Maggie Quinn Art – Spring Garden of Artists on Chaleur Bay

by Margaret Sharon Olscamp Fri. May 31 2024 Dunlop NB Canada

It may seem strange of me to be talking about a Chamber of Commerce on what purports to be an art site. What is happening here is that being an artist, especially if the artists happens to be English-speaking (or m.anglais as some locals call us).

Any attempts to establish myself as an artist, especially a married woman artist has been met with responses ranging from
“It’s nice that you have a hobby to keep you occupied when you’re not looking after your husband and children.” (… yes someone actually said that to me.)
to advice about “growing a business” and offers of various courses I could take (for a price of course) to establish a lucrative art business selling pretty pictures.

The thing is, I tried, many times. I took courses in everything and anything that could remotely help me build a career. I tried and failed at a number of art-related businesses. It was no use. I was neither a successful pretty-picture artist nor a business person. I gathered that hint when I kept getting rejected for government loans and grants that other local artists claimed were an easy target. The only jobs I could get were those nobody else wanted.

So, yes, the business environment is very much part of the picture of an artist’s life. If you don’t fit in somewhere you’ll never survive as an artist. That was why I joined the Chamber of Commerce. I paid my dues, did my share of volunteer work and tried to fit in. Before the next membership renewal period came around I accepted the obvious and didn’t renew my membership.

Getting back to my story about the interview with the office manager, what she had to say was interesting, even though I wasn’t much of a business candidate.

She told me that in order to attract business Bathurst must have a good profile and high visibility. That was precisely where the Bathurst Chamber was focusing its efforts, with an attitude of

“Let’s show them what Bathurst has to offer, and it’s by being continuously in a profile, or heard about, or talked about, not about the City Council fight and not about the ten month strikes, but because we have a lot more to offer here. We have good people. They are willing to work. They are bilingual. Let’s promote that.”

by M.S. Olscamp May 31 2024 11:54 am Atlantic time
(continued in Bathurst Chamber of Commerce – Part 3)