Is the current economic climate right for this?

"Scottish artists offered funds to get away from it all in Highland retreats" reports the Guardian.

"Up to 1,000 artists, musicians and writers are to be offered government-funded residencies on remote Scottish islands, at art centres and Highland retreats in a new programme to fund new work.

The Guardian has learned that government arts agency Creative Scotland will this month unveil what it calls Europe's most ambitious artists' residencies initiative, one of several new funding plans supported by Edinburgh ministers.

The Creative Futures programme will support about 200 painters, dancers, poets, film-makers and visual artists each year over the next three to five years. They will be funded to work alone or as part of public arts projects in Scotland, elsewhere in the UK, or overseas. Arts executives hope the £1m-a-year initiative will find future winners of the Turner prize such as previous Scottish recipients Susan Philipsz and Douglas Gordon, and fund new writing and feature-length films."

Full article here. Our correspondent who noticed this article wondered how this would go down apart from badly in the current economic climate. Could it be perceived as a case of "Let them eat artists" suggests our regular Gurnite. This observer believes that the concept is good but the timing is all wrong, and wonders what council grasscutters and binmen about to be paid off in the Highlands might think about it for example.