Well… At least I am alive.
Yep. I am Alive. Like really alive. As the city of Manila looms large around me I just found out from my disapointed parents that I didn’t get this big grant that I applied for through the Canada Council of the Arts.
Fuck the Canada Council. Really. My experience is that that whole system really takes energy from artists. Here we are are trying to do our work and they put out this glorious carrot for us of recognition and funding. En mass we apply and compete against each other and put all sorts of emotional energy into getting The Grant.
This isn’t helping the arts or the artists. Really, it is only something like 5% of us who get the grants. The other 95% are rejected. And how can that process of getting your hopes up, putting energy into proposals and resumes and slides not be destructive? Do artists co-ops and communities work this way? Do we compete against each other and let one get rich while another goes poor?
Of course not. Art is fundamentally human, and we are creating as humans competition has nothing to do with it– except to detract.
I have applied six times in vain for this thing. Now I am in the Philipines, far away, and I can finally glean some perspective. The grant system is pure destructive competition. When you’re immersed in it you think… “Oh I must not be good enough, this competition surely is inspiring me and others to be better”. No way. Bull shit. That is not my experience. I have applied for so many grants and you know what, the process has never been good. The process inevitably causes you to work and create in a certain way that will be recognized and “win”. Even when I have won, the grants are one time busts that are not sustainable and by their nature destabilizing to one’s creative trajectory.
Would I feel this way had I won the grant? Would I be writing this same post? Does the rich person in the black SUV driving past the squatters on the Manila street think twice about the character of global economic system? He doesn’t. But he pays a price with his soul. And there’s a connection between these two examples. Don’t let it elude you. Especially if youn happen to be in a nice car. Competition, Capitalism, and old world values are wrecking fantastic divisions injustice and disempowerment in our world.
Like me not being able to do my art in Canada. Just like all the other Canadian artists I met in Berlin and Europe. Great job Canada council.
So, I am still alive. I don’t have to pay the price of Ease just yet. Instead I am furious. There’s a whole beauracracy of well paid folks who work in lavish security because artists like me had to live without it and still manage to create. To create the art that fundamental enriches the world and ignites human consciousness. What is culture without art? What is life without culture?
I am doing real art. The type of art that alas doesn’t sell well in galleries nor make good investments nor corporations can commission. I am making art that inspires. Flip through the 1Mandala database of portrait submissions. See my videos with kids in cultures around the world. My art is to inspire others to do art, to be peace, to be joy, to be one. This is the type of art that changes the world. This is precisely what an enlightened government should be supporting.
That changes me too. That makes me alive. That’s what I mean, that is what I am gratefully for. Full out living adventure, transnational, with zero security, great adversity, successes, rejections, companionship, comradery, angels, great loves, from one moment to the next it is an epic journey sustained by love and light.
So what would have I done had I won the grant? Traveled, ate better, lived grander, been more generous?
I am going to do it anway.
Well… At least I am alive.
Yep. I am Alive. Like really alive. I just found out from my disapointed parents that I didn’t get this big grant that I applied for through the Canada Council of the Arts.
Fuck the Canada Council. Really. My experience is that that whole system really takes energy from artists. Here we are are trying to do our work and they put out this glorious carrot for us of recognition and funding. En mass we apply and compete against each other and put all sorts of emotional energy into getting The Grant.
This isn’t helping the arts or the artists. Really, it is only something like 5% of us who get the grants. The other 95% are rejected. And how can that process of getting your hopes up, putting energy into proposals and resumes and slides not be destructive? Do artists co-ops and communities work this way? Do we compete against each other and let one get rich while another goes poor?
Of course not. Art is fundamentally human, and we are creating as humans competition has nothing to do with it– except to detract.
I have applied six times in vain for this thing. Now I am in the Philipines, far away, and I can finally glean some perspective. The grant system is pure destructive competition. When you’re immersed in it you think… “Oh I must not be good enough, this competition surely is inspiring me and others to be better”. No way. Bull shit. That is not my experience. I have applied for so many grants and you know what, the process has never been good. The process inevitably causes you to work and create in a certain way that will be recognized and “win”. Even when I have won, the grants are one time busts that are not sustainable and by their nature destabilizing to one’s creative trajectory.
Would I feel this way had I won the grant? Would I be writing this same post? Does the rich person in the black SUV driving past the squatters on the Manila street think twice about the character of global economic system? He doesn’t. But he pays a price with his soul. And there’s a connection between these two examples. Don’t let it elude you. Especially if youn happen to be in a nice car. Competition, Capitalism, and old world values are wrecking fantastic divisions injustice and disempowerment in our world.
Like me not being able to do my art in Canada. Just like all the other Canadian artists I met in Berlin and Europe. Great job Canada council.
So, I am still alive. I don’t have to pay the price of Ease just yet. Instead I am furious. There’s a whole beauracracy of well paid folks who work in lavish security because artists like me had to live without it and still manage to create. To create the art that fundamental enriches the world and ignites human consciousness. What is culture without art? What is life without culture?
I am doing real art. The type of art that alas doesn’t sell well in galleries nor make good investments nor corporations can commission. I am making art that inspires. Flip through the 1Mandala database of portrait submissions. See my videos with kids in cultures around the world. My art is to inspire others to do art, to be peace, to be joy, to be one. This is the type of art that changes the world. This is precisely what an enlightened government should be supporting.
That changes me too. That makes me alive. That’s what I mean, that is what I am gratefully for. Full out living adventure, transnational, with zero security, great adversity, successes, rejections, companionship, comradery, angels, great loves, from one moment to the next it is an epic journey sustained by love and light.
So what would have I done had I won the grant? Traveled, ate better, lived grander, been more generous?
I am going to do it anway.
But not as a Canadian artist. I am of Earth now.
