I have been here before. I have heard the cry before. It?s that awful sound of burnout. I last heard it in 1999, and I wrote an Opus Newsletter editorial about it then. At the time, the editorial led to a public meeting and a resurgence and renewal in Artropolis that has lasted until now. Today, Kriss Boggild, the person who has done so much for the past several years to keep Artropolis alive, called and said she was stepping down from the Artropolis board of directors and that there were no human resources left on the board to keep the organization going. It is the same situation as was presented to me in 1999.

In 1999, Opus hosted a public meeting on the future of Artropolis. A strong interest on the part of everyone attending that meeting led me to commit myself to the resurgence of the Artropolis tradition. I dedicated myself to the renewal of the Artropolis Society. I had no choice. I loved the Artropolis shows. They brought a celebratory audience to visual art like no other exhibition?an audience from the general public. I believe these massive exhibitions are ambassadors for the visual arts, showcasing as they do up to 700 artists (with adjunct exhibitions included). Artropolis is a populist exhibition that erodes attitudes of elitism in the visual arts. My belief in the show?s value had me cut back on my client load as a self-employed writer/graphic artist, and devote myself full-time to the development of Artropolis 2001. It was one of the most intense and rewarding experiences of my life.

Perhaps the worst legacy of Artropolis 2001 was the pressure its success placed on the board to put together Artropolis 2003. Assembling the 2003 exhibition should have been much easier, given the ?promises? made by government arts funding agencies who implied that they would bring resources to the organization if it became a biennial and worked to become a visual arts ?festival.? The implied expanded funding never arrived, so now the ?Artropolis cycle? has occurred again?the burned-out, overworked central person has announced that she is leaving.

I don?t know what can be done about Artropolis. The situation with Artropolis is important to consider because the work to make an Artropolis show would also be required of us if we are to create a showcase of BC visual art for the Olympics.

Although Artropolis is a provincial exhibition, the work, out of necessity, has to be done by artists in the Greater Vancouver Lower Mainland. The Artropolis board, a working board, has to meet almost weekly in the final stages of the development of an Artropolis exhibition, and that can only happen if the board members are Lower Mainland-based. Yet these artist volunteers may be better served by the network of self-promotional neighourhood events such as the Eastside Culture Crawl, Artists in our Midst and, the newest incarnation, The Drift. These local, more accessible, open, studio events may be replacing the value of the Artropolis experience for Vancouver area artists.

One thing that has certainly killed Artropolis is the indifference of government funding agencies. Regardless of the community?s affection for the event and its often massive attendance, it remains outside of the objectives of most funders because it is considered an exhibition of ?amateurs.? (In spite of the past involvement of many artists of significant repute such as Gordon Smith and Jack Shadbolt.)

So what should the visual arts community do about Artropolis? And in light of the Artropolis experience, what should the community do about the Olympic Cultural Festival? How can BC visual artists, and in particular those artists who do not live in the greater Vancouver area, best expose themselves to the general public in some kind of celebratory and highly visible way once in awhile or during BC-hosted international events?

I wonder what alternative forum might well serve BC visual artists? Do you have an idea? Could a collective website be the answer, or a beautiful book?an inventory of BC visual artists? These are options I can think of, each with plusses and minuses.

My aversion to the web as an art sales and promotion tool has been because of seeing so many artists approached by web site promoters whose sites and activities failed to deliver. A good friend once told me that operating an art gallery was an appealing profession for shysters. Some galleries, one or two in many major cities internationally, are run by disreputable owners. They are drawn to a business wherein the owner need not invest in inventory (instead, taking in inventory on consignment). A website, presented as a sales tool, is an even richer resource for disreputable dealers who prey on artist needs and vanities. That said, a website could work if undertaken, developed and managed as a cooperative and under policies approved by artists. The key to a successful website is widespread, ongoing, and catchy promotion of the site. Developing a website can be done and very widely and effectively marketed with the amount and quality of human and financial resources that are required to mount an exhibition as an Artropolis show. But as I say, this is only one idea. There are probably many more ideas out there, and one of them in your head.

Or a book providing readers with an annotated inventory of artists might be effective. I have seen such catalogues in the past and they have served their constituencies well. But a book is permanent and unchangeable which can cause trouble over time as artists move or change their style. Still, if Artropolis became focused on producing an illustrated catalogue every few years, the idea might be effective. Nothing, however, can compete with a massive exhibition, so a meeting to discuss options for the community is certainly in order.

In the September editorial in the Opus Visual Arts Newsletter (which can be reviewed in the Newsletter archives at www.opusframing.com), I asked you for your written reaction to a proposal to have a public meeting on the subject of BC visual artists promoting themselves during the Olympics. I proposed that you consider the worthiness of a meeting similar in style to the one that Opus hosted in 1999 that ?saved? Artropolis. The response to my editorial was significant. ?Thank you.? to all of you who wrote to me. Due to the response, Opus is once again willing to sponsor a public forum in which to investigate the visual art community?s ideas and to see if there is an interest in some collective, ongoing planning on how we might best present our work to the general public and visitors during the Olympics.

We have arranged for a meeting at H.R. MacMillan Space Centre located at 1100 Chestnut St. in Vancouver on January 26th, 2005 at 7:00pm. Everyone attending the meeting, including representatives from Artropolis and I, will work to an agenda that includes some discussion on the future of Artropolis as well as how best we might profit from exposure of our artwork during the Olympics (or not). Discussion can also include a consideration of alternative forms of exposure that might serve us well (or not). Attendance is free of charge, but please pre-register. Registration, questions, comments or concerns can be addressed to me at ctyrell@shaw.ca