Editor:
Re: Question of the Week: “Should derelict boats be turned into works of art?”
Well, I guess that’s that.
Without access to the actual proposal, armchair art critics voted in your ill-timed Question of the Week. I can’t think of an easier target: an outside-the-box idea with almost no information provided on the first proposal. The question should not even have been posed at this stage.
All obvious and legitimate concerns were solved with a lemming-think thumbs down, rather than beginning with the creative process, the first step of which is an open mind.
The actual proposal received support from a variety of camps, who took time to read and educate themselves and were able to ask those pesky questions: Pamela Goldsmith Jones, MP; Bruce Milne, Mayor of Sechelt; SCRD area directors Ian Winn and Frank Mauro; Howe Sound Community Association, David Whiteside/BC Parks; Sunshine Coast Tourism; the Coast Cultural Alliance.
The artist, Gordon Halloran, has successfully taken on many unwieldy, technical challenges to bring enormous works of beauty to grateful audiences – local to international. He has represented Canada on the Olympic stage twice and his stunning works have been featured as monumental attractions in major international cities, with hundreds of thousands attending.
He has the chops to handle this.
And he wouldn’t have offered it without first doing research into its viability. His proposal suggests a number of alternatives.
Not every boat can be made safe from leaking poisons, nor repaired as fit for raw material for a sculpture, but for those boats that can, there are solutions, varied and numerous.
If there is community support, the long process begins.
First, fundraising. It’s not enough to invent the job, figure it out in advance, and deal with a plethora of naysayers; the artist has to raise funds to pay for materials, professional services and technical support, as well as a fee for design and management before he can even begin. The federal funding is long term and complicated; each grant is locally generated and requires the time and work of groups of people who believe in the vision.
That this community was even asked to vote on this proposal – without seeing it – at this stage – was water poured on the creative flame.
Ideas are cheap. And fragile. You can blow them out like a candle on a toddler’s birthday cake.
One more thing: just because the word “art” is used, don’t automatically assume it means a bit of paint slathered over a soggy piece of wood.
Caitlin Hicks, Roberts Creek; Communications, Abandoned/Transformed; Lifelong Partner in the Arts with Gordon Halloran
