Want to know something the Government doesn’t want you to know?  National is quietly reneging on its 2008 election promise to maintain a successful business training scheme for people on the dole.  How surprising: one would think they would champion a scheme that is proven to turn beneficiaries into business owners, creating jobs for themselves and potentially others.  Particularly in a time of high unemployment.

Could the problem be that the scheme in question, Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment (Pace), is aimed at the creative industries?  That for all our celebrated film and fashion success, creative businesses are still not taken seriously as money earners by the Government?  No, that can’t be right’ John Key would have turned away Warner Bros quick smart if so.

Let us be clear here: Pace is not designed to support painters starving in garrets while they turn out what might be their masterpieces.  Instead people including experienced web designers, graphic artists, curators, musicians, actors, film editors, advertising creatives and, yes, even journalists, attend several intensive fulltime business planning courses during the time they are assigned to the scheme (now six months, whittled down from a year).  Over the past year, Pace participants in Auckland have found work as television production assistants, freelance clothing designers, camera operators, industrial product developers and so on.

Yet, according to Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett, Pace participants are “turning down available work to follow an artistic dream” and “now is not the time” to be doing that.  I’ve never heard journalism called an “artistic dream” before, so I’m chuffed.  Cheers, Paula!

School leavers, take note:  the Government doesn’t want you applying for any of its funded design or writing courses, let alone its performance or art schools.  Those things only foster artistic dreams – read: unrealistic luxuries.  Skip those three to six years of tertiary study and go directly to your local supermarket applying for “available work” instead.

For – and again, I quote reports of Ms Bennett – people on “welfare” should “get a job – any job – because that’s the first step to a better job”

Is house cleaning the first step to a solicitor’s practice for an unemployed lawyer?  As Jacinda Ardern, Labour’s spokeswoman for employment points out, “It will be a waste for everyone if someone with skills ends up in an unskilled job that someone else might need.”

Pace participants work in a large sector, a sector which NZ Trade and Enterprise still lists as a “growth” industry, and where freelancing is often the norm.

With a few business skills, the potential for self-employment is enormous.

A musician on Pace might be encouraged to teach guitar while the client base for their recording studio builds up: an actor might decide to look for regular singing gigs in between television work.

Pace doesn’t suit all artists – some are happier with part-time jobs which are completely different from the art practice, harbouring their creative energies for their own visions, not their clients’.

The scheme’s goals are not artistic but economic:  participants are taught how to identify, market and exploit money=making potential within their creative skill sets.  But, like a good employee being performance-managed out of a job because secretly her manager doesn’t like her mismatched earrings, time is running out for Pace.  According to media reports, Pace courses could once be found in 13 centres, but are now only offered in Auckland, Hamilton and Dunedin.

The scheme started in 2001; two years later, it had 2027 members and 1200 former participants were working in the creative industries.

Last September, participant numbers had dwindled to 376.  But while participants have decreased by over 80 per cent, the scheme’s cost has decreased by only 40 per cent, from 1.1 million in 2003 to a projected $660,000 this year.  Thus, the scheme gives far less value for money now than before the Government’s deliberate neglect.

Pace is now under review.  No doubt the numbers above will be used to attack the scheme itself, rather than its current management.

Creative People’s Centre  encourages discussion and debate on arts issues.  Please contact us with your response to this article, further information on this topic or on other NZ arts & culture related issues by using our contact form here or by leaving a comment.

There will be a number of Mayoral Candidate Forums held over the next four months and it is imperative that probing questions on arts funding, policies and development are asked, answered and reported on.

The nominations for Auckland’s local body elections officially open on July 23 with elections just four months away.  Check back here for regular updates on issues relating to the arts and details on attending Mayoral Candidate Forums.  If you would like to post your views, questions or concerns regarding the representation of the arts and culture sector in the 2010 mayoral elections you can do so by sending the contact form, available by clicking here.

An important part of this research involves a survey of emerging young arts practitioners throughout the country. If you feel you fit the following description and would like to take part in the survey, please follow this link by clicking here.

The arts practitioners CNZ is interested in will:

• have excelled and/or demonstrated promise in their chosen form of arts practice
• be aged between 18 and 30 years
• have made a positive commitment to the arts i.e. they have made a conscious decision to develop their chosen form of arts practice to a    professional standard
• be in their first five years of committed arts practice
• be actively involved in the arts
• currently ‘doing’, ‘producing’ or ‘supporting’ art, and with a track record of doing so; and/or currently training to further develop their art.

Arts practitioners are defined as artists, writers and practitioners in all forms of arts practice currently recognised through CNZ funding bodies, including heritage-based (e.g. Māori, Pacific or Western arts) and contemporary forms of arts practice (media, digital arts etc.).  The term practitioner also includes people who enable an arts project to occur. This may include producers, managers, technicians, publishers, curators, agents, dealers and community arts organisers. Practitioners are people who may not necessarily classify themselves as “artists”, but who may be necessary for creating, presenting and/or distributing an artwork.

Now in its seventh year of running PACE the Depot has continued to develop and expand its programme as needs and issues are identified, not only among PACE practitioners, but within the creative industries and in response to the demands of an evolving and changing marketplace. The programme now includes a significant module on business practice and marketing, and it also addresses legal issues which are likely to confront creative practitioners, such as intellectual property ownership, contracting and copyright.

While PACE is able to successfully address the identified needs of the significant numbers of self-motivated and focused artists and creative practitioners it has become evident that an apprenticeship or internship programme would benefit those seeking or requiring a more structured and intensive programme which focuses on industry experience and industry knowledge. This would significantly enhance employment opportunities for creative workers as well as meet market needs for trained and experienced creative practitioners. Creative Industries Apprenticeships will also continue to reinforce the credibility of the arts as an occupational choice and an important contributor to the economy.

The paper on Creative Apprenticeships outlines the evolution of the Depot’s support for Creative Apprenticeships.

Creative Apprenticeships09 (299)

The Depot Artspace has been involved in establishing and running employment initiatives for creative people for 12 years and identified the need for Creative Apprenticeships through the gaps in existing education and training programmes. For example, creative people referred to the Depot’s PACE (Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment) were not equipped for employment, without the necessary workplace training or career-specific skills, and therefore ineligible for the programme. Creative Apprenticeships were envisaged as meeting these needs.

The Depot presented a paper in 2006 to the Labour Government and met with PM Helen Clark (Minister of Arts and Culture) and Minister for Tertiary Education Maryan Street to discuss the proposal further. As the wheels of consideration turned slowly in the government cloisters the Depot decided to run its own prototype apprenticeship. Rob was a keen starter, having eschewed tertiary training for a framework that provided him with the freedom to explore his work, the structure that encouraged self-discipline, and the opportunity to diversify, for the sake of sustainability, into other arts enterprises such as curation, exhibition coordination and graphic and website design.

The apprenticeship took place over more than 6 months during which Rob received a private studio along with mentoring with established artists and other creative industry professionals such as web and graphic designers, undertook a small business course and other training opportunities tailored to his personal professional development needs. Rob also undertook some diverse hands-on arts related work for the Depot which gave him the chance to work alongside others and to learn to respond to the needs of a job and of the people requesting a job done. The work included assisting with Satellite Gallery’s internal refurbishment, designing and painting an honours board of bands that used the Depot’s rehearsal room, designing the cover of a CD for the winners of the Intermediate School Battle of the Bands and coordinating and curating an exhibition of young artists which Rob titled Combo Jumbo.

The culmination of Rob’s apprenticeship was an exhibition at Satellite Gallery in Newton, Auckland City. The show, “My Trip Through Belmont”, was a sell-out success. Rob also produced a book of the same name, which he raised funds for and produced, all with the guidance of his accessible Depot mentors, Abby Storey, Paul Walsh, Louise Evans and Linda Blincko.

Rob’s creative apprenticeship was successful because it was developed in and supported by an infrastructure with a long history both of training and mentoring artists and developing creative approaches to assisting artists to sustainability. As well as providing a structured programme tailored to Rob’s needs and interests, the Depot Artspace offered the ongoing support and encouragement of a caring community. There is always someone to talk to and tease out an idea or problem with.

Rob has since had a sell-out exhibition at Smyth Galleries in Auckland and another very popular show in Wellington. A successful 2008 has given him the opportunity to spend the current year exploring further ideas in his practice.