My mailbox here has been bombarded with round robin e-mails from local artists fearful that the imminent round of spending cuts will fall upon our Arts facilities in my biggest local town. If this happened we would loose our local 'innovative, experiental art space' and no doubt a number of the Arts officers associated with its set up and day to day running. The e mail asked me to write to my local MP, and whip up a petition on their behalf; so I did. I won't transcribe the letter in full but the gist of it is: We run a commercial arts business that contributes to the local ecomony in terms of jobs and tax revenues; it is in short an asset. In setting this up, (despite requests for assistance), we recieved neither a penny, a visit or even a phone call from anybody working at the public expense, in the Arts service. Since opening in 2006, and building our business through the worst recession in memory we have never recieved an enquiry to either see how we were getting on , or even to see if our premises could be used for local arts initiatives or activities (it is by the way a large Victorian School). The problem I think, is that we do traditional painting, and are self funding; outside of the pale of public art if you like. We bring arts visitors to the area from as far afield as America, South East Asia and as you may be aware, even have developing links with the national art press. During this period the local Arts service have been focussing on video installations, experiential exhibitions and our local arts open competition, which seems hell bent on promoting the avant garde. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but why on earth does it have to rely on the public purse? If the art selected was good enough to sell , or the art displayed good enough to warrant the sale of tickets, catalogues or generate private commissions for the artists involved then there would surely be no need for public funding? Surely the fact it has to be funded says something about the product; and don't forget Picasso and Turner managed to be avant garde and self funding. Poets and authors have to write books that sell, pianists practice music they can perform in return for money, surely painters and artists can't expect to be exempt from material considerations in these times? The best endorsement of any creative art is the fact that somebody unconnected with the arts will be sufficiently moved or inspired by it to contribute to its future by supporting the artist. And if you say 'art should not be about money but passion' I agree wholeheartedly; my painting was always about painting for the love of painting first. My day job as a tutor and writer allows me to paint what I want - commercial or not - once I have earned the means to do so. We live and work here in one of the most beautiful , most touristy areas of the country; every small town has galleries, the opportunities for visual artists are amongst the best in the UK, so in short if you can't make it a commercial artist in North Norfolk, then it's time to either pack it in or get a job that pays for the hobby. Good art will always find a buyer.