My grant was rejected by the Canada Council For the Arts today. And you know what? I am doing fine. I am not depressed. Unlike my previous grant rejections, I have not spiralled into depression. Admittedly I hit a dark night of the soul about a few things a couple of weeks or so ago, including the forthcoming rejection, but I came out of it stronger with many realisations. I wanted to post about this because perhaps it can be of use to others.
Last year someone heavily involved in the arts recommended the book “Why Are Artists Poor” by Hans Abbing to me and I really am glad that they did. It helped a lot. This book doesn’t even mention Canada but it sure is about Canada. This invaluable book by an economist and an artist showed that artists generally are wealthier. In other words, many artists can afford to be artists because they already have wealth. But the book’s findings also stated that generally artists are wealthier in both countries with and without government funding. What this means is that even countries with lots of grant funding are still classist. Wealthier artists can and do get grants, there’s no income cap. People from money know how to make the system work for them. As well and quite importantly, the book’s findings were that countries with high levels of government funding created less innovative art.
Blander, less passionate art gets chosen and promoted through the government system (keeping in mind that Canada is not socialist, it is neo-liberal). I should note the author stated that he is not pro-free enterprise but these were the findings of his research. Now, outside of this book, it has been written that the wealthy generally have less passion (a funny piece in The Guardian about Mumford and Sons for example). I made the mental connection that the rich thusly create more government friendly work.
More recently a great friend told me that I am not a “government artist.” Nor do I want to be.
But I really had tried everything in Canada: grant writing seminars, hiring grant writers, getting my MFA, applying and re-applying for grants (“The juries change” people would tell me: naw, the faces may change but they’re really all the same, people who write for Air Canada flight mags blah blah blah; I applied again this time because the grant officer told me that there was loads more funding OMG) etc. etc. etc. And that’s all just for grants alone! But the one thing I didn’t do was change my work to be more, well, dull or played out (I really work on trying to create meaningful work for an audience). I was trying to create work that was needed but approaching the culture industries in Canada made me feel needy. Do I sound self-important? Please understand that I am pretty fucking hard on myself and raise my bar high, when I fall I fall hard. The one recent breakthrough I made was that Canada can approach me from now on -I have had wonderful things happen that way and am so excited to keep that door open! But I will no longer approach Canada because it’s like trying to please a distant father. So: keep the door open for Canada to approach me as I approach other countries.
I am super excited to keep moving forward with my work! To explore possibilities!
It’s easy to blame oneself because blaming an entire country can make one feel delusional. But hey, there it is, it really is the country (or I should say the industry infrastructure of the nation-state of Canada and not necessarily the audience), take comfort in that. Do not blame yourself like I used to oh so often. It has nothing to do with the quality of the work.