CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS HAS FUNDED "VACUUM" (Patreon)

HOLY * * * * EVERYONE –– THIS JUST IN –– THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS HAS AWARDED FUNDING TO "VACUUM" !!!

Once more for the folks in the back: 

THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS HAS AWARDED FUNDING TO "VACUUM" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW. Just -- WOW.  I am completely blown away right now! I wanted to tell you guys first and share in this moment privately with you all for just a short little period of time before I blast the news to the rest of the world.

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You guys ... I applied for this grant back in OCTOBER 2019.
ALMOST SIX MONTHS AGO.
I had the first little seed of a crazy idea, fleshed it out in the form of an "Explore & Create" grant to request assistance with a research and creation phase for this project, and launched it out into the unknown.
It's hard to get grants.
Competition is steep.
The application process is no joke.
The entire process can seem completely mystifying.
And yet . . .
Here we are. *exploding brain noises*

Any Canadian who has applied for Arts funding from a municipal, provincial, or national body knows just how excruciating it can be to wait for grant results. My personal approach is to work like a maniac on the giant, super-involved applications and then . . . try to forget about it.

In this case, I knew that in order to make this project happen, I would have to apply and submit and then put my own money where my mouth is to make it happen. I was out on a hope and a whim that anything might come back my way with this. I knew that the Notification Deadline for this batch of grants was February 5th. But the days ... and then weeks ... dragged by, with no emails from the CCA popping up in my inbox.

It finally ping!ed into my inbox as I was in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, where I promptly began happy crying and had to sit down for a second because my legs felt like they weren't working properly.   

As one does.

To explain the Canada Council a little more, this is the federal level of the country's arts funding. The Canada Council for the Arts is a Crown Corporation, and it gets its money from "annual appropriations from parliament, donations, and bequests. Its main duty is allotting grants to Canadian artists based on the merits of their applications. The council also funds and administers many of Canada's top arts awards" (Wiki).

I know that while some of my European friends here might not find the concept of public arts funding to be completely foreign, to my American circus friends, the concept of publicly supported arts funding is completely bizarre to the point of being nearly unthinkable. It's humbling and sobering to realize the degree and extent to which support for the arts is woven into so many levels of Canadian society and government. What we have is pretty special.

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All the artists around me who generously donated their time, their experience, their expertise, or helped me with their rates in order to make it possible for me to pay them with what I had ... were doing so out of the goodness of their own weird, sparkly, wonderful little hearts up until this point.

I told everyone that I had applied for grant assistance ... all of them knew that these things are a complete unknown ... and threw themselves into the project wholeheartedly anyways. Which brings me to the part of this that makes me THE PROUDEST OF ALL: I get to EMPLOY these other artists, compensate them well for their time and energy and creativity.

This is magic. 

This is art.

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This means something else pretty special is about to happen:

Part of my application submission included these words: "I have found writing practices to be immensely beneficial to my artistic growth during previous periods of creation, so I will elaborate on my investigation and process through a continuous written practice on my website."

You, dear Patrons, are obviously already quite familiar with this particular bent of mine.
I truly believe that having adjacent practices to a physical practice/movement practice/circus practice deepens our experience and understanding of the things we are pursuing at any given time.

Now, as this project has been awarded, it means that I must share the work that YOU all have been a part of here already with the public: as per my grant application, and therefore part of the conditions of this grant, I must now make my written and vlog posts pertaining to this project PUBLIC.
I hope you'll join me in being as excited about this as I am.
I get to share all that writing with the WORLD!
And, just because I can (and it's not technically breaking the rules ;) ) I'll be making all future VACUUM content an "Early Access" topic for you guys as a concession – family first! ;)
Oh, and – of course – there's still going to be plenty of incoming writing and video for you all that is Patron-only moving forward.
Mongolia is just around the corner! I

Thank you all so, so, so very much for offering me your insights, your thoughts, your comments, your concerns, your jokes, your support, your condolences, during this crazy fortnight of creation. 

Strangeness & Wonder, 

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