Arts and business go hand in hand at Canadore.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: Canadore College

A unique program designed to produce business-savvy craftsmen will soon be available to the next generation of fine arts students at North Bay's Canadore College.

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Based on several years' worth of requests from advisory groups consisting of former graduates, industry professionals and local craftsmen, as well as the need to provide a strong arts and culture component to the college, Canadore is planning to open a full-time Craft and Design program in September 2007.

Subject to provincial approval, the program will offer not only traditional fine arts education in such fields as pottery, jewelry, glassblowing and visual media, but also in the basics of business development and management.

"We're hoping this will narrow the gap between graduate artists and mass production of their work," says David Himmelman, dean of Business, Communication Arts, Hospitality, Recreation and Leisure.

"It will help the creation of fine arts to meet with reality, making them viable not just as artists, but as business people."

Drawing upon the school's existing business curriculum, Craft and Design students will also be instructed in the economics of production and shipping, as well as the importance of advertising and websites.

Himmelman says this mix of business and art education is unique in Ontario, where the only other full-time fine arts program is at Sheridan College.

"These artists have the opportunity to work for themselves and do incredibly well, and hopefully we'll help them to achieve that."

The new program will also require the hiring of an additional full-time faculty member, as well as a number of local experts and a technologist for the 15 students in the first class. Enrolment may increase to 25 students in the coming years.

The use of professional artists as instructors will be a key component, says Keith Campbell, Canadore's artist-in-residence and fine arts instructor.

"Experience is everything," he says. "If we as teachers can't make it as artists, how can we expect our students to do so?"

Campbell has waited 20 years to witness the revival of the school's full-time arts program, which was initially created in the 1970s, but reduced to a part-time offering in the early 1980s for budgetary reasons.

He says the renewal of the program is...