How can I resist writing about this guy? He shares too many of my passions to ignore his story: he is "into" the visual arts, public art, and Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh is an artist whose work and story overwhelm me. Seller of not one painting, beloved incredibly by his brother, one of the most passionate men I know of, Van Gogh has long been a figure of tremendous affection and respect to me—and to the subject of this editorial, Winnipeg artist Cameron Cross.

In 1996 Cameron Cross was teaching in Altona, Manitoba, the Sunflower capital of Canada, and it occurred to him to donate a work of art to the city. He decided to offer the city an enormous, and I mean enormous, sculpture—a huge easel with an image of one of Van Gogh's sunflower paintings on it.

How big is it? The easel is 25 metres (80 feet) tall, with a design wind load of 38 pounds per square foot. The easel weighs 17,500 kilograms (40,000 pounds), and has 24 metre-long anchor support bolts embedded into a ten-metre deep (30 feet) cement piling. The 7 metre by 10 metre canvas is made with 24 sheets of standard 4 ft x 8 ft plywood sheets covered with two layers of matte fiber glass which is then covered in a layer of industrial gel coat. The paint used for the artwork is acrylic urethane enamel that is manufactured for use on ships, fertilizer equipment and other machinery that is exposed to extreme heat, acid or chemicals. Ten layers of ultraviolet resistant paint are used on the painting.

Cameron wants to reproduce all seven of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflower Paintings in seven different countries, in cities having a relationship with sunflowers. The Altona easel was erected on October 17, 1998. The second one was finished on November 8, 1999 in Emerald, Australia; the third is in Kansas, USA. Now, is this or isn't this an enormous and slightly bizarre project? Each easel costs a small fortune to make and install. The fact that three cities (plus, potentially, two others—in Japan and South Africa) have partnered with him to create these gigantic monuments to a foreign artist, albeit a very famous one, just amazes me. You have to take your hat off to him, what a guy!

In spite of sharing so many passions with Cameron, and in spite of his most impressive accomplishments with this project, the reason I wanted to write about him is because reading about him made me think of hundreds of conversations that I have had with visual artists who struggle to sell their work—many of them demoralized by the seeming hopelessness of their task. What Cameron is selling is very, very expensive and, as I said, kind of bizarre to me. Plus, the installation of his works requires passage through a maze of challenging civic or park board zoning, liability and maintenance ordinances. And yet he is methodically achieving his "impossible" objective. What most of my inquisitors want to do is regularly sell one or two of their artworks. They very often have long tales of woe about their attempts at self-promotion and marketing. Cameron's story says to me, "anything is possible." It is a cliché but with perseverance, determination, enthusiasm, confidence, and commitment—you can sell. Let Cameron's story inspire you, all of you who pine for more sales, but know that Cameron, I am sure, spends most of his time and energy on project promotion, negotiation, sales and fundraising and a very limited amount of time "making" his art. If and when "sales" is a part of your definition of success as an artist, effective self-management, promotion and marketing skills are important prerequisites as is a unique creative voice.

For more information and to see images of his project, visit www.bigeasel.com

The Opus Visual Arts Newsletter editorial of July 2005 predicted the demise of the Artropolis tradition in the face of impossible challenges. Since then I have heard from my colleagues who were surprised and disappointed by my point of view. I would therefore like to clarify that dedicated individuals are still working towards another Artropolis exhibition.

Kiku Hawkes is the current champion of the Artropolis Society, hosting and chairing meetings of those willing to put in a lot of hours to see the tradition continue, and she has some superlative supporters. But the fact remains that I still have concerns about the Society's potential to raise significant money for an exhibition—its production, installation, equipment, catalogue, artist fees, marketing and
publicity costs.

I spoke to an Artropolis representative about my editorial and the topic of change emerged. With a significant change in what Artropolis is, my opinion on its future would also change. I believe Artropolis needs a complete reinvention.

The past model for BC's largest art exhibition worked when there was very serious money available from federal job creation program grants. Without those grants and the high level of support of the Vancouver Foundation, the model of the past is, I believe, unsupportable. But, if Artropolis is drastically reinvented, I could easily revive all my enthusiasm for its future.