Editor:
As one of the professional artists and retired professors of the visual arts that was on the District of Sechelt's arts culture and heritage advisory committee (ACHAC) now terminated by council in January, I would like to ask why?
We did not cost much, we were volunteers and we knew they needed veteran advice on the arts, because mayors and councils in Sechelt for the past 15 years needed professional artistic advice from this committee and others.
Maybe there is some misunderstanding here. Our committee was screened to find the best professional and semi-professional artistic and creative minds in the District of Sechelt, and for the most part this has been true for the past several years.
We were just starting to get rolling on The Art of Seeing project, the Sunshine Coast juried art show project, and advising municipal hall on people to run the Sechelt Festival of the Arts and the new arts coordinator.
Senior artists like ourselves have seen and done it all with lots of creative ideas and contacts (like finding the funds for a new large public art gallery or cultural complex) for the future of Sechelt. We were an arts oversight committee, and now there is none.
The arts coordinator is young and on part-time salary. What happens if she or the festival person quits?
All these projects demanded a lot of work and time from this committee.
As our member of Parlia-ment John Weston said at our last juried art show, arts and culture represents $46 billion in the Canadian economy and is twice the size of Canada's forest industry. I should write a book.
Bob Evermon, Davis Bay
