Local initiatives key for successful artists
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Baker Lake (Nov 22/00) - Fred Ford says better planning and continuity at the annual arts festival would also help boost sales.
Ford, who represented a number of Baker artists at the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Festival in Rankin Inlet earlier this month, says although the festival had many positive aspects, more can be done locally to help artists.
"There's not a lot of information available in the hamlets on grants artists might qualify for, such as the Canada Council or the Nunavut arts grants," says Ford, who runs the Qamanittuaq Fine Art Gallery and Studio in Baker Lake.
"That's where the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association should be focusing its time. Community workshops, good tools, getting applications filled out, access to good stone, and health and safety issues such as using goggles, masks and filters -- these areas would benefit artists at the local level."
He says it didn't make a lot of sense to have this year's festival coincide with the mining symposium and the Inuit Art Auction in Toronto.
"It's good to have that kind of dialogue with everybody together, but you want to attract the serious collectors and gallery owners.
It makes more sense to hold the festival in the same location every year, so people mark it on their calenders and look forward to it every year."
Ford adds there is always growing pains for any relatively new organization. And with so much talent in the Kivalliq, he hopes NACA will see the benefits of a more localized approach.
"We have to undertake community initiatives to encourage our young artists or they won't continue on.
"Everyone knows the older, more successful artists, we have to do more to promote our young artists or run the danger of not having any young artists a few years down the road."
