‘Long-term’ think­ing is the key to growth and invest­ment in the sec­tor, provin­cial NDP arts critic says

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, the cre­ative sec­tor and the research com­mu­nity came together Fri­day to dis­cuss the future of B.C.‘s cre­ative indus­tries at a con­fer­ence hosted by SFU Vancouver’s Cana­dian Cen­tre for Stud­ies in Publishing.

The con­fer­ence fol­lows up on a report com­mis­sioned by the pub­lish­ing, music and enter­tain­ment sec­tors call­ing for the gov­ern­ment to col­lab­o­rate on a long-term strat­egy for their indus­try. The report says, with­out action, this $4-billion sec-tor could lose peo­ple to other places where jobs are more plentiful.

Cel­e­brat­ing Excel­lence
8^th Annual Carter Wosk British Colum­bia Cre­ative Achieve­ment Award for Applied Art and Design
Dead­line for Sub­mis­sions:  June 13, 2012

Up to three awards of $5,000 each will be pre­sented to applied artists and design­ers whose work has a prac­ti­cal func­tion. Indi­vid­u­als who work in jew­ellery, glass, wood, fibre, clay and metal in such areas as, but not lim­ited to tex­tiles, fur­ni­ture, weav­ing, ceram­ics, fash­ion and indus­trial design are eli­gi­ble. For com­plete infor­ma­tion, con­tact the BC Achieve­ment Foun­da­tion or visit www.bcachievement.com/creative/info.php

Wednes­day morn­ing saw a bus­tle of activ­ity in the cot­tage behind the library. Mem­bers of the Bowen Island Arts Coun­cil (BIAC) rolled up their sleeves to pre­pare the venue for its new dual role as an arts and infor­ma­tion cen­tre. Carol Cram, pres­i­dent of the arts coun­cil, took a few min­utes to explain the plans. “The arts coun­cil has taken over the oper­a­tion of the vis­i­tor cen­tre,” she said. “We are going to offer tourist infor­ma­tion and peo­ple can come and get their maps and brochures here but we’re also adding an art gallery and a gift shop.”

Susanne Mar­tin — Bowen Island Under­cur­rent, April 27, 2012

Each year Ducks Unlim­ited Canada holds a “call for entries” in which they invite Cana­dian artists to sub­mit orig­i­nal pieces of art (painted, drawn) which are juried and tra­di­tion­ally 10–15 pieces selected which are then lith­o­graph­i­cally repro­duced and used in our fundrais­ing efforts.  The reward to selected artists is national pro­mo­tion and expo­sure, in some cases mon­e­tary and the assur­ance that their art has made a dif­fer­ence in our wet­land con­ser­va­tion goals.

They invite invite any­one inter­ested to go to their web­site where you will find fur­ther infor­ma­tion and see past selec­tions.  http://www.ducks.ca/resource/general/artists/index.html. Although water­fowl and wildlife based, they have evolved and their art port­fo­lio is much more diverse with an empha­sis being “nature and nature related”.

We invite all CARFAC BC mem­bers in good stand­ing to par­tic­i­pate in our inau­gural post­card fundrais­ing event, Wish You Were Here tak­ing place on Fri­day June 22 at Woodward’s Atrium, 111 West Hast­ings Street, Van­cou­ver from 10 AM — 6 PM.

All work by mem­bers will be exhib­ited and priced at $50 each. The cut is 50/50 between artist and orga­ni­za­tion. There are no extra fees past the nec­es­sary self addressed stamped enve­lope (SASE). If you would like to renew or become a new mem­ber to be eli­gi­ble to show, please go to: http://www.carfacbc.org/join

The Van­cou­ver Bien­nale has received the Arts Cham­pion in Edu­ca­tion Award, while Gabri­ola Island’s Kathy Ram­sey, Vernon’s Lynne Hos­say, and New Westminster’s Trudy Van Dop have received Arts Cham­pion in Com­mu­nity Awards.

The awards, bestowed each year in con­junc­tion with B.C. Arts and Cul­ture Week, are pre­sented by ArtsBC and Art­Starts in Schools to rec­og­nize indi­vid­u­als or orga­ni­za­tions that con­tribute to the devel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of the arts in their communities.

The Van­cou­ver Bien­nale was rec­og­nized for its legacy of edu­ca­tion in the arts. “We are thrilled to pub­licly rec­og­nize the efforts of the Van­cou­ver Bien­nale,” said Navida Nuraney, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Art­Starts in Schools, in a news release. “We worked with them in part­ner­ship to present ‘BIG IDEAS’, an exhi­bi­tion of stu­dent art inspired by the Van­cou­ver Biennale’s sculp­tures, and have wit­nessed first-hand the care, atten­tion and pas­sion they put into their projects. They have a remark­able abil­ity to con­nect and res­onate with peo­ple of all ages.”

Jes­sica Werb, The Geor­gia Straight, April 23, 2012

Sev­eral groups have been awarded money from a pool of about $3 mil­lion in arts fund­ing, despite not mak­ing for­mal requests to the provin­cial government.

“Mis­sion didn’t make a request to the provin­cial gov­ern­ment,” said Mayor Ted Adlem, whose com­mu­nity will receive $75,000.

“It was very nice of them to pro­vide that money and we’re going to put together some legacy projects.”

While there were more requests made for fund­ing than money avail­able, Ida Chong, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­nity, Sport and Cul­tural Devel­op­ment, said her staff allo­cated some funds in antic­i­pa­tion of future requests — espe­cially those that might not meet the fis­cal year’s dead­line of March 31.

BCre­ative 2012 is an inau­gural conference/showcase to be held May 10 to 12, 2012 at Simon Fraser University’s down­town Van­cou­ver venues. It is designed to bring together gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, the cre­ative sec­tor, and researchers to stim­u­late think­ing, pol­icy, and action directed at devel­op­ing a strat­egy and lev­er­ing resources to fur­ther build the cre­ative econ­omy and to help British Colum­bia become a leader in the cre­ative sec­tor in the twenty-first century.

Speak­ers include the co-author of the two UN Cre­ative Econ­omy reports, Edna dos Santos-Duisenberg, cre­ative cities the­o­rist Charles Landry, Canada Coun­cil CEO Robert Sir­man, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from cre­ative cities: Berlin and Paris. Part­ners with Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity in this enter­prise include the BC Busi­ness Coun­cil and the Van­cou­ver Board of Trade, with Tourism Van­cou­ver help­ing behind the scenes.

Want to be amongst the first to declare your par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 3^rd Annual Cul­ture Days week­end tak­ing place from Sep­tem­ber 28 – 30? Artists and orga­ni­za­tions of all types are invited to pre-register one or more activ­i­ties on-line at culturedays.ca by next Mon­day, April 30. Do so, and your name will appear in a full-page Cul­ture Days ad in The Globe and Mail later this spring.

By pre-registering your activ­ity, you will play a key role in build­ing on the excep­tional momen­tum from the 2011 event and be amongst the first to be pro­moted on culturedays.ca and in other com­mu­ni­ca­tions as well as take advan­tage of the free pro­mo­tional Tips and Tools that will be avail­able later this spring.

Wow, it’s over­whelm­ingly event­ful this week and month. It’s National Poetry Month, B.C.

Arts and Cul­ture Week, Earth Day and open­ing nights for a few com­mu­nity the­atre pre­sen­ta­tions. Oh yes, it is also William Shakespeare’s birthday.

Shake­speare was bap­tized on April 26, 1564 — we don’t have a record of his actual day of birth, so that will have to do. And Earth Day? Well, why not. We all live here, don’t we. Of course, not Shake­speare. He’s not actu­ally alive, but his body of work sure is a hit these days. Just check out Bard on the Beach, Bard in the Val­ley and a new com­pany of Shake­spear­i­ans start­ing up in White Rock this sum­mer. But I digress.