VANL-CARFAC
Visual Artists Newfoundland & Labrador

This year, VANL-CARFAC made five recommendations to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for the up-coming 2014-15 budget:

• The Rooms art gallery is key to the success of this province’s artists and their work’s legacy, while improving the well-being of her citizens. Currently, the Rooms Provincial Art Gallery does not have enough curators to adequately develop exhibitions by the province’s contemporary artists, and new exhibitions are less likely to tour to other venues in Canada. Stretching also results in extended exhibition runs and a lower turnover of permanent collection exhibitions. This discourages the repeat visitor. According to Hill Strategies The Arts and Individual Well-Being in Canada report (2013), increased art gallery attendance correlates with increased physical and mental well-being and social engagement. For example Art gallery visitors have an 89% greater likelihood of having volunteered in the past year than non-visitors, even after accounting for other factors such as income, age and education.

• As well, an increased budget for the Art Acquisitions program for The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery. Maintaining and growing a collection is a vital activity of any public art gallery. Galleries do this as part of their mandate to act as cultural stewards for past, current and future citizens. The collection mandate of public galleries is broader than that of a program such as the Art Bank of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery Collection must cross historic periods as well as acquire contemporary works, and must represent the broader Canadian cultural context (and even international when deemed appropriate). This should make it clear that the current Provincial Art Gallery Acquisitions budget is too small to make the gallery an effective steward in this area. For this reason, we recommend that the Minister increase the budget of the program to match that of the Art Bank of Newfoundland and Labrador, a vital acquisition program with a vastly different collecting mandate. Both collections must be maintained and must grow in order to make the Provincial Art Gallery an effective public institution.

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This year, VANL-CARFAC made five recommendations to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for the up-coming 2014-15 budget:

As self-employed professionals, visual artists and other cultural workers are asked to provide their professional services and expertise by sitting on juries, committees and boards. These activities require a considerable amount of time.

Some of the bodies on which artists currently provide their expertise to the provincial government are:

• The Arts and Letters Committee
• The Board of The Rooms
• The Board of the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council
• The Federal-Provincial Committee on Cultural Initiatives
• The Art Procurement Advisory Committee

Self-employed artists are providing their professional expertise to the province but they are not receiving any remuneration for the time spent on these activities. In addition, the time that self-employed artists spend on board and committee work is time that they are not able to produce the artworks by which they make their living. For this reason, and in acknowledgement of their professional expertise, we ask that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador implement a policy to pay standard fees for the work performed for the government by self-employed arts professionals. Status of the Artist Legislation, if passed, would outline rates of payment for these types of services provided to the government, and would encourage similar remuneration for work done by artists on other non-governmental committees, councils and advisory boards.

This year, VANL-CARFAC made five recommendations to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for the up-coming 2014-15 budget:

The NLAC sees an increase in project grant applications every year. In 2013 there was $573,658 of funding awarded through the Professional Project Grants program, but the request for funds was $1,494,820.  425 Project Grant applications were submitted, and 37% of those were approved, but at dramatically lower grant amounts than those requested.  Only 38% of funds requested were awarded, even though the quality of applications has been steadily increasing and the juries need to make hard funding choices between equally qualified candidates.

This means that 63% of the artists who applied for grants were unsuccessful, and the remaining 37% of successful applications being awarded funds that are far below the amounts they need to successfully complete their projects.  The reality of the situation is that no one wins; even those whose applications are successful are forced to make serious compromises in order to complete their projects at all.

In terms of sustaining grants for arts organizations, in 2013 the NLAC supported 16 organizations for a total of $575,000 – which was $103,119 less than the amount requested. This situation places arts organizations in stringent fiscal situations, many of whom have no other source of sustaining funding available to them.

As the professionalism of the province’s artists continues to grow, and stronger applications are being submitted, it is becoming increasingly difficult for assessment juries to narrow down many deserving applicants to the few they are able to support, and as a result the small amount of funds are stretched beyond capacity, forcing artists to try and make their work with drastically reduced resources. This illustrates a sector that is a victim of its own success.

We strongly suggest that the provincial government increase the NLAC’s budget from $2.1 million to $4 million in order to increase the funds available for grant support to professional artists and arts organizations. This would show the artists of Newfoundland and Labrador that the government values their hard work and their direct and indirect contributions to our economy. It would enable more artists to continue to produce the work that enriches our community life, and our tourist industry.

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This year, VANL-CARFAC made five recommendations to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for the up-coming 2014-15 budget:

Beyond the creation of artworks, a necessary element of a visual artist’s career is the ability to adequately access a wider art market.  Much of a visual artist’s income comes from outside of Newfoundland and Labrador: through exhibition fees from publicly-funded galleries; copyright and reproduction fees; visiting artist projects; guest lectures; grants; commissions; and through selling their work.  Therefore many of the province’s artists earn a significant portion of their income from elsewhere, and then spend it here. True economic development means new money coming into the province and this is one of the primary ways that artists contribute to the local economy.

The Market Access and Export Program was a granting component of the Cultural Economic Development meant to address this need.  These were not grants to assist with the creative side of producing artistic works, but to help to “expand the marketing, promotion and distribution of cultural products and activities.”  Artists were eligible for up to $5,000 to cover the costs of activities such as: the shipping and insurance of their work; travel and accommodation; the production and distribution of promotional materials; and attendance at trade shows and showcases.  As a result of a 10% cut to the CEDP program last year, the Market and Access component was eliminated; and, while organizations, festivals, and small performance series still qualify, individual artists are no longer eligible to apply to the CEDP.

The rationale may be given that individual artists can apply to the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council for some of these costs under Professional Project grants; however, there are two major impediments to this:  first, while the Market and Access program has been discontinued, the Arts Council’s budget has not been increased—a fund which is already strained beyond capacity.  In the most recent granting session for Professional Project Grants, in September 2013, the NLAC was only able to award 44% of the requested funds across all sectors.  Second, while individual artists can apply to the NLAC to support “creation, production, operating and travel costs,” the NLAC Best Practices Project Assessment guidelines explicitly state that marketing and publicity expenses are given a low priority by the jury.  Therefore funds to build crates, print posters, and buy promotional ads (and precisely the kinds of marketing activities that the CEDP supported) are not eligible.

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