Kevin Howard

Julie Wake

Open Letter to Executive Director Julie Wake, Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, 

And to Cape Cod Safe-Artiste Supreme Richard Neal 

Silence will be your likely response to this letter and attached watercolor, both critical of you and posted on the internet here:  wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com.  

Silence is always the likely response of those at the helm when questioned and challenged by unconnected, common citizens.  Silence is the response of those who do NOT believe in the fundamental cornerstones of democracy:  freedom of speech and vigorous debate.  

“HAC[K] Staffer Julie Wake Appointed as Arts Foundation Executive Director” provoked me to create the watercolor.  Of course, the Cape Cod Times didn’t have the brains to realize what “HAC Staffer” could imply.  So, I added the K.  

Both this letter and watercolor will also appear in next issue of The American Dissident.  Fear not, however!  The journal has been banned by the Clams Library System of Cape Cod.  In fact, I’d even offered a free subscription to Lucy Loomis, director of Sturgis Library, my neighborhood library.  Loomis not only rejected it, but ended up deciding to permanently ban me “for the safety of the staff and public” and all the writing by other poets and writers published in the journal, whom one must also assume to be potential dangers to the staff and public.  Do you care?  Well, we both already know the answer to that.  

Now, imagine if you actually possessed the unusual democratic openness to permit satire of the local Cape Cod arts and literary scene into the gates of your new Arts Foundation fiefdom?  Well, if that were the case, I suppose I’d be out of “business,” as a local critic.  Over the past six years, I’ve been testing the waters of the art and literary scene on Cape Cod.  Sadly, those waters have proven to be 100% murky (i.e., absolutely safe for political hacks, cultural marms, educrats, and other PC-bottle feeding adults.  Art on Cape Cod has become 100% commercially-acceptable, and that is the very crux of the problem confronting art today:  innocuousness okay/criticism not okay.  Period.   

When it comes to the ARTS, few journalists, if any at all, ever question and challenge  the iron-grip of commerce and the PC-mentality keeping the Arts innocuously safe.  Instead, they simply publish vacuous statements like “To further the Arts Foundation’s mission to strengthen and promote Cape Cod’s arts and culture, Wake spends every day connecting with members and donors, reviewing marketing and business development opportunities, and finding innovative ways to share and promote the arts and culture scene on Cape Cod.”  

Unsurprisingly, you, Julie Wake, stated: “I’ve always been committed to working in creative environments, and marketing and business development have filled that professional need.” And your anointed prize-winner Richard Neal concluded: “Winning the inaugural Arts Foundation of Cape Cod Artist Fellowship was a wonderful event for me. In practical terms, the grant money paid most of my studio rent for the year. The award helped even more in peripheral ways—I had an exhibition at the Cape Cod Museum of Art and through that show and the media many more people became aware of my art and what I do. Please support the Arts Foundation which does so much to raise cultural awareness and strengthen the Arts on Cape Cod.”  

Finally, I am not a hater.  I am not a violent man.  I have no police record.  I NEVER make threats.  I am not an Islamist.  I am not a Trump fan, though definitely not a fan of congenital liar Hillary either.  YET, “for the safety of the staff and public,” my very civil rights are being denied here on Cape Cod because I am not permitted to attend any cultural or political events held at my neighborhood library, though I am forced to pay taxes that help support it.  In essence, I dared question and challenge a local autocrat, something upsetting to Cape Cod autocrats in general, thus “for the safety of the staff and public.”  Nice ploy, n'est-ce pas?   

John Bonanni

Hrant R. Russian

Money, money, money!  Is that what art has become on Cape Cod?  Sadly, it appears so.  “With all of these positives it is hard to even think that we are anywhere near the apocalypse of art on Cape Cod,” noted Clive Beasley in his comment on “Cape Cod Museum of Art faces mountain of debt,” which appeared in Cape Cod Times, which refuses to report on my being permanently trespassed from Sturgis Library for having expressed an opinion in writing.  Yet, isn’t money, money, and commerce, commerce the “apocalypse” for art?  Beasley further states he has “yet to hear anyone say, ‘We do not want to have an art museum on Cape Cod’.”  Well, if money, money, and commerce, commerce is indeed what art has come to be on the Cape, as it sure as hell seems, then let me be the first to say I don’t want an art museum on the Cape, especially if funded with taxpayer dollars.  There, Mr. Beasley, now you’ve heard it.

What is needed at the museum is not a “business-oriented leader with a talent for fundraising,” but rather a democracy-oriented leader with a talent for encouraging rude truth, vigorous debate, and real freedom of expression in art.  Such a director would likely be willing to work for a lot less than the Joe or Jill-average art director.  Rather than force money out of the public’s pockets via Massachusetts Cultural Council, the NEA, etc. to help finance the museum debt, why not have one or several of those pro-Obama Cape Cod multi-millionaires foot the bill.  Hell, it would be tax free! 

Over a year ago, I’d written a critical (questioning and challenging) letter to Elizabeth Ives Hunter, Executive Director, and Hrant R. Russian, President of the Board of Trustees of the museum.  Neither, of course, responded.  Hunter has since resigned (forced out for lack of money-raising prowess). The letter is still pertinent and follows: 

Your statements in the Cape Cod Museum of Art brochure are vacuous and self-congratulating. Does not art deserve more than the smiley-face vacuity of politicians? What are “outstanding artists”? Should our nation’s citizens simply open wide and swallow without ever questioning and challenging such terms? Can an artist, who questions and challenges the art community, as I do here, actually rise to become one of your “outstanding artists” to be displayed at your museum? Thus, we finally begin to define the term.

What does “operating for the benefit of the public” imply? Who in fact is the “public”? Is it exclusively formed by the herds of obedient sheep who open wide and swallow? By criticizing you, am I still part of the “public”? Or has that automatically rendered me persona non grata or "enemy of the people," to borrow the Soviet gulag term?  What does “held in trust for the public” mean? As an individual thinker and artist, I’d be much more interested in art that is not “held in trust for the public” by art gatekeepers like you and Lucy Loomis, director of Cape Cod Cultural Council and Sturgis Library.  [Loomis just informed me she was, and no longer is, director of the Mid-Cape Cultural Council.  Thus, I erred.  Oddly, she has failed to correct me regarding her hypocritical collection development policy.  Evidently, I must not have erred with that regard.  See http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2012/06/lucy-loomis.html.]

From my experience with art and literary gatekeepers, it is likely you will not understand anything written in this email at all, whose purpose is not to convince you but rather to make a statement for the public record.  Here’s several more questions for you: Why do art managers on the Cape always seem to wear ties and jackets? Is it not odd that art seems to be paired with the bourgeois game of golf today, as in your Friends of the Cape Cod Museum Golf Tournament? Should not art be more than paintings of hydrangeas, boats, lobster shacks, nudes, and seascapes? It seems that you willingly participate in the widespread banality, subservience, and castration of art today. Why do you tend to support subservient and castrated artists? Well, I certainly know the answer to that one… and so do the apparatchiks at the local Chamber of Commerce.

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Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:38:16 +0000
From: sturgislibrary@comcast.net
To: todslone@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Cape Cod Art Museum featured in this week's American Dissident blog entry

Mr. Slone:
There are two incorrect statements in your latest blog post. There is no Cape Cod Cultural Council -- there are regional and town Cultural Councils on the Cape; the one for Barnstable and Yarmouth is called the Mid-Cape Regional Cultural Council. I stepped down from the MCRCC over a year and a half ago. Their current President is Becky Lawrence.
https://www.mass-culture.org/lcc_public.aspx
https://www.mass-culture.org/Mid-Cape
There is no need to send us notifications about your blog posts -- if we want to subscribe, we will do so.
Thank you.

Lucy Loomis, Library Director
Sturgis Library, Barnstable Village
http://www.sturgislibrary.org
508-362-8448