By Megan Ion
The work of local visual artists may be harder to come by in Centretown galleries if the City of Ottawa’s proposed funding cuts to the arts are made final.
“We have already had to cancel the exhibit of one local artist,” says Jessie Lacayo, director and curator of Centretown’s Gallery 101.
The gallery covers the exhibition and production costs when showing an artist’s work. Lacayo says. that includes any “…equipment necessary to present the idea of the artist.” and adds the gallery has already felt the repercussions of the proposed funding cuts.
The city, in its draft budget, plans to cut $3.4 million of its arts, culture and heritage budget which means the elimination of grants going to 28 major festivals, the closing of museums and the suspension of the city’s art purchasing program, to name a few.
Centretown artist Adrian Gollner says he is incensed at the proposed cuts and is worried Ottawa will lose its artists if the cuts are carried out.
“It’s harder to do the things you’d like to do and of course I would continue being an artist. But I might not do it in Ottawa and the amount of work that I can do might be lessened.”
To protest the cuts, Gollner and a group of local artists have created a sign campaign.
The signs, which read “My Ottawa includes Culture, Support the Arts, Raise my Taxes” have already started popping up around the city.
Gollner has lived and worked in Ottawa as an artist for over 15 years. The German-born artist credits the city’s grants for the arts with helping him build his career.
Without access to municipal money and the use of city-funded facilities such as Gallery 101, which give artists a place to network with other artists and exhibit their works, he doubts he would have been able to develop his craft.
Although he doesn’t completely rely on the grants, Gollner says the money has certainly helped.
For example, in 2003 he received a grant from the city that helped him put together “Modern U,” an exhibit at Carleton University.
The money enabled Gollner to buy materials for the piece as well as create a web site to promote and showcase his work.
He says without the grant, he would not have been able to complete the project to his satisfaction.
“The grant allowed me to finish it properly. My finished work has a commercial veneer to it and I would not have been able to do that,” says Gollner.
Ottawa artist Pat Durr, who proudly displays her campaign sign on her front porch, knows how instrumental a grant can be to an artist’s career.
“If the possible cuts that are proposed go through, I think we will lose many artists and many galleries that have only begun to thrive. I think the cuts would have massive repercussions on what has taken us 25 years to build,” she says.
Durr received a senior artists’ grant worth $5,500 from the city for her most recent work, a collection titled “Soda Culture,” which was on exhibit last year at Gallery 101.
This money helped her distribute questionnaires – the answers from which she used as text in her piece.
She was also able to prepare a promotional website and employ a number of people to help mount the exhibit.
Durr says artists have a much better chance of receiving provincial or federal grants if they have already received municipal funding.
“They want to know that you’ve already been out there applying and have received assistance from your local scene because this is seen as seed money and they want to know that the local people are supportive of what you’re doing,” she says.
City council will meet on March 24 to decide the fate of the arts funding when they vote on the budget.