you think it is. You have every opportunity, as much
as the next person. Nothing is stacked against you, as you might think, and as
I once suspected it was.
The first time you fill out the application
forms is the hardest, but it gets much easier as you progress, as you learn to
be honest with yourself, and especially with the help of a computer. Keep
records of everything you do and what you write when you fill out the forms.
The OAC can help you from the beginning
stages of your career, when you’re on your way, and when you become a
professional artist. At the outset there is the Chalmers Professional
Development Grants, worth $7,500 each, intended to support “artists through mentorships,
apprenticeships, master classes and training courses that allow [artists] to
acquire new skills above the level of basic training or ongoing training needs.”
Then there’s the Northern Ontario Arts Grant, with various divisions for
writers, visual artists, dancers, etc. that are production grants in order to
help you create the work. There is also the Canada Council that supports the
production of work in many fields. Support for film is another topic
altogether, but there is opportunity out there if you look. Then there is the
Chalmers again, which allows the artist time to research specific ideas or take
the time to “examine, investigate, explore and/or experiment with style,
technique, process, method, and/or content.” With two division for artists the
Chalmers offers; one for artists with less than ten years experience (up to
$25,000), and the other for artists with 11 years or more (up to $50,000),
there are ample opportunities for artists to start, learn, produce, grow, and
become what they’ve always wanted.
The biggest help is developing the confidence
to submit, and then not allow rejection to wreck the confidence in your work
that might stop you from submitting again. It’s like Angry Birds: the more you
shoot, the better you get, the more likely you will get all those little pigs. Sometimes,
as I saw when jurying, it’s a hairline win between a well-known master artist
with a forty year established career in the arts and another with just over ten
years of experience and much less notoriety. In fact it was a slip of judgement
on the part of one juror, who held his head in hands, upset that he missed the
opportunity to push up his favoured artist by one number. It would have changed
everything.
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