bad! bad! bad!

black history month
First, I didn't say, happy Black history Month to you all!Some times I get too busy to celebrate and at other times I wonder, what i'm celebrating for?.
I know that's Bad. Not to put a damper on the celebrations,it's a time to reflect on the advances that have been made. This should be the obligatory Obama part, but, In Canada, We still are pretty invisible, especially in the art scene. Thats why our parents look at us like we have no sense!

how do artists survive out there?

Canadian artists, typically earns an annual salary of $23,500 (about 26 per cent less than the average for all labour force workers). However, visible minority artists largely from the Chinese, black and South Asian communities earn an average of $20,800 a year, or 11 per cent less than the average artist. Immigrant artists fare slightly better, taking home about $23,200 a year, a touch under the average earnings of all artists.
The lowest incomes were aboriginal artist
the first nations artist will earn the least. So to be an artist you got to have something pushing you towards the finish line. Sure, you can point to one or two big money makers in arts. Actually I don't think I can. So all you artist remember get paid! because you never can tell when the next cheque will be coming your way.

whats word on black arts
is something holding us back?

Anthony Joyette, and Dr Charmaine Nelson, talk about this. Dr Nelson really talks about the systemic racism in art history. I have heard her on the radio and she teaches at Mcgill, lecturing on Art History and communications.Dissecting the canon.


"new age of Obama" are we locking ourselves out or is there a chair keeping the doors firmly jammed? people of colour have always been talked about, painted,but We rarely had the opportunity to speak or paint our story.its like when you see in the national art gallery pictures of black women, painted by white men, or listen to Ella singing the Gershwin song book, you may think its from a black body but its from a person outside the culture.
it is now we can speak our words(hopefully) and now we can critique our own stories.during this month and from now on spend some time, renting movies by black artist,like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love,_Sex_and_Eating_the_Bones> Sudz Sutherland.clement virgo, or others

whats it all about

BLACK ARTIST IN CANADA

This blog is to shine a light on all the people i love. Artist! yeah i just think they do so much and are so maligned.
This is specifically for black artist, and Canadian black artist, ones who have spent a long time in this here great white north.The reason i choose the topic is mainly because i am one. and i am tired of not reading about me and others, tired of finding out about things a day late and when i'm a dollar short.There are some great artists out there all working, struggling, trying to say something that is easy to see but hard to say, or hard to see and easy to say.These are my sisters and brothers who help me to make sense of the world, and at times anger me because i can't seem to grasp what world they are in. This is the blog. I hope to use this as a place to create dialogue, to talk about the position we are finding ourselves in, and answering the big question "what is art?" and the bigger one "what is black?" I am also a pretentious person so i will try to keep the blog about art that sits slightly on the edge of the culture. So just enjoy the ride and please post post your comments please tell me to shut up (even though i will not) please send me your gigs, and if i can be of any assistance write..
looking for black artist that reside in canada seems to be difficult.Do you realize not there are many who do not call themselves Black, and i understand.I rememeber talking to a friend who wanted so badly to be an artist, not a black artist or a woman artist,,just an artist, no hyphens. Writer George Elliott Clarke has cited a McGill University study which found that fully 43 per cent of all Black Canadians were not counted as black in the 1991 Canadian census, because they had identified themselves on census forms as British, French or other cultural identities which were not included in the census group of Black cultures.[4] So i'm asking you to step up. I will be talking ,interviewing folks that i know and people i wanted to know but now i can use the subtefuge of "interview" to speak to them.About Me i am Bryan james a theatre/visual/noise/writer artist person who has been at this for a long time.i love the creative process, but lately ive been discovering the purpose of it all. as an artist

tell you what check out the book Ishmael in it the author talks about the Story,enactment and culture; Story is how an individual explain herself in relation to the environment,(cosmology) enactment is when that individual enacts those stories, lives them, culture is when groups of people enact the same story. Artist physicalize the stories(i believe) we do not make culture, we create the artifacts of our culture. manifest the thoughts and the yearnings and the questions of the culture we reside in.and this blog will look at some of the makers of the story.