Arts Board has long history

The arts are important and to maintain a vibrant arts community, support and funding is needed.

That’s where the Saskatchewan Arts Board (SAB), comes in, said its Chief Executive Officer Michael Jones, who attended a show opening at the Godfrey Dean Gallery in Yorkton on Jul. 8.

Jones said a key mandate of SAB “is to develop the voice of the Saskatchewan artist.” They carry out that role in part by creating opportunities for the public “to engage with the arts.”

In that respect, Jones said it is very much a two-way street, with a need to provide opportunity for the creation of art in its many forms, but then creating the chance for the public to engage with the art and artists.

In doing those two things SAB has a long history, being the oldest organization of its kind in North America and second oldest in the world. Only the British arts board is older.

“The Saskatchewan Arts Board was one of the innovations of (then Premier) Tommy Douglas in 1948,” said Jones, adding it was modelled after the British organization.

There has been a long history of public arts funding in the province, which is reflective of the public interest in art, said Jones. He noted that while there are definitely pressures on provincial government funding these days, money still flows to the SAB and on to artists and art programming, which, again, is suggestive of continued public interest.

Jones said it is important to foster local art because it would be easy to lose the local voice.

“We live next to a very loud and large country (the United States),” he said, adding we tend to be inundated with art in numerous forms from south of the border. “So, it’s important to support and develop Canadian artists.”

Saskatchewan has certainly fostered its share of notable artists from writer W.O. Mitchell to artist Joe Fafard. Jones joked it might be because of our challenging winters.

“We’re all afraid to go outside for six months of the year,” he said, suggesting instead we become artistically creative.

Regardless of the actual reason, Jones said the SAB wants to continue developing new artists, from writers to filmmakers to musicians to painters, and then help the public be aware of their uniquely Saskatchewan efforts.