another day another dollar

A rush trip to Jameson yesterday. There is a group of artists who want to set up an art centre of their own.

I have been asked to see if Papulankutja can assist in some way. The most difficult thing to start, is to explain how an art centre such as Papulankutja works. What many community members do not understand is that the art centre is funded by the artists. They tend to think of buckets of money that are handed out by the government and there is some anger about why Papulankutja would be getting that money and not them. It takes time to explain that the artists at Papulankutja own the art centre and that the artists of Paulankutja fund the art centre. We get very little funding of operational funds from the government. We do need the funds that we get and we are very pleased to put out our hands for those funds, but the bulk of the expenses of running the art centre are the funds provided by the artists themselves.

So the first step is to talk about the structure of the art centre and to bring home the idea that it "costs money to paint a painting" and "it costs money to sell a painting". We are in the middle of the western desert and finding a market is not always an easy thing to do.

Anyway it was a good meeting and after the group agreed to attend our next governance training session at Kulka and learn more about art centre business, I agreed to work out a way that Papulankutja can assist in the provision of materials, the montering of work and see if there is a market that can be found. Exciting times!