Art is Invaluable, Yet Students Are Paying the Price

0:00This is almost 107, a fan-shot college journalism student podcast. Get real. Many are curriculums in Ontario are being defunded or shut down. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has even referred to these types of programs as basket weaving courses. It has moved to cut OSAP grants. It's a decision that has slashed tuition grants down to a maximum of 25% from 85%, and up to tuition loan minimums by 50%. This policy, combined with the closure of fan-shots fine art program amongst other cutbacks, leaves the futures of many art students uncertain. The lack of access, I think, will impact people's ability to come to school. Making sure that we knew that we were stable and that we were okay, and we were finishing off our year completely, because it was up in the air if we were actually going to be able to finish.

1:02Artists don't make a lot of money, and we all know that, right? But what is a life without it? I'm someone who consumes a lot of physical art in my daily life, so I can see how upsetting this might be for some students in these programs. Do you know anyone that's affected by this? Oh, yeah. I mean, I know a lot of students at fan-shot or even Western, whose programs have either been cut, defunded or emerged, with other programs to save money? You bring up enjoying art. How do you feel about the changes overall? I think it will definitely impact our local community. It just might be harder to find artists to support, or even just the amount of art around London could decrease, since a lot of it comes from students. Yeah, and especially since London is such an art-focused city, I feel like, with the murals and paintings around us, it might definitely change the scope of what we see, or even affect how many people pursue art in the future. I'm Naomi Younggren. And I'm Logan Buchard. And in this episode of Almost 107, we'll be talking to both students affected by the changes. And a local art curator. To find out more about how this impacts our local art community.

2:05My name's Liberty. I'm a fine art student in my third year. I've been doing the art since I could remember, just like starting as, like, young as maybe three-ish. It was sort of an outlook for me from my transition, going from absolutely hating school, because of my mental illness and I have anxiety. And I was going to therapy for that. And they just gave me an outlook, like, art therapy. And then I just continued on with that afterwards. And I just kind of found, like, this passion that I wanted to continue further on after high school, to continue my art career. How do you feel knowing that your program has been cut over the past year? What has kind of been your reaction to that? Just, like, finding out our costs were extremely, extremely, like, distraught, but also they were very helpful, making sure that we knew that we were, like, stable and that we were okay, and we were finishing off our year completely, because it was up in the air if we were actually going to be able to finish. So, like, the biggest thing is, like, we're upset, because, so, for me in this program now,

3:07I can defer and I can go into, like, Ireland, and I can do, like, the year-term there. So, the first years that are in now, they won't get that chance to do the diploma. It's interesting, obviously, they're not only taking away the program, but now the pathways as well, and the effects that it has on students, even just being able to go to another country to learn is, like, so enriching, and really helps you in your education. So, obviously, it affects students in more than one way. Can you speak to the importance of having an art program within a post-secondary institution, because obviously, there's different opinions. Some people, you know, don't see the value in it, some see the value. What is your standpoint? I think it's extremely important, because even if you want to do art at the large scale of university, it's upware from, like, outrageous amounts of money. Like, no person has that amount of money that they can just drop, and then have to drop again to do something else in the future.

4:07So, it's more of, like, a why are we just containing it to universities? Definitely. Because, even when I was doing research on this, it does seem, obviously, the colleges are getting hit way more than universities. I know Western have a bit of defunding within their program, but there are some opinions about whether art is a valuable, quote-unquote valuable, degree or an odd or diploma. Can you speak to your experience in how it's helped you, like, having the education versus just being an artist outside of school? It certainly impacted me in ways that I didn't expect, like, even last year when we had our final show, it was, like, very fulfilling to know that my art is getting out into the community and not just in the college setting. I had my exhibition this term, and it was nice to see, like, how fulfilling everybody came around and was, like, very open to actually interacting with work, as I haven't really seen that much before with my work, and my peers' work.

5:07So I think that's, like, the biggest takeaway that I've had. I'm Cecil Klassen. I'm a fan chef of Fine Arts graduate who's currently working in London, Ontario. Do you feel that having that educational background overall helped to improve your artwork? I definitely would not have pushed myself to make the things that I did. If not for the program, you know, when someone's telling you to do something, you know, you can kind of push back the past the discomfort and make things that you wouldn't necessarily have done on your own. I like that you mentioned that pushback from teachers, as, you know, we obviously get in programs, but in our program, it can be look kind of different. Do you think that that's further motivated you to do better in your artwork or was it ever a deterrent? Definitely further motivated me. It can get a little, you know, a little... Sometimes it can get discouraging, you know, when you get critique, but honestly looking back

6:07and it was my favorite part of the program to get that critique, especially from my fellow students and artists who were working alongside me. And even if you don't take their critique into account, it's still good to hear that outside perspective, because ultimately it's going to be someone that's not just you seeing your artwork. Definitely. I can see how that would have helped shape you as an artist and as someone who has that experience, how do you think now that the program's closed that it will impact the local artist community? I think it's definitely going to have a bigger impact, I think, than the higher ups at Fanshawe Realize, considering how intertwined the local, like art scene and London is with the program. You know, Fanshawe has had deals with Western and deals with tap, Center for Creativity Downtown, to have these shows and it brings a lot of eyes on to the program and on to London itself, like going out to even just local shows, you meet a lot of graduates of the program

7:10that are even working at these museums or galleries or have their own studios and their own practices. There's a lot of them around, especially considering that it's the only three-year art college program in the area. So that's going to be a big loss for not just London, but the surrounding area around it. Definitely. You bring up good points about how we'll affect the community and even though you have graduated, just knowing that these programs or colleges and universities are either being closed down or defunded, does that deter you at all from continuing to pursue this career or do you feel like it kind of acts as a motivator? I think for some people it could be a motivator to kind of get in there while the getting is good, but for me I know right now is just really not a great time to get into post-secondary school, especially with the OSAP getting defunded. All the programs are getting defunded. I would have like to go further into university for art

8:13or for something else even, but now I'm not so sure. It's a little crazy out there, right? I mean, it is tough to get into these programs now since they're being so messed up, but no matter what, I think you're going to make art. You might as well go for it and I think just make as much art as possible, make as many connections as possible. With art, you don't need an art degree to be an artist going to go. But however you can get access to that, you should. Let's say you were sitting in front of an academic decision maker right now or someone in the higher ups that has input on what programs stay in and go out of these schools. What would you say to them to convey how important these programs are and be a voice for the student body?

9:17Without these programs, you're going to have a lot less interesting people around the city. I think you're going to have a lot less entertainment or nice things to look at. Life can't just be for profit incentive. Artists don't make a lot of money and we all know that, right? But what is a life without it? Someone's got to do it and people will always do it. They always have been doing it. Since you put stone to cave wall, surely if we've been doing this for thousands of years, it's something so inherently human to us. Surely that's something worth nourishing. We can see how a lack of accessibility to post-secondary art courses and the tools students miss out on without them can put a dampen on where they go next. To find out more about the current art world itself

10:18and how students can bridge gaps into a professional industry, we'll head over to Logan for a conversation with an expert in the field. I'm Cath Goodhue. I'm a fifth year museum and curatorial study student. Art is such a fluid thing and I feel like the boundaries of what we define art to be our constantly shifting and changing. Something that I was thinking about with that was this new wave of AI has very much complicated art and digital art as a whole. AI art is such a kind of... I mean technically there have been like earlier more archaic iterations of AI art. My cohort of people are sort of in part going to be the group that decides whether it's valid or not. And that's sort of what artists now and what curatorial students are sort of starting to think about is how do we categorize AI art

11:19and how do we decide what's what's okay and what pushes the boundaries and like what is valid and what isn't. How do you feel about the recent cuts to art education programs and the devaluing of student creativity? I think that it's really insulting, especially with fords like basket weaving comment. I just think that arts and humanities is very important for things such as critical thinking. I think cutting our education and cutting humanities funding impacts are being taught how to critical think. It's the hardest thing to memorize. You know, you can't memorize critical thinking. It's something that you have to be around and trained like a muscle. And I think that taking that away is incredibly dangerous, especially with how tech and imperial forward were kind of headed. The lack of critical thinking is starting to really make a lot of people in the art field uncomfortable. And I just think that

12:20cut started education is going to impact that. Do you think there be less motivation to create art for like young artists starting out? I think that there's this kind of burnout happening definitely. I think that the arts at Western, for example, are already sort of underfunded. The lack of access, I think, will impact people's ability to come to school. And I don't know, just in my time being here I've had access to so many different even just tools and things like that. Artists are very resilient people, though. I like to think that they rise above the challenge, but I do think it's going to put a bit of a roadblock in. In the way, especially in London. Are there any ways for non-artists to help students want to pursue art and bring awareness to the value of art-based post-secondary programs? I think the most important thing that non-artists can do is to keep having those kinds of conversations, keep asking questions, and keep vouching, keep protesting, keep just keep it in your mind,

13:21and keep it conscious, and keep it aware. With the comment from Doug Ford, do you think going forward is going to remain more so political or kind of deviate away from that to risk future cuts? I almost think there's this kind of comment that floats around in the art world that says that all art is political, and you can always find political meaning in art. Whether it's a little more upfront or not, I don't think that artists really bend well to being censored, and I don't think as a collective. There might be a few one-off individuals who are nervous about certain things, but I think that artists in general really like to push that sort of boundary, and I think they will discuss what they're passionate about, whether they hide it within their art or not. I don't know if artists will be super, super phased by that sort of hanging over their head.

14:22They'll just find ways to get what they want to get across. So do you know about any programs that have been cut in Western in terms of art? My program was actually fused with art history as of this year, so initially I was going in to be just a museum and curatorial studies major, and I'm pretty certain that Western was the only school that had that option as a major, and as of this year, it was combined with, so it's museum and curatorial studies and art history. It's all one thing now, which is a little bit of a bummer because I'm also a history major, so I was kind of wanting that specific specialization. I mean, I guess I get access to more history classes, but I don't know that I was really looking for the fact that Western sold it as where the only major in museum studies,

15:22and we still, I guess that label is still on my degree, but I don't know that was a big reason why I wanted that. I think from these interviews, it's pretty clear that we've learned these changes are going to affect the art industry going forward and are going to affect students and their ability to be able to create art. Yeah, I mean, art students want to create, right? That's like their whole thing, and I feel like no matter what, they're going to create and create, rather than stop doing what they're doing. Even on top of that, the demand to consume art, I think people don't realize how much they actually take in art in their daily lives, and how much art is all around us, so it's kind of just unfortunate that they're in these circumstances, but I think that they'll be able to persevere going forward. Yeah, I think so too. Thanks for joining us in this episode of Almost 107. I'm Naomi Ungren. And I'm Logan Buchert. Find more episodes on our website,

16:23106.9dx.com, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.