The Coastal Tourist Trap
It didn't take much figuring out to realize that most of the pieces in this art gallery display had been carefully designed to trap the daily transient burma tourist population. One piece, stated on the little card beside it as being "totally spectacular" consisted of nine very small canvasses evenly spaced on the wall. The type of canvasses you find at three for a dollar in the local dollar store and on them, a line of varying thickness and colour travelled as though it had been painted on one single canvass. The paint looked like household latex and the remainder of the canvas surfaces had been left blank. I studied this "spectacular" line for some minutes and then my eyes moved towards the small pink paper price tag, which boldly stated; Reduced to $390.00 and I assumed it meant plus tax. Was this a bargain or what I wondered?
Not too far from this amazing work of art stood a strange looking object on top of a little pedestal table. It consisted of four tubular kaleidoscopes, like the ones our children used to play with, and each of them pointed downwards to face a small spherical light bulb. The whole thing had been mounted on a rather nice metal tray and that had been adorned with a range of coloured glass beads. I peered through two of the mysterious tubes expecting to see some miraculous image of fine art but all I could see was the usual triangular mix of transparent colours the same as all the other kaleidoscopes I have looked through in the past. Never the less, some highly skilled local artist has spent time, imagination and maybe a little money on producing this masterpiece and that is probably why its price tag had been set at only $649.00. The mind boggles at such exquisite art and more so at why any self respecting tourist in their right mind would even contemplate paying such a price for this childish monstrosity.
I wandered on through the maze of individually created artefacts in search of that elusive bargain which had to be hiding somewhere. On one wall there was a larger unframed canvas with an all black picture of what looked to me like the back of a man's head with an afro hairstyle and it was all set against a brilliant orange background. There's no accounting for taste I suppose and as this one must have measured around two feet square, it really had to be worth the asking price of only $725.00 to someone. In my mind, I could not help but wonder how this fair sized gallery actually survived. Taking into account that it is located in a small coastal village where the main activity is created by the ferry terminal. Granted, some of the many travellers on the ferries had to be tourists and out of them, some may even spend enough time before their ferry departs to actually visit the gallery. However, I really had to ask myself the question; Why would a tourist, who is obviously not from this area, come in here and purchase any of these pieces at these prices, when none of the pieces actually provided representation of the area, the scenery, the culture or even the province? Could it be that completely unknown to me, there is actually a hidden market for a travelling band of wealthy total head cases who visit such galleries and pay exorbitant prices for a range of dollar store has beens?
Leaving the gallery to walk down to the ocean, I started to realize that even although the coastal towns of British Columbia are both beautiful and scenic, many of their stores were failing badly in providing the types of fairly priced good that tourists really search for. Granted, there are many stores that do offer wonderful art pieces and magnificent works done by artists from our first nation's communities, but alas they are few and far between. This spectacular province is filled with many good and some great artists and yet, when I go to the places our tourists go, I am faced with a range of sometimes cheap and nasty goods, all with highly inflated price tags and specifically designed to trap the poor visitors. If we are selling to tourists, perhaps we should realize we are Canadians and as such, our visitors really do want to purchase quality goods that provide them with both value and memories or their visit. Namely, goods that are made or created in Canada and goods they will be pleased to display in their homes. Anyone can set a trap, but it is known fact that for every creature caught by the trap, a great many more will pass by and avoid it.
