Mr. Harper seems to believe the “ordinary working people” support his cuts to the arts because the arts are elitist. He characterises the arts as something that only the rich can access: an opportunity for the wealthy to attend gala social networking events.

I work with an artist whose single, working mother recently re-mortgaged her home. She’s that wealthy and she appreciates and encourages her son in his artistic ambitions.

My father, born and raised in the dockland of Liverpool, took art classes once a week at the local library, where he hobnobbed with other wealthy patrons of the arts.

I’ve worked all my life and the arts have provided me with nothing … but time away from the frustrations of work, a chance to see another person’s vision of the world, background music to carry me through a long day, photographs of people in other parts of the world that bring me closer to understanding my humanity, the written word in all its expression.

When I lived in New York, the major museums were crowded with people who gained entrance by paying what they could because that was the price at the gate.

The arts provide us with joy, insight, recognition and understanding. They enter into our lives from a thousand angles. They attend us in church, at rallies and at home in front of the television. They inspire our technology and ensure that the table we sit at is not just a slab of wood, but a tangible piece of design that makes life a bit more satisfactory.

Support the arts.

Reading about a new company called Spirited Investors made me think about what is offered to tiny businesses and startups by coaches and “how-to” books, and what we really need. Over the past year, since we moved into 1334 King St., we have been approached by many organizations anxious to help us grow and improve. We have been offered everything from advice to software. After a while, we began to feel a sense of deja-vu at each new pitch.

You need to improve sales. Hire a team. Cold call. Pitch. Network. Do tradeshows. Install our software.
You need better marketing. Clarify your point of difference. Define your target audience. Find and neutralize your competitors.

You need to improve your business processes. Install project management software.  Develop processes.

You need money. Mortgage something. Get a loan. Find an investor.

Most of the advice we receive is generic and vague. What kind of investor do I want? What processes should I enact and who will develop and implement them while I am busy handling production and client service? Do I have time to learn PM software and will your processes suit me and my company? Will it help us to service our customers more faithfully and effectively?

In consultations with my partner and important stakeholders, we have decided we need a business partner: someone who wants to run the administrative side of C.R. Visuals and the Drop-in-Design Centre. We want to focus on delighting our clients with great results: better visual work, effective design, powerful communications, better search ranking, innovative ideas for marketing. Great art. Knowledge. We don’t want to learn PM or accounting software. We don’t want to go to every tradeshow and schmooze with everyone in the region. We want to live and breathe design.

I feel like every teenage kid with a dream whose parents say “study and become a teacher; it will give you a steady income so you can become a …”  writer, rock star, whatever. And when you are 25 and married with children of your own, working 60 hours a week at your job and 60 hours on your family, sleeping 6 hours a night at best, you will find your dreams haunt you with their sadness. Family and friends will tell you that “now’s not the time” to pursue ‘artsy-fartsy’ fantasies. When you are older and your responsabilities are lighter, you can get back to your dreams.” But one day you will be 50 and your kids or your parents need your attention. There are new demands on your life: like keeping your job or your company afloat while the economy ’softens’ and your retirement funds stagnate. Your adolescent dreams are farther away than they have ever been while everyone around you reminds you that they were the dreams of an inexperienced child. Give up? Do you have a choice?

My clients don’t hire me to run my business. They hire me for my design abilities. If you want to help me, don’t waste my time with coaching, come run my business. Put processes in place. Install software that reflects how we work. Write a proposal that wins me a juicy contract then hire a couple of fantastic designers with whom I can work and train them for the job. Take a percentage of the profits and do what you do best so I can do what I do best.

I want to think about design in practise. Yesterday I referred to an article in Archaelogy about native american exhibitions. The design of such exhibitions as practised by the Smithsonian, reflect such values as things as “artefacts”. The Native evaluation of things is that they have a life-force and should be used. Some should be used with care so as not to disturb their energy. This is why many cultures believe that the dead, mourners, shamans, and menstruating women are dangerous; there is a power that such people are accessing or attracting and this can disturb the energy surrounding some objects or events.

The values that lead to an exhibition being mounted with or without signage, categorized by time or utility, are an example of how design is an interpretive act meant to highlight certain aspects of the truth as known (or if you prefer, contstructed or even invented) by a group of people. That interpretation is now “privileged” according to some writers in tones that seem pejorative. But we should instead approach the display as a road that opens a bit more of the truth to our senses.

I’ve been thinking about Raine’s questions ever since she began researching “design”. Her first attempt to define design assumed a logical, planned approach to a creative challenge. But I read often about the visual arts, poetry, and some fiction, as an attempt to get beyond words, or behind them, to grasp “the truth”.

Life juxtopositions many things and this week I received a book on Police Chief Fantino, which led me to think about policing versus the law. In an old Archaeology magazine I’m reading, there is an article on museum exhibitions and their portrayal of native americans. The issue of truth is raised again.

At the moment, I am thinking this: we will never know the truth, not because it is fictitious or invented, but because it contains more than any person can comprehend. The “butterfly effect” forewarns us that we cannot know everything that comes into play for every cat’s cradle of events. Policing, science, social science, listening are all about trying to collect evidence: as many facts as we can, preferably cleared of cultural and personal allusions. That alone is probably an impossible task, but one that must be attempted.

Then comes law, analysis, interpretation and the huge, shifting effort to turn what happened into words we can share and judge. Interpretations and analysis are contextual and personal. As soon as we attempt to speak the little that we know, the sooner we begin to filter it through categories and conceptions we believe others will understand. How else can we share our ideas except by wrapping them in cliches with odd bits sticking out, that point to the facts we have, such as they are, which themselves point to the truth.

When we speak about design as an intentional plan that sets out to achieve a result, our definition needs to accept that design is usually part of the interpretation. It has culturally determined steps; culturally defined goals, an intention of sharing which will limit what can be said and done.

There are about 6000 languages spoken in the world. 96% are spoken by less than 4% of the population. If there are less than 100 speakers of a language, it is likely to die. About 1/2 of all the current languages spoken are expected to die out over the next century.

Language mediates how we communicate our world. Learning other languages helps us to understand other cultural paradigms and it expands our own perceptions. People who learn a new language improve their mental abilities.

Gettysburg National Military Park draws 1.6million visitors a year, supporting 2653 full-time jobs, generating $52.2million in revenues locally, and contributing $17million in taxes.

Other Civil War sites are less famous and draw smaller crowds. Many are disappearing under urban development.

What makes the difference between success and oblivion?

I run a blog on the ups and downs of running my own business, but think there is relevancy in discussing here, some of the issues we face.

Since we moved C.R. Visuals out of the home, we have encountered a number of coaches who want to co-direct our development. After 15 years of reading business how-to books, I find that in almost every case the ideas they provide are stale and generic, as if  a business consisted of a series of building blocks. Work 80 hours a week. Get an accountant and a lawyer. Buy a big sign. Put an ad in the Pennysaver. Join every network you can think of. They will come.

If your goal is to make a ton of money and escape the entrepreneurial life as quickly as possible, this advice might work for you. If you are simply trying to create a job for yourself, it might work as well, since you are expecting long hours and your foremost concern is getting enough business.

My goal was different. And to read the D-I-Y business books, I am in the minority. But anecdotally-speaking, a lot of the entrepreneurs I meet are on a mission. They have a vision. They have a company they want to create because they believe in its commitment to a set of ethics or a quality of service, or a novelty of product. They want to work for themselves to build their dream company, in which they hold their dream job.

I say to them, don’t listen to coaches and self-help books, anymore than you would if you were trying to save your marriage or solve the mysteries of your childhood. Go to them for ideas and to learn the basics that MIGHT apply to your dream. But step back from them and think about the company you want to design, purposefully, with intent, to meet evolving objectives.

After reading a variety of sources, Raine has brought together some ideas regarding the nature of design.

Design makes things better for people. Design activity is focused first and foremost on human behaviour and quality of life. So business design focuses more on the human element than on distributive procedures and other business functions.

Design is about shaping a context rather than taking something as it is. The success of design arises not from emulation but by identifiying, building on and leveraging asymmetries, evolving unique models, products and experiences. In short design is about creative solutions to achieving goals. Instead of following a pre-written map for business success, consider the overall vision in all its context.

Mastery goes beyond competence and skill, although it requires them. It goes beyond spiritual opening, although it contains spiritual growth. It responds to a calling for vocation, intentionality. It involves continual learning. One never arrives and the vision is never completed. Each step unfolds into the future. The master responds with discipline and patience, listening for what the lies within. The business manager as Yoda.

I keep running across interesting events - albeit, often too late to be involved. But the Centre for Cultural Management at UW ran a conference in May that would have been interesting to attend. The website is Technology in the Arts. Other similar programs can be found at the Contemporary Art Forum, the Childrens Museum and at the Canadian Centre for Arts and Technology.

The Tech in the Arts conference has special interest for us at C.R.Visuals since its focus was the applicability of the emerging (digital) technologies to the arts. Basically, what we do. And we are interested in how these together and combined can be used to evolve business.

I’ve asked Rain to write an article on Design. She’s a first year university student in fine arts and her thoughts immediately centered on graphic design.

Ultimately her task is to write about design and business. This was the topic at a Communitech seminar I attended last winter. The speaker cited articles in major American journals and business magazines on the need to bring design into the heart of corporate decision-making. Since Rain hasn’t had much experience in business, this is stretching her mind.

We talked about industrial design, packaging design and how an artist designs a painting. At that point Craig became involved. He’s our senior graphic artist and a Photoshop expert. “What about bad design?” I asked. “Is it still design?”

This is becoming a think topic for our team and I think the programmers should get involved as well since programs are also designed.