Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience

Arts Council England made resilience in the arts a strategic policy goal in the austerity period after 2010. Promoted as a key expectation but only for funded arts institutions, policy’s assumption is that resilience is a product of strong institutional leadership, good governance and sound business models. But the arts ecology fostered by this limited perspective has the effect of amplifying artists’ vulnerabilities and limiting their livelihood chances over time.

Emotional vulnerabilities

A core facet of artists’ emotional frailty is the conflict between deeply-held values and belief in art as a sustained social enquiry and the prioritising of measurable market exchange by government, arts policies and arts institutions. Pressures due to personal conditions and circumstances including caregiving responsibilities further affect artists’ fortitude, impacting on their artistic productivity.

• Neurodivergent artists face great challenges in communications and managing professional relationships, these affecting their ability to maintain practices day-to-day and career development over time. ​

“… Being ND … every day I find something … quite debilitating. … I’m aware that the triggering might not be that … people [are] being unfriendly, more that I don’t understand the reason. But instead of … ‘getting on with my day’ I focus on that, and that becomes my mental attitude for [it], affect[ing] my ability to communicate, my body language with almost everyone else I speak to and [it] makes me more vulnerable.”

• Artists commonly work long hours to accommodate art practices, income generation and their family and social responsibilities. Emotional vulnerability is higher amongst artists with family responsibilities, this impacting on their confidence and overall well-being and limiting the time they can put to art practices.

“I’m working the whole school day, from drop off to pick up, which is only a six-hour day, but then I’ll be latching things onto the end. I’ll do a framing run … after, so that’s another couple of hours. And then … about two or three hours in the evening, so … [it’s] nine, ten hours [a day], and…. then there’s the weekend work …. when I’m at events.”

• Artists’ well-being is undermined further by lack of downtime for personal refreshment such as at weekends and for holidays, fostering emotional stress and physical illness.

“The struggle to maintain intellectual space, quality and pace for my art practice alongside the intellectual and emotional challenges of my other job is constant. Risk of burnout is always there ….”

Economic vulnerabilities

The primary cause of artists’ economic vulnerability is the disjunction between their characteristics and their motivations and rationale for art practices and the ethos and working practices of the creative industries.

• Artists frequently take on non-arts income-generating work to ‘get by’ economically, even though this type of activity severely limits time available for scoping and making new work, for professional replenishment including skills training and for developing productive artistic relationships. ​

“I’m the family’s breadwinner on a short-term contract and no job security so even with some cash jobs alongside, I’m always under financial pressure. …. Working away from home pays better but it’s exhausting physically and mentally and where’s my career as an artist and my family life in that?”

• Poor access to research and development (R&D) funding hampers artists' ability to build and sustain their practices and realise their artistic potential. ​

“There’s so much competition for grants and making persuasive applications is super time-consuming. But I just don’t have that time when I’m trying to make the work, passing on my skills to communities through workshops and teaching and doing all the business admin.”

• For most artists, financial stability depends on holding regular adjunct salaried work or relies on a partner’s income into the household. ​

“[As a full-time artist I want to earn] £35,000 like a professional can, because then I could save. [But] It's really hard to earn money as an artist and it's so unpredictable. ... My earnings [last year] on my tax [return] were £10,000, but about £20,000 the year before. [The difference] was I lost four months with illness.”

Environmental vulnerabilities

Artists’ desire for self-sufficiency and sustainability in art practices over a life cycle and the value they place on direct engagement with their chosen communities of interest conflicts with working practices in the arts and creative industries.

• Most artists express dissatisfaction with ‘trickle down’ arts policies which undervalue their intrinsic beliefs and the longer-term and situated nature of art practices and how these practices inform and underpin their lives.

“What I’m doing … through my art practice is to help remake social and arts infrastructures so they are fairer and kinder, better at recognising people’s …. social vulnerabilities. It’s also about being an activist wherever I can, working to rebalance power, generate alternatives to capitalism and reduce the very many environmental harms.”

• Many artists are advocates for grassroots and localised development that is supportive of sustainable practices and fosters sustained community engagement.

“My commitment is to putting energy into what’s local, communal and shared. My long-term wish is that we will all get to hear and experience in other senses what is valued in the arts.”

• Having access to designated studio or workspace is essential to separating artists’ professional and domestic lives and critical to maintaining their art practices. But regardless of development stage, artists are now instead spending most of their time not at work in their studios instead engaged in the other associated and income-generating activities that make their lives and their art practices possible.

“What artists really need is more time …. in the studio and for in-depth, critical dialogue with other artists. It’s the only way we’ll ever become sure about what we need to do as artists and have the confidence and skills to keep on doing that over time.”

Credits

This independent qualitative research study been made possible through the participation and generosity of the fourteen artists from three English regions – the majority the subjects of successive interviews since 2017 – and the insight from many other artists at all development stages who have otherwise contributed to the study’s evidence base. Thanks also to the study’s core supporters and sponsors CAMP Contemporary Art Membership Platform and Creative Land Trust.

To get your own copy of the 88pp report which includes vignettes of fourteen artists' lives with a commentary and analysis of related policies and advocacy reports contact susanjonesarts [at] gmail.com