Crossover: How Artists Build Careers Across Commercial, Nonprofit and Community Work

Crossover How Artists Build Careers across Commercial, Nonprofit and Community Work Ann Markusen | Sam Gilmore | Amanda Johnson Titus Levi | Andrea Martinez The Arts Economy Initiative Project on Regional and Industrial Economics Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota October, 2006 For The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation | The James Irvine Foundation | Leveraging Investments in Creativity Contents Preface 5 Crossover and Artistic Development 52 Executive Summary 7 Conclusions and Recommendations 59 Complex Attitudes towards Art and Commercial, Nonprofit and Community Sectors Commercial, Nonprofit and What Artists Can Do Community Crossover: the Theory 11 What Educational and Training Institutions Can Do Delineating the Commercial, Nonprofit and Community Sectors What Artists' Service Organizations Can Do How Artistic Sectors Differ Operationally What Commercial Sector Employers Can Do How Artists Navigate Sectoral Divides What Nonprofit and Community Arts Organizations Can Do What Funders Can Do Insights from Prior Research 21 What the Media Can Do Crossover Surveys and Related Studies What Government Agencies Can Do Biographies and In-depth Case Studies What Arts Advocacy Groups Can Do Studies of Bay Area and Los Angeles Artists Networking among Sector Leaders and Managers Survey and Interview Content 27 Appendix I. Survey and Interview Methodology 85 Reaching Los Angeles and Bay Area Artists 31 Appendix II. Methodology in Brief Census vs. Survey Portraits of An Overview of Respondents Los Angeles and Bay Area Artists 89 How Artists Crossover: the Results 37 References 97 Crossing Over for Income Working Time Crossovers Desired Changes in Mix Inside Back Cover: Spanning Artistic Disciplines List of Organizations Participating Crossover in Career Stages in Survey Request Crossover with Arts Administration and Teaching Crossover Between Regions Mixing Arts and Non-arts Work Volunteering as a Route to Crossover Crossover Skeptics 4 Preface or decades, the art world and the general public outset that asking artists directly about their experience across sectors would produce insights that would help the art worlds’ many have viewed artists and arts activity as compart- participants work better together. mentalized into three separate spheres. In the In this study, we delineate the three sectors and address how they are organized, including the motivations and conventions that gov- commercial sector, artwork is organized by for- ern each sector. We pull together a number of hypotheses about profit organizations and marketed by self- how artists navigate these sectoral divides. To reach artists, we used a web-based survey, soliciting responses by working with dozens of employed artists and companies in a hotly competitive and highly F arts and cultural organizations in the San Francisco Bay and Los segmented marketplace. In a nonprofit sector that has rapidly Angeles metropolitan areas, which host the two largest artistic pop- ulations in California and rank first and third in the nation in den- expanded since the 1970s, the work of artists and arts organizations sity of artists in the workforce. We paid particular attention to part- is mission-driven and motivated by factors other than financial time, ethnic and community-based artists who are often left out of surveys and undercounted in the Census. We also interviewed return, relying heavily on patronage and philanthropy. In the com- more than fifty artists from a diverse mix of disciplines, age, race, munity sector, artwork is rarely remunerative but pursued for cul- ethnicity, immigrant status, and income about their own experiences at crossover. tural, political and aesthetic reasons. We found the results rather astounding. Artists move among sectors far more fluidly than we had thought, and if money were not During the past four decades, stereotypes about artistic conven- an issue, most would cross over even more than they presently do. tions, innovativeness, quality of work, freedom of expression, and They report that each sector provides distinctive channels and sup- audience appeal came to encumber the way that we look at art- port for artistic development. We believe that the study findings making in American society. Arts industry employers, arts funders, have far-reaching implications for how leaders in each sector might arts presenters and even the public tended to pigeon-hole artists as acknowledge the contributions of the others and cooperate to belonging to one sector or another, and to judge only activities in encourage greater cross-fertilization. We do our best to articulate certain sectors as worthy of investment, encouragement and a hear- some productive avenues for change. ing. The borders between sectors appeared heavily guarded by For their financial commitments and active engagement in this mindsets as well as gatekeepers and difficult for artists to cross. study at various junctures, we would like to thank our program offi- In 2005, several foundations, including California-based The cers and their staff: Moy Eng at The William and Flora Hewlett William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation; John Orders, Marcy Hinand Cady, Jeanne Sakamoto Foundation and New York-based Leveraging Investments in and Emily Sevier at The James Irvine Foundation; and Sam Miller Creativity (LINC), commissioned this study of the reality of these and Judilee Reed at Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC). three spheres from the point of view of artists in two regions: the Other grantmakers who gave generously of their time and ideas Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas. They asked whether include Frances Phillips of The Walter and Elise Haas Fund, John these conceptions jibe with artists’ contemporary experiences, how Killacky and Sherwood Chen of The San Francisco Foundation, artists cross over among the sectors, and what barriers, if any, make Claire Peeps of The Durfee Foundation, and Angie Kim of the it hard for them to do so. Flintridge and Getty Foundations. Why artists? The art world or worlds, as Howard Becker (1982) From the outset, we relied on willing partners in California to taught us, are highly complex, consisting of tens of thousands of help us think through the design of the study and identify and overlapping private, nonprofit and public organizations, intricate approach organizations with access to artists, especially Laura supply change relationships, a myriad of informal networks among Zucker of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Joe Smoke of participants, and changing degrees of separation between artist and the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs, Amy audience. Artists are very likely to be self-employed, many of them Kitchener of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Judith working on contract or funded on a project-by-project basis and Luther Wilder and Cora Mirikitani of the Center for Cultural others marketing their completed work themselves. The organiza- Innovation, Jerry Yoshitomi of Meaning Matters, John Kreidler of tions and individuals that train, hire, fund, commission, produce Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley, Lisa Richardson of the and present artists often have only a foggy idea of the full extent of California Traditional Music Society, Josephine Ramirez of The artists’ activities – where they get their ongoing inspiration, where Los Angeles Music Center and Kathleen Milnes of the they are exposed to the best in their fields and to new techniques Entertainment Economy Institute. and media, how they make a living, why they decide to make a Others who helped us conceptually, tactically and with data and commitment to particular art forms, forums, employers, and a ideas include Betsy Peterson of The Fund for Folk Culture, place to live, and how they develop a following. We believed at the Carolyn Bye and Sharon Rodning Bash of the Metropolitan 5 Preface Regional Arts Council in St. Paul (MN), Paul Ong of UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning, Karen Chapple of UC-Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning, Elisa Barbour of the Public Policy Institute of California, Melissa Potter and Ted Berger of the New York Foundation for Artists, Janine Perron and Andrew Campbell of the Los Angeles Arts Commission, Tom Backer of the Human Interaction Research Institute, Carole Rosenstein of the Urban Institute, and Claudia Bach of AdvisArts Consulting. We would like to give profuse thanks to the many directors and staff of industry, union and nonprofit arts organizations, public agencies, foundations, listservs and community groups that put us into contact with thousands of artists; to the more than 2200 artists who took the time and care to complete the survey, often writing long and remarkable responses to the open-ended questions; and to the artists we interviewed in depth, for their marvelous stories and insights. I would like to thank the following members of our team. Research associate Amanda Johnson for her talent at and willing- ness to be a jack-of-all-trades and, in addition to her interviews, her masterful management of the survey. California colleagues, Sam Gilmore and Titus Levi, for important input into survey design and the rich interviews that they contributed. Andrea Martinez for coming onto the study midstream, conducting interviews and keeping track of all the organizations with which we worked. Katherine Murphy for her extraordinary marshalling of the study through all its stages of publication. Kim Dalros for layout and graphic

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