Number 1
Quite recently the Nelson Regional Sports Council (NRSC) decides to have a mural on the north- and Hall-sides of the Civic Arena - towards the Community Center. After having talked about possibilities of this over time - including possibly costing up to $100.000. Be still, poor heart! They present no plans to the public - just sports-in-general talk and the job to be awarded in some application/selection process. Neither do they have funding.
No ideas - no funding - no nothing!
Many large-scale graffito-style pieces today are considered murals. An essential difference being: murals traditionally show great art-technique training/expertise - which we don't find in Nelson, and graffiti often are impulsively bold statements from great imagination - which we also don't find in Nelson. Bring the templates! Out there the lines are blurred today. Here - seemingly without any idea what this mural-thingie is to be - they now surprisingly do know what it will cost.
30.000 dollars! Having come down drastically and this a tellling sign: they haven't a clue!
So what's really going on here?
Number 2
Seeing that the NRSC and RDCK are blood-relations - the latter currently in the process of collecting their master plan thoughts around revamping the Community Center on the same premises - it would seem reasonable to have the RDCK provide a portion of the funding - surely one plan built into the other you sly devils you wink-wink! Particularly as the RDCK lately rather throws wads of money around - so they've got it! It would also seem reasonable to have the NRSC initiate a fundraising-drive for the rest among soccer/hockey-moms - clearly art-buffs all.
But no need for any of that! Totally handled! I mean - they can go straight to City Hall via their very own direct line to the money. Which they do! This very direct line being the same one getting them the soccer/tram-road redo - directly detouring Council.
So what's really going on here?
Number 3
These 30 grand promptly putting the audacious NRSC at the very top of the City's yearly list of worthy projects, funded by the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT). And when a few days ago funds are handed out - Council allows them $10.000. Still an obscene amount - considering the NRSC has done absolutely nothing along artistic-creative lines in the past or present to show they are competent - thus deserving of funding.
Will you wait, it gets better! Then Mayor Dooley - co-founder of the NRSC - insists they get the full amount because: this project will create work for artists over several months (which artists, which work, which months - how does he know?), and it will be an integral part of the Hall-Street-redo (and how does he know what's suddenly integral there?). This with the NRSC thus far having absolutely nothing to show. Seeing that few walk down/fewer up, and drivers have to pay attention to the steep hill: a poor representation of - yawn! - yet another hockey-stick being swung hardly can be called integral.
The Hall miracle-mile - touted as the only direct lake-access but really going nowhere: weeell, to light-industrial and/or Dog-Turd Alley at the left; the mall at the right; straight ahead to the hotel with the pretentious name. But no direct access. Now if we had a stern-wheeler down there......but I am digressing!
Anyway - there's the requisite bit of toing-and-froing with some councilors who think 30 grand are a bit much - taking away from other worthy causes. So true - this amount represents almost a quarter of the total funds made available by the CBT! But - with his capacity for overwhelming others - the mayor insists, and Council - with their congenital lack of backbone - promptly cave: in a backroom-deal it is agreed to have Staff find the 20 grand wanting somewhere in the general budget and/or elsewhere. Which is exactly the same as just handing over the total 30 grand to the NRSC: at City Hall more money can always be found somewhere - depending on who's looking and knowing where to look. This way just looking better.
But why would Staff - on our time! - do this for a rather regional project, what with the RDCK shuddering at even just the physical proximity of City Hall! So why don't they do all this - their own stuff - on their own? Why? Because free money doesn't smell! That's why!
So what's really going on here?
Number 4
Obviously there are more players involved in all this than just the suddenly art-craving NRSC - with a scenario worked out earlier, still worked as they go along. But none of that the great unwashed need to know. Clearly, the money will materialize - but then who decides on across-the-board criteria and logistics for making the project happen? Clearly not the NRSC!
The public must be consulted; after all - we pay for it, and we will have to be able to live with this! Keeping in mind that the RDCK's master plan invites the public's input.
While the CDC(?) and Arts Council(?) decide what/who is the best - this at best still only means the best of what's on offer. In their opinion - and that's a whole other story. Not necessarily meaning a truly exceptional, mind-blowing artist and his/her work on any out-there terms.
So what's really going on here?
Number 5
Our recent mural/graffiti-experience is dodgy. The Credit Union mural literally is paint-by-numbers - flat and awkward; Reo's gets ever more wastelandish as time passes: its heart an empty dark-dirty place; the one-off gang doing the decoratively pleasant and predictable fish-and-fowl mural under the bridge - during their (unsupervised) process - add stuff to their originally approved design as they move along. Without approval - so how responsible/mature are they?
We have no exceptional painters working in Nelson, and even if we had: would they be able to work on that size-does-matter scale? Would they even want to - hockey-shlockey generic and all - other than as a means to pay the rent. 30.000 taxpayered bucks spent on spec and predictably mediocre artistic merit/result, with a totally guaranteed very limited lifespan - unevenly sun-faded, rain-soaked, peeled-off - is nothing much to look forward to and at.
That's what's really going on here!
Murals/Graffiti:
H Fleury, M-C Lachance, P Laforest + Cite Creation
Linda Schrader
HOW and NOSM
RCL
Sainer
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