Living Off Your Art: New Figures on Artists' Income
Artists are particularly vulnerable to economic downturn for two main reasons...the business cycle and the role of other jobs in a tight employment market.
How do artists survive when they are not able to sell work in galleries -- sales are at a record low and many galleries have folded-- or get commissions through State agencies -- because these are few and far between?
...So in effect, what we have in Australia is a separation of public and commercial by governments arts departments that unfortunately does not take into account the fact that the arts industry operates on a continuum...
At the Jam Factory in Adelaide, Rolf Bartz, David Archer and Lorry Wedding-Marchiaro are three of the SA designer makers who have entered into a marketing agreement which may be the way of the future for many more.
Ipswich City Council in Queensland is recruiting artists and designers from their large regional base and assisting them to create their own incomes through the work they are already trained to do.
The Premier of Victoria may claim that his government has opened Victoria for business, but it is the important role of local government and the Federal Government in developing arts training and facilities that is really making the running. Artists are no longer in their garrets but in front of pcs in their offices.
During the 1990s a number of initiatives have been undertaken in Western Australia which aim to improve the lot of the State's artists. The article examines three particular initiatives.