"All art is quite useless" -Oscar Wilde

"Don't romaticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matter is what you leave on the page." -Zadie Smith

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting, struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness" -George Orwell

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Prairie Scene

My latest Ink piece is about an arts festival that the National Art Centre is putting on in the spring. It, two years in the making, will feature 500 artists from across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. That’s all I’m going to get into here – you can read the article.
While doing research I read both the NAC’s press releases and many other articles. I was shocked to see that many other news outlets simply copied sections of the press releases word -for-word.  That’s pretty lazy journalism.
I wrote this article with a fuzzy head, induced by way too many late nights, cancelled interviews, and approaching deadlines. Although I wasn’t my sharpest, it turned out pretty well (and I didn't even plagiarize any press releases!).
The Johanna interview was particularly interesting – she gave such thoughtful and well-articulated answers. Once again it reminded me how fascinating it is to talk to artists about their art. The amount of thought and reflection that goes into it is often staggering and always surprising.

-Noah out

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