Blog - A 21st Century Profile of Artists From the New York Times

2008-06-16 20:00:02

A 21st-Century Profile: Art for Art’s Sake, and for the U.S. Economy, Too
By SAM ROBERTS Published: June 12, 2008

If all the professional dancers in the
United States stood shoulder to shoulder to form a single chorus line,
it would stretch from 42nd Street for nearly the entire length of
Manhattan. If every artist in America’s work force banded together,
their ranks would be double the size of the United States Army. More Americans identify their primary occupation as artist than as lawyer, doctor, police officer or farm worker.

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“It’s easy to talk about artists in lofty and spiritual terms,” said Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
“Without denying the higher purposes of the artistic vocation, it’s
also important to remember that artists play an important role in
America’s cultural vitality and economic prosperity. Artists have
immense financial and social impact as well as cultural impact.”
Drawing
from the census, the endowment has compiled what it bills as the first
nationwide profile of professional artists in the 21st century.
Multimedia
Graphic
Artists by the Numbers
In
2005 nearly two million Americans said their primary employment was in
jobs that the census defines as artists’ occupations — including
architects, interior designers and window dressers. Their combined
income was about $70 billion, a median of $34,800 each. Another 300,000
said artist was their second job.
The percentage of female,
black, Hispanic and Asian artists is bigger among younger ones. Among
artists under 35, writers are the only group in which 80 percent or
more are non-Hispanic white. Overall, women outnumber men only among
dancers, designers and writers. Similarly, while 60 percent of
professional photographers are men, 60 percent under age 35 are women.
Like
the population in general, the number of artists has grown fastest in
the West and the South since 1990, but New York State, followed by
California, Massachusetts, Vermont and Colorado, has the most artists
per capita.
California claims the most actors per capita,
Nevada the most dancers and entertainers, Vermont the most writers,
Tennessee the most musicians, New Mexico the most fine artists,
Massachusetts the most architects and designers (including, among
others, commercial, fashion, floral, graphic, interior designers and
window dressers), Hawaii the most photographers and North Dakota (where
radio shows abound) the most announcers. By 2005 the proportion of
non-Hispanic whites among artists had declined to 80 percent from 86
percent in 1990, but the proportion of blacks, 5 percent, remained the
same.
San Francisco leads metropolitan areas in the proportion
of artists in the work force, followed by Santa Fe (which ranks first
in writers and fine artists), Los Angeles, New York and
Stamford-Norwalk in suburban Connecticut. The Top 10 also include
Boulder, Colo.; Danbury, Conn.; and Seattle.
Orlando, Fla., leads in entertainers and performers.
The
“Artists in the Workforce” report, prepared by Sunil Iyengar, the
endowment’s director of research and analysis, identified 185,000
writers, 170,000 musicians and singers, nearly 150,000 photographers,
nearly 40,000 actors and 25,000 dancers. (They have the youngest median
age, 26, and the highest proportion of minority workers, 40 percent).
The
only artists whose ranks declined since 1990 were, as a group, fine
artists, art directors and animators, to 216,000 from 278,000. The
number of announcers also dropped.
More than one in four
artists live in California and New York, where their sheer numbers are
overwhelming compared to the artist colonies in other states. New
Mexico, Vermont, Hawaii and Montana rank first in fine artists per
capita, but they total 7,000, compared with 66,000 in California and
New York combined. Since 2000 Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island and
New Mexico gained in the proportion of artists compared to all workers.
Mr.
Gioia attributed the spread of artists beyond traditional urban
clusters to the growth of cultural institutions in maturing cities in
the South and West, the mobility of the work force, technology that
enables a painter in Santa Fe to reach a broader audience and the high
cost of living in cities including Boston, New York, San Francisco and
Los Angeles.
Overall, the median income that artists reported in
2005 was $34,800 — $42,000 for men and $27,300 for women. The median
income of the 55 percent of artists who said they had worked full-time
for a full year was $45,200.
Over all, artists make more than
the national median income ($30,100). They are more highly educated but
earn less than other professionals with the same level of schooling.
They are likelier to be self-employed (about one in three and growing)
and less likely to work full-time, year-round. (Dancers have the lowest
median annual income of all artists, architects the highest — $20,000
and $58,000, respectively.)
“Many performing artists are
underemployed,” Mr. Gioia said, “but one of the stereotypes we’re
trying to debunk is that artists are mostly marginal and unemployed.”
About 13 percent of people who say their primary occupation is artist
also hold a second job — about twice the rate that other people in the
labor force work two jobs. The majority of artists work for for-profit
enterprises but 8 percent work for private, nonprofits and 3 percent
work for government.
While the number of artists doubled
between 1970 and 1990 as theaters, galleries, orchestras and university
and commercial venues grew, their ranks since 1990 have increased at
about the same rate as the total work force. They now represent 1.4
percent of the labor force, or nearly as many people as the active and
reserve armed forces.

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