Listen to the podcast behind this article here:
http://neeleyarts.com/index.php/interviews/wet-stuff/674-teaching-art-with-j-l-johnson
This is a question I asked teaching artist J.L. Johnson during our podcast interview, and her answer was more complex then I had imagined it would be.
There are a number of ways that artists make a living doing what they love, but here in The United States, they seldom involve making visual art in the realm of the fine arts. The making of visual art is typically done as a byproduct of teaching, working in another industry, or holding several jobs perhaps unrelated to art making. Is this because the art academies and arts degrees neglect their student's needs?
Well, that's part of it but there's more to it.
To start with, art is not really valued in the United States. That's not to say that artists in the United States aren't talented, or don't merit recognition; they certainly do. Johnson pointed out that this phenomenon is due in part to artists being so giving with their work. Charities often expect artists to donate work free of any percentage being paid to them from its auction. It has become a standard to expect art to be available to those who will resell it, free, or nearly free of charge.
The common gallery construct does not help matters. Galleries typically take 50% or more of the retail price at which the artwork is sold. Even so, galleries are barely holding on. The high commission leads to works falling far out of the price range that most buyers can afford while the galleries themselves remain empty of visitors due to the expectation from visitors that galleries aren't really a place they can shop anyway.
The consequence of this is that galleries turn to the artists to make ends meet by charging for wall space, hanging fees, entry fees charged to artists for shows, and free-employment hours to "gallery sit" all on top of the commission paid to the gallery if the artwork does sell. This construct leads to a financial disadvantage to most artists, making it a hobby that can only ever become income-earning for the already financially elite. I don't mean to blame galleries either, but finding a new business model will be the only way they can stay in business without catering to hobbyists.
Meanwhile, as art students graduate and find themselves doing jobs unrelated to what they studied, fewer students turn to the fine arts as a valid degree and more parents and guidance counselors insist incoming students study something with a brighter future. This doesn't mean they stop making art, you certainly don't have to go to school to make art. What it does mean is that the study of fine art becomes less respected as a degree. As this trend has moved forward we've seen the arts go from a craft as respected as any other to what most would say, is just a nice hobby. The result of the common gallery business model combined with the lack of respect for having studied the arts at all is a cycle that reinforces the devaluing of contemporary fine art.
Now let's dig a little deeper. The funding that art departments in universities and colleges receive is typically a result of how many graduates they send out the door. As we're seeing less and less studio art graduates we're seeing the art departments get moved to the older buildings with a lack of funding to cover art supplies. The result? Just like artists must pay galleries to show, art students must pay more to the institutes to study art. The costs are on the students to buy more and more of the supplies they need for every class. As the study of fine art becomes less rewarding as a career, it becomes more expensive as a study.
For the artists who are pushing through this rough terrain, and persevering, their lives are made harder by a lack of support for the fine arts anywhere in our tax laws. "Our tax laws need to be changed for artists to be able to make a living," says J.L. Johnson, "If I were able to take away the time, give myself a salary, for example, If I were to be able to say okay it took me seven hours to do that one little painting that I just donated to that charity. If I could give myself a living wage for that, say twenty dollars an hour or fifteen dollars an hour or even just fucking minimum wage, pardon my French. But, minimum wage, if I could just give myself minimum wage for that, if I could just write that off on my taxes the time that I spent and the money that it took me to do it, that would at least be something I could write off on my taxes. But you can’t.”
Johnson is right. You can deduct supplies if you can prove you're a business and eventually show some profit. But you can't deduct the time you spend producing the work you do, "I just feel like there’s a lot of things that need to change to be able to make artists be able to make a living doing what they do.” Before talking with J.L. Johnson, it had never occurred to me that our tax laws could be changed to support artists. As it stands, an artist's time and effort is not respected by the government but perhaps that can be changed.
-To be continued-
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