Enjoying the recession, artists?

Well, here’s a chance to tell people just how much you’re enjoying it. McKnight Foundation LINC + Helicon Collaborative are is polling experiences of individual artists within the recession. (Helicon helped design the survey, and McKnight Foundation is helping distribute it to MN artists).

Here’s hoping it’ll do some good, somehow.

7 Responses to “Surveying Artists to Find Out Just How Bad It’s Gotten”

  1. laura zabel says:

    Actually this survey is being conducted by Leveraging Investments In Creativity (LINC) and was designed by Helicon. McKnight is one of many organizations helping them disseminate the survey to artists.

  2. admin says:

    Thanks for the clarification, Laura. With all the organizations involved, it was inevitable that I’d get confused.

  3. pilar says:

    Things have gotten much worse. Here in California they are laying off teachers and, of course, the arts went bye-bye a long time ago. I think if you want kids to do well in school you should throw out everything but art, PE, theater, shop and home ec. That way kids grow up knowing how to do things and all the reading, writing and math would be part of those activities. But that’s not why I’m writing….how bad has it gotten? I had to go get a “day job” 4 years ago, my art fell out of favor I guess and I couldn’t support myself anymore by doing shows and gallery sales. But still I’m asked all the time to donate art for charity events because I have so much laying around. And we act like sheep and give the stuff away! When I protested and said that I wasn’t being compensated for my work I ended up looking like scrooge! Sp what happened? I donated a piece and then I bought another one during the event because I couldn’t stand seeing a friends work not get bid on…there were 100 pieces in the auction - all given for free. At one time there was a reserve price for the artist, anything over that reserve was donated. Now no reserve is given….I don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling from these and I don’t see any value to me as an artist.

  4. Carl Nelson says:

    Where have you been Michael? I haven’t seen any updates since last year. On the playwrights front a new study came out and was published in book form: Outrageous Fortune. Renumeration and production possibilities are so much more dismal than was even imagined. But, we keep putting up our little shows here in Seattle.

    Best, Carl Nelson

  5. admin says:

    Thanks for the note, Carl. Indeed, it’s been almost a year since I last posted on the Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America. Part of the reason for this stoppage is I reached a saturation point in constantly searching for and posting bad news about the arts. As the recession ramped up, I got more and more depressed reading about the great sweep-under-the-rug that was our nation’s approach to the arts. I just couldn’t take it anymore. And I simply stopped posting. Several times since then I’ve tried to raise the necessary ire to start blogging again; several times I’ve considered a revamping of CAFA’s basic mission; once, right around the time I needed to renew my server space subscription, I even thought of scrapping this blog altogether with a grandiose and (perhaps) overly bombastic G.B.C.W. — all to no avail. This blog is currently the victim of basic blog inertia (blogertia?). And this is unlikely to change anytime soon, since last December my wife gave birth to a lovely, and very time-consuming, baby girl. So, I guess I’m saying, all you suffering and struggling and failing artists, my heart is with you, but unfortunately it looks like I will be, for the foreseeable future, out of the game.

  6. William Barry Roberts says:

    Wow! What a fantastic blog. This is a pessimists dream, a collective affirmation of the total rejection of the visual arts by a recession-laden society. Americans hate visual artists most of all, a disdain which far pre-dates the recession and is only increasing with it.

    I exhibited alongside some very big name contemporary artists this past year and did not see one sale. It is interesting to see a “de-glossed” view of the dire situation artists find themselves in.

  7. Janet Silk says:

    Hi Michael,

    If possible, please leave your blog up and running, even if you don’t have time or inclination to post anymore. It’s a wonderful site for scope of content, quality of writing, humor, angst, reality-checkism and reflection. I enjoy reading it very much!

    Thank you!

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