“Yes, it’s important to recognize the firefighters, the nurses, and our athletes,” she admitted, “but most people are never going to buy a book or a painting from an artist. Most of us don’t go through the art galleries or even borrow books from the libraries. We work. We don’t have time for those things. Put libraries in schools and close the rest, I say. What ordinary person can afford to tour the art galleries or read books all day?”
I began to fume, silently. But I needed to count to ten before I said anything.
“Smith has a background in banking,” she continued. “He’s dealt with big businesses in his line of work. He’s the one to take care of them and our money. He’s not going to open our pocketbook for every starving artist on his Mayor’s Pick list.”
“You’ve just set up an us versus them scenario that I don’t think is part of how this city is actually being run,” I started.
I let go of the point I was intending to make as I saw from her resistance to listening that she wouldn’t hear me. Already, she was interrupting me as she continued to report the virtues of Gord Smith as she saw them. But she had suggested a link between the Mayor’s Picks and money that simply didn’t exist. Who had she been listening to? I wondered. There was no money associated with his recognition of anyone, outside of the cost of printing a paper certificate on an office printer and holding a news conference. Worse yet, she’d just said there was no social value to art, which meant she had no concept of how a culture evolves.
Finding paintings on cave walls, or little figures representing fertility goddesses buried in layers of earth several hundred thousand years ago, or noting the symbols on bracelets and necklaces that lay in burial sites long after the bones of the people wearing them had gone back to earth, led archaeologists to suggest a myriad of things about the evolution of human culture. Separating art from every day life was something new, something that capitalism and the industrial age had cemented in our thinking along with the adage of ‘the work ethic’. But she wasn’t interested in how culture is developed.
“Here’s a pamphlet on Gord Smith, that outlines his experiences over the past twenty years. He’ll make an excellent Mayor.”
She tried to push this tri-fold pamphlet into my hand as it curved around the edge of the door. I pulled back, allowing the door to close and talked through its glass and screen instead.
“I’m sorry, I’d like to make up my own mind who to vote for,” I returned, as politely as possible. “I need to shut the door against the cold,” I continued.
What did she say to people with signs for Duncan on their lawns, any way? I wondered. Did she even approach their doors? She hardly took a breath before she started in again, ignoring my plea that she understand I was not going to be swayed by her politics and I needed to shut the door because I was getting chilled..
