Finances are a constant, troubling challenge for cultural venues in New Brunswick. About a quarter of the province’s museums, galleries, libraries and cultural spaces say their infrastructure is not in good physical condition. And at the same time, more than half of New Brunswick’s artists live in small towns or rural areas, where exactly half of government-owned cultural facilities can be found.
Those are some of the findings in a report on the Impacts and Challenges of Cultural Venues in New Brunswick, commissioned by ArtsLink NB, the Association acadienne des artistes professionelles, and the Owens Art Gallery, and released at the end of 2024.
CHMA checked in with two of Tantramar’s long-lived cultural institutions to hear how the report echoes their own challenges in infrastructure and funding. Judy Morison of the Westmorland Historical Society says core funding that helps keep the doors open at the Keillor House and St. James Textile museums has been stagnant for decades. And Struts Gallery director Paul Henderson says the artist-run centre is currently working on planning and funding a major renovation project for the more than 100-year-old building that’s been their home since 2017.
Stagnant core funding
In historic Dorchester, the Westmorland Historical Society owns and operates two museums and has saved a number of other village buildings, including two which it still owns: the Bell Inn and the Payzant Card building where the Dorchester library now resides.
The nonprofit, charitable society has been around since 1960, was “one of the first community museums that was ever set up” in the province, according to Society vice president Judy Morrison.
“Our mandate is to collect and preserve and display materials and artifacts, but we actively promote heritage through a lot of cultural initiatives, programs, workshops, festivals, and daily programming,” says Morrison.
From a day-to-day operating perspective, the museum buildings are in good shape, says Morrison, but down the road there will be a need for some “structural work” on the Keillor House. In 2005, the Society coordinated a $500,000 project on the front wall of the historic building, and more work is needed on other walls. Morrison is doubtful that the province’s heritage programs will be able to cover a major project. “They themselves do not get the funding they need,” says Morrison. “So we will have to go after larger funding sources to be able to deal with that project.”
Morrison says that while capital funding has become more elusive, operating funding has been outright stagnant. She says the society gets a small, core funding grant from the provincial government, which has “not changed one dollar in 20 years.”
“You’re still paying for heat and light and oil and keeping the doors open,” says Morrison. “All of that goes up, and the funding never changes.”
When the museum was first established in the 60s, the province paid for “anything that needed to be done,” says Morrison. But these days each small project requires an application. And even if approved, grants typically only cover 50% of repair and renovation costs.
“You’re always living on the edge of trying to cover your staff, cover your building,” says Morrison. “You need multi-year operational funding, like a three to five year funding plan, so that you can look at some long term stability in your planning,” she says. “And that would help so many of our cultural organizations.”
Major refurbishment in the works for 7 Lorne
Like the Westmorland Historical Society, Struts Gallery on Lorne Street in Sackville owns its building and covers some of those operating expenses through rental units. But Struts is newer to the building ownership and maintenance game.
The 45-year-old artist run centre purchased its building at 7 Lorne Street in 2017 after more than a decade of planning and fundraising. The move has provided some financial stability, but a big challenge lays ahead. A major capital refurbishment is needed on the more than 100-year-old building.
Struts director Paul Henderson says the planning and vision for the project has been ongoing for years.
“We’ve done a fair amount of work,” he says, working with a Struts building committee and different architects. The organization has “gotten a lot of feedback from the community and done a fair amount of consultation.” But there isn’t a “perfect floor plan” just yet.
“There’s a lot of space, and there’s a lot of potential,” says Henderson. “A large part of what we’re trying to do is make the building more accessible, number one.”
Henderson says ideally Struts would be able to use some of its second floor space for programming. “But if we’re going to invest in that space to be programmable and accessible to the public, then we want to be able to make it wheelchair accessible as well,” says Henderson. “So that’s a huge component of the project.”
There’s also an environmental component, says Henderson. “How can we make this the most sustainable, but also affordable? So you’re kind of weighing those two things, whether that comes to solar panels or a heat pump or what have you.”
The scope of the project is significant. “To do it all at once, properly, in a comprehensive way, you’d be over a million dollars, if not two,” says Henderson. That means the project will require significant federal funding, in addition to provincial contributions and a capital campaign.
Over the past few years Henderson says Struts has secured small pieces of funding to cover “research and consultation stuff”, and so “there is momentum.”
“The more of that we do, the better our vision becomes,” says Henderson. “The more we can articulate our needs, the more accurate our costing is, the better chance we have of obtaining one of these federal infrastructure grants.”
Significant impact
And when it comes down to it, Henderson says, what Struts brings to the table in Sackville and the wider New Brunswick arts community is worth the investment.
“We have a 40-plus year history of programming in this town and [are] significantly recognized by our peers,” says Henderson. “We have very stable core funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and from the province, and all that money is peer assessed. So on a national scale, we’re very highly regarded.”
And on a local level, “the participation that we see from all age groups in a variety of different communities, the impact we’re having on audiences and engagement in the town, I think is also significant.”
Judi Morrison says that Westmoreland Historical Society museums, and their built heritage holdings like the Bell Inn, have helped define and maintain Dorchester’s built heritage in the Village Centre. And the museums do double duty by providing valuable tourism products, and opportunities to bring together local residents.
“The local people come in, as well as visitors and tourists,” says Morrison, “so it provides a great focus for an economic generator as well as a cultural generator.”
Ongoing problems
Ultimately, says Morrison, many of the issues and challenges identified in Impacts and Challenges of Cultural Venues in New Brunswick have been ongoing. As she read the report, Morrison recalled a presentation she gave in 2012 during the development of New Brunswick’s cultural policy.
“When I read through this report, I thought, that sounds awfully familiar,” says Morrison. “I went back and looked at the presentation that we did in 2012 and it’s a lot of the same thing. We haven’t solved a lot of problems.”
Henderson says he’d like to see the report get read by politicians and staff at every level of government, right down to municipal councillors. “It presents really concrete data that can be used to make the case for supporting the arts,” says Henderson, “and also the dire need of so many of the institutions in the province.”
