Arts Advocacy BC
British Columbians and Canadians Speak Out Against Funding Cuts

" Government is gambling with other people's money", The Province

"Flex Your Muscles, BC Arts Community", The Tyee

"Budget Cut Blues' Played for Politicians", The Tyee

"Government cuts steal colour from life" canada.com

Article in The Straight including reactions from individual artists

Visualize the cuts (CARFAC BC on Facebook)
Organizing against Campbell's cuts to the arts (Facebook)
Creativity Counts

You can see more images of Solidarity with the arts from:
forestry
Farming
mining
small town small businesses vs HST
pulp workers
Sled dog mushers
Train drivers
Backhoe drivers

Heather Peters and Bruce Self enjoy their books as much as they enjoy hunting in BC's rugged Cariboo-Chilcotin. "One of the pleasures of hunting," said Peters, "is curling up with a novel at night. Or later in the winter after a meal of deer or moose."

"We feel fortunate to not only know where our food has come from, but to have harvested it ourselves, in our own region," added Self. "A large portion of our diet comes from within a short radius of where we live."

Peters and Self support the concept of home-grown, "100 Mile" culture, too, and have amassed a collection of books by BC and Canadian authors. They're upset about recent cuts to the arts in BC.

"Why on earth has the provincial government removed all funding from the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, BC BookWorld newspaper, and the BC Association of Magazine Publishers?" asks Peters. "It defies economic sense."

Self notes that many BC writers, such as Douglas Coupland (Generation X) and William Gibson (Neuromancer), along with authors of national stature like Margaret Atwood, have spoken out against the provincial government’s cuts. Gibson has decried the policies as "guaranteed to rot the fabric of our province’s future."

Ironically, BC has one of the highest book reading rates per capita in Canada, yet the province's funding for literature is among the lowest in the country.

Peters, who is completing her PhD in Social Work, co-edited Structural Social Work in Action: Examples from Practice, and Self is a former street nurse. Heather shoots a Remington 30-06; Bruce shoots a Husqvarna 30-06 with a custom stock. Mort, their dog, is a Chesapeake and likes to hunt grouse mano a mano.

For further information, contact Bill Horne at Amazing Space Studio, Wells, BC 250-994-2332 mazing at claireart dot ca
photo by Bill Horne

If anyone wants to reproduce this or any other photos in this series,
please contact me before doing so. In most cases I am happy to give
permission, but out of respect for the people in the photographs,
I like to check with them first. Thanks!