Vol.24, No. 03	Sept. 18, 1998

Study Reveals that Artists Have More Mainstream Status than Stereotype of "Starving Artist"

Survey of 2,200 artists shows they vote, use computers and serve their community; more than half earned less than $7,000 from their art and most supplement income with other work

By Kim Brockway

Few elements of the 19th century myth of the starving artist - elitist in thought and practice, disengaged from society and focused solely on his or her art - characterize today's American artists, according to a new study by the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia's School of the Arts.

Today's artists, according to the study, are involved in their communities, vote in elections, use computers and are planning for retirement. However, less than one third of the artists surveyed earned their major income from art in the previous year, even though nearly 90 percent consider themselves professional artists.

More than 2,200 artists, working in disciplines ranging from painting, sculpture and photography to music, theater, television and literature in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Minneapolis/St. Paul were surveyed for the study "Information on Artists II." Focusing on income, education, community involvement, health coverage, legal and financial needs, technology and professional status, the study marks the first time that the national profile of artists has been broadened to include information other than census data.

The major findings of the study, conducted by [CU professors?] Joan Jeffri with Robert Greenblatt, include:

Artists are highly educated (between 38-43 percent have graduate degrees);

With a mean age of 41, more than half have retirement plans; 79 percent have some kind of health or medical coverage;

60 percent of the artists earn under $7,000 from their art; 45 percent of the artists earn under $3,000 from their art;

Artists of white, non-Hispanic backgrounds fare better economically than black and Hispanic artists;

Artists have strong ties to their communities: more than 75 percent voted in federal and state elections (more than three-quarters are registered Democrats), and more than half volunteer or perform some community service;

75 percent own computers, and over 40 percent use them in relation to their art; Nearly 40 percent of the artists would like to be certified as artists in the way lawyers and doctors are certified; more than 75 percent would find a handbook of "fair practices and standards for artists" useful, and

Striking differences between artists working in different cities: for example, more artists in Los Angeles (13 percent) earn at least $40,000 from their art than artists in other cities (5-8 percent).

The study's major findings transcend disciplines and geographical borders. For example, New York writer, media artist and teacher Terese Svoboda spends 50 hours a week on her art, which yields only 20 percent of her income; she serves on the boards of a day care center and Poet's House and is an advocate with arts and environmental organizations. Los Angeles-based fine and performing artist James Burks earns his income as a producer developing artistic projects and devotes 500 hours a year to the City of Los Angeles, the Urban League and other organizations.

The 1998 study is released a decade after Information on Artists I, a survey of 4,200 artists in ten U.S. cities. The findings of both studies provide comparative benchmarks on the artist's condition in the United States from 1988 to 1997, provide better descriptions of artists' economic and professional status in different disciplines and in different geographic locations, and enable artists and arts agencies to make specific connections between field data and the creation of new programs and the modification of existing ones.

"Perhaps now more than ever," said Jeffri, the study's author, "there continues to be a felt need for reliable, consistent information on artists and their condition in American society, for assistance in translating this information into policies and programs, and for making this information accessible to the artists themselves."