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05/24/2006: "A New Foundation?" by Jose Freitas Cruz
In the weeks since my last post very little painting has happened and a great deal of running around took over the quiet routine I was starting to enjoy at the studio. Together, Rui, Fernando and I have been preparing things for a meeting with someone who might be interested in backing up the idea of the Arts Centre. If all goes well we’ll be creating a foundation [a Trust I believe is the more correct legal term in English] – a structure that would allow us to think Big as many of you suggested in your encouraging comments. Many thanks to all for pushing us this far in this direction! I am not very keen on Associations which, in Portugal, tend to be tedious affairs - time consuming and all too often brought to a standstill through catering to too many disparate egos that call out for democracy and the right to be heard but never agree on a common agenda for the greater good of the whole group! The legal framework of a Foundation/Trust grants its creators greater power in defining the vision and keeping it on track. Those who want to join in do so because they believe in the vision and adhere to the philosophy that can bring it about. There is very little time wasted on petty egos. I like that. The foundation is not there for the benefit of its creators or members but for the pursuit of its mission, and whatever benefit we get back individually only comes from the level of success we [as a team] are able to lay bare in coming as close as possible to the vision.
Each one of us has been doing what he can to have as many pieces in place as possible by the time our prospective sponsor arrives. Rui and Fernando have been dealing mostly with contacting people in different fields of expertise that will be required to make an Arts Centre function at the administrative level, but also getting artists in different areas to commit to collaborating in whatever way they can. I have compiled the legislation together and translated it into English along with the project guidelines to present at the meeting. The three of us together have been networking: contacting existing associations and other public entities operating in the field of Art to see how they are doing things and to see if collaborations are desired and desirable.
[Rui Aço and Fernando Vidal with artist Marol d'Evora, delegate from the Alentejo]Together we drove down one Sunday into the Alentejo, a region of soft rolling hills that extends beyond the Tagus – além Tejo – to the border with Spain where the terrain becomes distinctively harsher and the cork trees scarcer - even in a Europe without borders there is no doubt Portugal ends there. The National Association of Fine Artists was having a conference and Rui, who was recently appointed delegate for the Lisbon area, wanted to present the [OD] project to the current President and wished that Fernando and I meet a few of the other delegates.
The morning sessions revolved around the topic of the fine-artist as a professional [a topic dear to this forum] and the assembly was informed about the new legislation regarding fiscal obligations, effects of non-compliance, benefits of compliance, and pitfalls some of the galleries lay out for the unknowing artist: such as the common practice amongst some galleries here of selling a painting to a client for the catalogue price [VAT included] and demanding from the artist that they pass a receipt for the full amount when they only get a percentage. Oohs! and aahs! escaped from the dumbfounded audience when they realised that they had been taking the brunt of the fiscal burden well beyond loosing out on 40%, 50% sometimes even 60% of their production.
We were also informed of the ways in which artists are indirectly penalised if they don’t declare earnings from their art in three successive years. How so? Let us just say, hypothetically, that a government commission were to come your way, a grant or an invitation to represent the country abroad under the auspices of a government agency, what then? Well, in those three years you decided to declare 0 earnings because you were fortunate not to have been asked for a receipt, the lollipop could be taken away from you on the grounds that you ceased to be a professional artist in the eyes of the government.
We were told of the importance of getting our artists’ names registered with the SPA [a body that protects the rights of authorship and provides a number of services, nationally and internationally] lest we do not want to discover some years down the line that our name and our work is not unique and someone else has reserved the right to use it. In our ever-shrinking world the chances of your name being found on somebody you never suspected half-way across the globe has increased dramatically!
And, and, and… we were reminded of many things many of those present were not aware of. What startled me most was that so many couldn’t give a hoot and were even flippant towards those of us who tried to make them see how the changing times required a new awareness and a new stance, and how these changing times could afford them greater control of their lives and destinies as artists if they would only look at the word profession with less aversion. [As I am writing this I notice Paul Dorrell has posted an interesting blog and drawn comments that come very close to this topic, but it’s too late now to start a new one – just consider this a new comment].
In Portuguese – as I am sure in other languages – what you profess is equivalent to what you believe in, to what you own up to! and because you do, you give yourself wholeheartedly to it. We should not confuse the place where our urge to create originates and the way we go about materialising the vision – a place within us of unimpeded freedom and unconformity with the prevailing norms that leads to questioning and experimenting and the new – with that other place beyond the studio where most of us feel uncomfortable but is the place where we are called to own up to what we do, to profess our passion. They are two very distinct things. One is the fuel that drives us, the other is the road[s] we can choose to travel along, or not. In the end we alone decide which of these roads to take [if any at all], but the moment we do so we declare our passion, we manifest our desire to be seen as artists and we profess our inner belief that our art will carry us through life with a certain degree of dignity. We assume our profession.
In that other place - in the real world beyond our studios - the more we become aware of the pitfalls to avoid and the inescapable obligations of the common citizen that have to be met, and the better we learn to use the tools at our disposal for the undertaking of our life’s work [the better we know the rules of the game as Walter King put it recently] the more we will manage to create our own efficient grounds for the meaningful and successful profession of our passion … and still remain somewhat in control. In our ever-shrinking, increasingly controlled world, this is what distinguishes those who get somewhere from those who don’t [in any occupation], and no one will ever make me believe that you and I are exempt from this diabolical mechanism simply because we are artists.
