THE STATE OF THE ARTS

The West Kootenay Regional Arts Council (WKRAC) commissioned Hill Strategies, a leading figure in Canadian arts research and statistics, to examine the state of arts, culture and heritage in the Columbia Basin. The report of the findings was released in 2023 and can be found here: wkartscouncil.com/artstats/ WKRAC thanks the BC Arts Council for its support of the research.

ARTiculate asked three individuals involved in the arts in our region for their reactions to the report. Here is what they had to say.

Sarah Beauchamp:

We have all heard of the starving artist—the artist who sacrifices it all to focus on their artistic pursuits. Well, this study confirms that professional artists in the Columbia Basin make significant financial sacrifices to practice their craft.

It is not surprising to learn that nearly 900 professional artists live and work in the Columbia Basin. Creatives are drawn to this region for its rich culture and vibrant arts scene. But unless you work in the arts, it can be difficult to fully grasp the sacrifices Basin artists make to pursue their craft and gift their communities with the fruits of their (underpaid) labour.

According to the Hill Strategies report, eight out of ten artists in the Basin area are self-employed. As an aspiring artist, the idea of being self-employed in my creative field is daunting. This is especially true when you realize that the median personal income of artists (of which two-thirds are women, transgender and non-binary people) in the Basin is $25,600. That is 47 percent less than the median income of all other workers in the area. Statistics like this make it challenging for part-time artists like me to consider taking their artistic careers to the next level.

I often wonder what we might be missing out on, not just as artists but as communities. What creative treasures or insights are hiding within those who don’t have the tools or resources to practice their craft? How do we create more equity in the arts sector? Recognizing the disparity might just be the first step.

Sarah Beauchamp is a writer and photographer of Métis, Anishinaabe and mixed-European descent. She currently lives in the beautiful mountains of unceded Sinixt təmxʷúlaʔxʷ in Nelson, B.C.

Fernanda Fernandez:

The report supported my experience managing the arts centre in Kimberley. I want to reflect upon four aspects: the majority of artists in the Columbia Basin are self-employed; two-thirds are women; the median income for artists in the East Kootenays is much lower; and artists in this region are more likely to be Indigenous.

It would be interesting to map arts organizations in the Columbia Basin by their administrative capacity to understand how many provide employment security. The two institutions that employed me in the last two years offered full-time jobs only for fixed-term contracts, were severely understaffed, and the salaries were not proportional to the living costs in the Kimberley-Cranbrook area. The lack of opportunities and the impossibility of commuting to more culturally active places, such as Nelson, make it hard to find stability working in the sector in a remote location.

A qualitative analysis to see how these results are interrelated might shed some light on why Indigenous and racialized artists are more affected by the sector’s precarity. We need to know how arts organizations implement and oversee diversity policies. Living in a white-majority location makes booking Indigenous and BIPOC shows challenging, especially when travelling costs are hard to cover. However, beyond economic constraints, I wonder how much effort executives and boards of directors put into showcasing more diverse talent.

Many questions remain to fully assess the state of the arts and culture sector in the Columbia Basin, but the report offers a good starting point.

Originally from Mexico City, Fernanda Fernandez is an art historian with a master’s degree in Arts & Languages from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. A former acting administrator at Kimberley Arts Council—Centre 64, for the past 13 years she has curated content for museums and exhibitions about the environment, children’s development, sex work, gender, photography and cinema.

Ian Johnston:

It’s always interesting to see one’s actual experience couched in numbers. According to the survey, the median personal income of all artists in the Columbia Basin is $25,600, which is 47 percent less than the median of all local workers ($48,000). Being a visual person, I immediately conjure up images of concrete road medians separating the comings and goings and rhythms of life, rather than the state of my income. In short, while perhaps helpful in giving the arts leaders in our community and beyond the leverage they need to make a case for increased funding all around, my response is a cool “meh.” The article doesn’t provide any insight for me, and I’ll continue to make work, like many artists, despite these depressing statistics.

From my own perspective and my contact with many artists, the view from the ground is this: most artists have an unwavering drive and obsession to continually create, some immutable force seemingly impervious to numeric realities. I don’t want to endorse the trope that artists have to lead an economically impoverished life, something both artists themselves and the public at large can too often fall prey to. If the article can help remind everyone of the situation, then terrific. But whatever the case, like a lot of artists, I’ll continue to make work and my resolve, like real concrete, will never stop curing or getting stronger.

Ian Johnston studied architecture at Algonquin College and Carleton University in Ottawa and spent five years working at the Bauhaus Academy in post-Berlin-Wall Dessau, Germany. Johnston’s primary interest lies in the cycle of goods that he investigates, through site-specific sculptural and video installations, how things we consume populate our daily lives, define relationships we have with each other and ultimately define social structures.