Art in the online comment forums

I made a grave error this morning...I read the comments on an online Record article. I should really know better.

I'm talking about this article: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/506278--new-arts-leader-announced-for-waterloo-region

The article itself is great news for the arts in Waterloo Region. Any organization whose mandate seems to be attracting creative talent (and funding for said creative talent) to this area is good news in my books. And it sounds like Ms. Sinclair has the credentials to pull this off. I'm not sure how it will benefit me directly as an individual artist (I'd suggest you go read this extremely well-written article to understand what I mean...go read it, I'll wait...all done? ok...) but anything that encourages the arts as a whole in this area will certainly benefit me indirectly, both as an arts practitioner and an individual citizen. I can see that. Unlike the people in the comment thread, it would seem.

I don't mind if an individual person "doesn't care" about the arts. That's their prerogative. But I get so tired of people who use supposedly incomprehensible public statues to claim that the arts are useless and shouldn't be publicly funded.

This particular one caused a lot of controversy. It is called "Aporia" by artist Edward Zelenek and is installed outside the Kitchener courthouse on Frederick Street. Lots of people don't "get it" but personally it is one of my favourite bits of local public art. I'm sorry to hear that people don't like the fact that their tax dollars go toward things like this. It benefits me and improves my quality of life. I certainly don't begrudge them the fact that my tax dollars help to pay for many services that I don't use that might be relevant to them. Isn't that kind of what living in a community is all about? We pool our resources to create a living space that benefits all residents, not just you. Unfortunately that requires a bit of compromise, because you can't make everyone happy. If you can't get behind that, maybe you should go live in a cabin in the woods.

But, I digress. Arts! Culture! I shudder to think what a cold, dark world this would be without art. I just wish the naysayers could see it too. And in the future, I think I'm just going to stay away from the comment threads on online news articles.

Photo courtesy Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery