Music in the streets! Crowds milling about - artfully dressed, giddy with culture - exchanging art info on cutting-edge what-and-where in Nelson's Old Town art-district. Art patrons breathlessly rushing from venue to venue, knowledgeably appraising major pieces of art and red-dotting everything. Once again Art Walk - as predetermined by the Cultural Development Commission's (CDC) current 3-Year Action Plan - proves to be a great success, continuing to supply Nelson with a sustaining economic base! Happily "married" to heritage, too! To quote - "An annual event to raise awareness of how culture permeates our lives, and how we, as a community, can come to support the continued health(?!) and vitality (of) our artists".
As if!Opening night drew large crowds because Nelsonites - starved for cultural events and fresh blood in their social circle - will go anywhere. Including Art Walk once, without which - as the CDC sees it - we would be an uncultured lot, with a bunch of listless and sick artists among us! But really - once crowds and music had gone home and chalk drawings on sidewalks had worn-off after opening night - Art Walk returned to being the usual yearly non-event of mostly banal work - trees and squiggles and nothing much to say. Based in fat-cat lives with fat-free lattes. No money in that!
Surprisingly, in the same Action Plan the CDC says - "The City of Nelson does not have a clear understanding of who and what comprises our cultural sector." So, confusion runs the culture-thing trickling down from city hall, with the CDC - its designated arbiter of culture - for the last 3 years not understanding it and itself! Yet - at the same time - having chosen fine arts as its "culture" focus during this period.
What!
This fixation is anchored in one person's travel-book - not researched by himself - The 100 Best Small Art Towns In America - in which Nelson is listed as 5th-best in North-America. With city hall in its Comprehensive Cultural Policy, 2006, turning this alone into a "reputation" as its identity. On which the city should build. A slippery slope - the question necessary to be asked is - What actually is there to build on?
The claims of this book clearly are right up there with "one of the 10 most beautiful villages in the world" and "the prettiest small town in Canada" (as supposedly claimed by the New York Times and posted as such on the City of Nelson's website). All equally silly and embarrassing - they are perpetuating a situation straight out of The Emperor's New Clothes.
For the record and the many who unquestioningly adopted Nelson's art-moniker without reading the book: The edition referred to by the city is from 1996 - 15 years ago and Nelson then a somewhat different place, with a full-throttle KSA, StreetFest and a more contextual Art Walk. And there was some heady talk at the time of tying the arts to Nelson's economic future. But over the years the arts scene went into a down-spiral - while heady talk turned into fixed policies!
Anyway, there are 4 entries for Canada in the 1998-edition available at the Nelson Library - Nelson BC (ranked 5), Salt Spring Island BC (ranked 72), Niagara-on-the-Lake Ont (ranked 17) and Stratford Ont (ranked 46). These ranks are within the 100-Best-Small-Art-Towns-In-America construct. With Nelson the best of 4 in Canada and the 5th-best in North-America. Nelson's entry is going on at particularly great lengths about wall-to-wall artists in lofts and glowing probabilities in the future - this entry obviously was phoned-in. It's clear that Mr. Villani - the man behind this compilation - spent no time here, ranking Nelson even then higher than Niagara-on-the-Lake and Stratford is like putting Nelson in the same league with Salzburg, among the "10 most beautiful villages in the world".
If we drop "one of the 10 most beautiful villages", "the prettiest small town" and "the best small art town" - the emperor may initially feel naked, but he still has his heritage buildings to live in and just may discover real clothes in his wardrobe to fit and suit him - provided he dumps his artistic stylists!
We are living with/within two commonly accepted main definitions of "culture". The first is the civilizing process through development, improvement of a given group of people. The second is a refined, individualized expression coming from impressions of the first process - as in various "art" forms. The latter need the former - art forms are a result, they feed on the developmental process of a group-culture. Meaning - if there is no strong connection between the sensitive mind and the group's development - warts and all - an attempt at artistic expression will be without passion and depth. What reasonably follows then is that the developmental process of a culture should be consciously and probingly observed, felt and participated in to provide a progressive frame-work for Everyman. Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow. And the more information digested - thus turned into knowledge - probably the more scope for any kind of artistic expression.With Nelsonites generally not particularly interested in civic matters - involvement being a deciding factor in cultural growth and the CDC confused between culture and culture - an aspiring artist has little to feed on here - aside from gluten-free trees!
Historio-cultural Nelson!
Or not?
Tuesday, Aug 23
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