COVID-19 forcing Alton Mill management to think outside the box

March 19, 2020 · 0 Comments

Written By CONSTANCE SCRAFIELD

It began with a frantic telephone call: “You know, after a couple of months, we won’t able to pay our mortgage. The government talks about helping out the little guy and small businesses, but big business is sucking up millions. What d’you think’ll be left for anybody else. My concerts are cancelled and my wife’s classes are cancelled…”

Pretty scary.

There has been a lot of talk about working people being out of work in every sort of business, not just the arts, naturally. The businesses themselves are not welcoming customers any more than they are bringing their workers back, so, how will they pay their bills either?

A number of $82 Billion has been named as the compensator for all this loss, but the machinations of obtaining any may well be complicated. How does one count the ways of proven lost income or will the giving be so open handed that scoundrels will have a field day, like the people who decided to “scalp” toilet paper on Kijiji?

The fact is that the money being handed out to us in order to save our skins is still money borrowed on the tax payers dollars but the good news is that our tax dollar borrowing is coming back to benefit us in this emergency.

An artist with a studio at the Alton Mill Arts Centre said, “I can’t think what I’ll do – I’m just in shock with this situation. It all happened so quickly. The Mill closed but even if it wasn’t, we would have to be.”

The CBC reported musicians are losing the money they depend on for the year, disappearing in lost tours as venues everywhere close.

A conversation by telephone with Jeremy Grant, co-owner of the Alton Mill, revealed the struggle and ideas for dealing with the many aspects this pandemic is presenting.

Said Mr. Grant, “We’ve arranged our own internal phone call about how we’re going to manage the financial aspect. I don’t really want to get into that at this time. We don’t have much to say because we haven’t had the conversation yet.”

He told us, with some sadness, “Monday was the day we had to make the call about how we’re going to do this. To be honest, we, as in the owners and the tenants, everybody has to grapple with this in their own way.

“The artists are free to use their studios or have a workshop with one or two people. They all have access to their own spaces. A lot of artists don’t need the studios to have work shops,. They have those at home and just use their studios to sell their art. “

He said, “At the end of the day, of course, we have to monitor every situation to see what needs to be done.

“We’re just trying to get our heads around it,” he continued, ready to speculate with us, “We could keep the arts going the virtual ways; I’m thinking about having a cyber Spring Open House. I’m not sure how that would work.

“It goes beyond the idea of just selling art,” he said, coming into what makes him the defender of art that he is, “This is about our mental well being. I have to find ways: we’ll have to come through with the internet, to provide ways for people to do something more than just watching TV and worrying about the virus.”

We spoke about the suggestion in the Mill’s announcement email, reminding people to go outside and enjoy the tails around the mill and the properties.

He elucidated, “Obviously, not just the mill trails. The Public Health officer in B.C. [Dr. Bonnie Henry] has been all the news. She’s the one who I heard say go out and be outdoors.

“On Monday,” Mr. Grant recalled, “when the call was made to close the mIll, there wasn’t a state of emergency. Two days ago, I was still thinking we could stay open. Now it’s bordering on ludicrous to think we could.”

He went to consider the online options, “I think the idea of some sort of online art activities – art festival – collective, we could see how to make that happen .”

Meanwhile, the original studio of the mill, Gallery Gemma, is open

Located on the ground floor, owner, Anne Marie Warburton, said, “We’re open. I have my own entrance.”

Her subsequent email notice to her customers and others, explained that they are there doing custom work and repairs at the gallery and, so, decided to keep their doors open. With respect to social distancing, etc, they do note that there are never “crowds” attending Gallery Gemma.

Staff at the gallery we spoke to said, “We’re open ‘til Sunday and then, we’ll re-evaluate.”

Artists are encouraged to boost their on line presence for the duration of the shut down, to take it on as artists that our purpose in life is, in part, to lighten and enrich the lives of others with our vision.

A recent call from Xplornet to one person’s household was to say that they are increasing data use – no doubt other servers will do as much.

Along with the all the diversions on line – get some exercise.