Thursday, October 8, 2009

The Sad Tale of Arts & Crafts Development in St. Lucia

............................
Posted by at

2 comments:

lbm said...

This shows a DEFINITE NO SUPPORT for artists. crafters, performing artists, musicians ... etc, here in St Lucia.

St Lucia is chocful of talented artisans - who unfortunately have to BEG for a living.

Corporate giants like SLASPA, even our own government, give us artisans the impression that ART (no matter what) is a HOBBY - and not a BUSINESS!!

Good grief you BIG SHOTS - the very pen you hold in your hand has to be designed, created and produced by AN ARTIST!!!

The very vehicle you DRIVE has to be designed, created and produced by an ARTIST!! Even the heavy polyester suit on your back ...

Need I go on?

SLASPA has treated the Arts & Crafts Co-operative quite poorly in recent years. Never took the time out to listen to their plight, which was brought upon by an unscroupulous administration. The present administration tried their BEST to reason with SLASPA - but was never given the time of day!! Hummph!!

Mind you, there are other tenants in the La Place Carenage building who do not, and have not, paid their rent for years either - but they are still gaily carrying on their daily business.

Maybe the Arts & Crafts Co-operative should've kept their mouth shut; but when you TRY to do the right thing - see what happens?

As an artist myself - I am HORRIFIED by SLASPA's "belligerant" actions.

October 8, 2009 at 4:34 PM
Finola JC said...

Yes, but even allowing that the Co-op did get itself into what can be considered an untenable position, the fact that it is not a private business, but is more akin to other co-ops like farmers, fishermen etc, that it can be thrown out, taken to court over debts rather than being called in to discuss how this happened and what can be done to assist the organization with its own efforts to set things right, that's what is wrong in my opinion.

In other words, if it was a Banana farmers' cooperative, the immediate route would be for intervention and assistance in light of the importance to the nation.

The irony is we recognized what went wrong - largely figured out how it happened, put in place systems to stop it happening again, made plans to deal with the lull in income that affects all shops that rely on the Cruise tourism, committed to paying off, no matter if it took a long time, and, I believe, advised SLASPA that we had undergone a period where we lost through 'mismanagement' and had taken steps to rectify, but got no opportunity to enter discussions.

We, a National organization representing a sector that is supposed to have been 'priority' were treated as though we were just delinquent private tenants.

Whatever happens, and I understand we are vacating the shop, the relevant sectors of government need to step up and put in place support to implement some of the programmes that have been identified and remain desperately needed, not to give handouts to artists and crafters, but to give proper support to growing creative micro-businesses that play a very important role in the nation's development and welfare.

October 8, 2009 at 5:13 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)