By Donna Grandin
March 8th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Where’s our Supercrawl, Burlington?
Yes, we have Sound of Music, but that’s an annual event in a park. The momentum of the annual Supercrawl is sustained by monthly art crawls, and the creative businesses on James St. N and surrounding streets.
Donna Grandin is a successful local artist active in the annual Art Tour.
Where is our local art scene? The pop-up galleries, established commercial art galleries, affordable artists’ studios, and then all the other businesses that develop on the fringes of the “scene”?
In the last five years especially, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know many of you Arts & Culture people in Burlington, but I’ve also seen us lose talented members of our community as they answered the call of lower cost of living, and a more support for the arts, in Hamilton.
Do we just not have enough people interested in buying local art, in going out to local arts events, in investing in the local arts community?
Apparently, there’s not enough potential for gentrification, our real estate prices are too high, rent is too high.
But I still see empty buildings here and there.
Any thoughts?
Artists need a venue to show there art and also the artists could make money in a venue like a street fair on Brant or shows at the park or our world famous pier . Have free parking and public transit to get to these events BUT NOTE tax dollars should not be involved
Sponsors and donations should work just fine
Donna, I am with you all the way, Camden market in London England is an amazing concept for Burlington to copy, talented artists selling art at street level (Not tee shirt shacks) but interesting concepts in art in all it’s forms, I and people like myself are yearning for fresh innovative art to purchase for our homes and to wear. Burlington council is missing the point when trying to promote innovation in this city, creativity in all its forms is a wonder of human ingenuity.
Wages haven’t kept pace, at all, with housing, or the cost of living, so I’m guessing simple priorities are a large part of it. When the economic standard of living goes down, art is the last thing on people’s minds. Instead of investing in art, many people are just trying to pay their hydro bills.
Sounds like an interesting challenge for you to take on, Donna.