I'm sure there were more than 300 people there, don't you think?  

spencer herbert's office estimated 1,000  

I believe there were between 400 and 500 people present.  

If you look at the photos of the rally there are over 200 people on the steps of the gallery alone. In total, closer to 1,300, a great show of support.  

We distributed over 500 grey square buttons.  

I estimated about 500.  

Nobody told me about this... their numbers could have been bigger. It's because the non-profit arts groups don't consider working artists as equals. Someone needs to bridge the gap because I think funding is the link between artists making a start... then making a living.  

I wish I had known about this event. Glad to see the facts presented as they are. We seldom hear these things that should be widely reported on.  

nonprofit arts groups and working artists ARE equal -- what are you talking about?!!

/glad to be one of the few hundred on the steps of the art gallery.  

thanks to the many people who were there at the demonstration. I live in Kelowna and the reaction here is pretty .... discrete. What isn't discrete is the amount of government money being turned into ashpalt to make car travel more convenient. Maybe Minister Krueger could divert a little of this cash into sandwich lunches for underprivileged school children. A cut to culture here would be a reduction in parking. This IS car culture.  

kristin + Painter; There is an unexplainable "sell out" label that is slapped on Vancouver visual artists who make money from their work or thrive in the commercial arts industry. As apposed to artists who claim to do it only for the love of art and require tax dollars and government grants to do so. The outright snobbery does exist. If you haven't experienced it then you haven't spent enough time in artist run centre's where this attitude propagates. It's a hive of neck beards, vintage 10 speeds, and higher than thou attitudes. All while the priceless art is being sold out the back door in a so called non-profit atmosphere.
B.C. Kids can't get enough tax funds to take the bus to school or have to books in class and these privileged whiners want to gobble up your tax dollars. Just so they can toss a pile of lumber on the floor in a white room in the name of art. Time to grow up people. I know plenty of artists who make art in their homes and have regular jobs to get themselves started. Yes it's a grey day, but our province is broke, people are losing their jobs and sleeping in our streets. As a responsible society should have other priorities in lean times. Don't get me going about the Olympics.  

Tough times. I don't want my tax dollars spent there.  

These cuts are being made to pay off a fraudulent manufactured debt.

If you care about the arts, or if you can't stand the arts and care only about your tax money, you owe it to yourself, your country and your kids to watch this documentary.

www.ohcanadamovie.com  

Your little movie is oversimplified, claptrap. If the arts needs public money to survive, maybe it should not survive. The reason the govt funds every bloody thing under the sun is because we want "ours" and we dont care who pays. But in the end we are all paying because we always want more, more and more.  

There is much misinformation and a good deal of bigotry towards the arts from people who would do better to get out and explore the rich diversity of artistic activity in our province.
Can you imagine air travel without government participation – without airports, air traffic control or Environment Canada? Government’s participation is equally vital in the ecology of the arts. Consider the Royal BC and Vancouver Museums and the libraries of British Columbia. Remember theatres such as the Orpheum, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Belfry, Cultch and Barkerville. Remember Emily Carr College of Arts and Design, Community Music Schools, and secondary and post-secondary institutions where students pursue education and training. Think of the Vancouver Art Gallery and a host of galleries. Government has always played an important part in helping to create and maintain these centres of artistic activity. Think of highly trained, dedicated and hard-working arts professionals: dancers, actors, composers, singers, instrumentalists, potters, sculptors playwrights etc. who contribute so much to the province. They are part of the 5.2 billion dollar sector that employs 80,000 people in BC.
The arts are mainstream. Hundreds of thousands of British Columbians , citizens, voters and tax-payers are involved. StatsCan figures showed that 45% of British Columbians visited a museum in 1992. Indeed, 42% of Canadians attended at least one concert, play or dance performance while only 31% attended a professional sports event that year.
Many thousands of BC citizens who are involved in art as creators, interpreters, audience, patrons, teachers and students can speak eloquently about the intrinsic value of art in our search for meaning, healing and belonging. If one seeks economic justification for government involvement in the arts, the BC government’s own documents demonstrate the provincial government earns a return of between $1.05 and $1.36 in provincial tax revenue for each dollar granted. The multiplier effect according to the City of Vancouver is more than twelve-fold.
Recall that John Maynard Keynes argued that many of the sectors valued in our society such as legal, actuarial, real estate and banking are secondary or tertiary creators of wealth. Artistic activity is an example of primary wealth creation. The arts are part of a healthy society – healthy economically, physically, socially, culturally and spiritually. It makes sense on many levels to invest in the arts during a time of recession.
However, of the top 114 sectors of the BC economy, arts and culture took the biggest hit in the recent budget (85 - 92% by 2012). One wonders why $11,000,000 is to be spent on the Premier’s Office. That is about 25% of tax-based support of arts and culture.
In the social contract that established gaming in BC, it was decreed that 50% of profits would accrue to the gaming operators, 10% to the government and 40% to community organizations. Is it not interesting that when the government decided to take more than its agreed share of an increasingly profitable source of revenue it regarded the commercial operators’ 50% as sacrosanct?
 

Dear Mr. Campbell,
Do you have facilities for artists who are not yet mentally disabled enough to paint for therapy and move forward in life? I am tired of fueling my soul with second jobs for food and rent cheques. I already have 30 years experience of that... artists should be able to contribute with our talents doing what we love, giving to our communities, both local and global, instead of working for the banks, who don't buy enough art to pay mortgages and rent.

" Frigate! We'll build our own ship! " - Ramblin' Jack Elliott

Artless in Vancouver... song from their demo tape "Tanzparty Deutschland"


 

actually, it's not your tax dollars, but your gaming and entertainment dollars that are being spent on the arts. some people think we should just bring back hockey as the national pastime. then we could sell it to the americans again for a profit.  

The "neck-beard, vintage 10-speed, higher-than-thou" aforementioned types represent a very small percentage of the artist community, most of it centered around the Mount Pleasant clique in Vancouver and I suspect is more of a loud and obnoxious trend you are noticing which days are numbered anyway.

It is indeed frustrating to see this community flood artist-run centers when we know deep-down their parents can afford to pay for their rent, art supplies, Emily Carr education, and Owl/G.I. Joe/Dioramas while actual struggling artists take a sideline to what amounts to an over-trendy aesthetic sea of extreme ego and meaninglessness.

Fortunately, this is not 100% the case in Vancouver, (more-importantly the rest of the province), and I suspect, time will bear it out in favour for more practical, socially-conscious work that isn't a sounding board for Narcissism.

Be patient.