The Starving Artist. A trope we are all quite familiar with. Choosing the artistic path and then trying to earn a living at it has historically been a courageous endeavor. Some times and some places throughout history it has been easier than others.
Artists have been crucial for our world and for a well-balanced society. Artists and their work reflect and shape culture, inspire creativity, create understanding between people from different backgrounds and cultures, are means of expression, preserve history, and initiate social change. Art contributes to the overall well-being of a community and contributes to emotional and mental health; basically, it helps define and enrich the human experience.
Many countries support artists in several ways, one is allocating a portion of their national budget to support artists and cultural institutions, Finland and Germany have high per capita government spending on the arts. Another way artists are supported financially it through employment insurance to artists, South Korea's Artists Welfare Act covers 180,000 artists. Other ways include offering benefits to artists through their welfare systems, such as healthcare, unemployment services, educational support, pension and retirement programs to artists, and social insurance funds. For example, Germany's Artists' Social Insurance Fund has supported self-employed artists since 1983.
The United States has vacillated widely over the years in its support of artists. The National Endowment of the Arts is a federal agency that currently funds and supports artistic projects. The NEA's budget for Fiscal Year 2025 is $210.1 million, which is $3.1 million more than the previous year. It may seem like a lot, but the annual budget for military expenditures is $852.2 BILLION. Or, a different perspective, in California that arts funding would only buy a small-sized home for only 200 people. Additionally, the NEA's grants require a dollar-to-dollar match from other sources, artists must spend time securing other funding in many cases, and jump through an infinite number of hoops to prove they are worthy of those highly competitive funds.
Another way historically that artists have been supported is through art patrons, with wealthy individuals, rulers, and religious institutions providing financial support. Some historically famous art patrons include Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464), Donatello's David amongst many others; Isabella d'Este (1474-1539), notably Leonardo da Vinci; Catherine the Great (1729-1796), the Hermitage Museum was originally filled with her collection; Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), who championed Picasso, Matisse, and other avant-garde artists of the early 20th century; Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979), Jackson Pollack and so many others; and the Rothschild Family, through many, many generations.
There has been an attempt recently for creatives and artists of all types to bring this patronage system to the less famous, at an individual and direct level. You may have heard about Patreon, which is a membership platform that allows creative types to earn a recurring income by offering exclusive content and rewards to fans who subscribe. Another platform, for writers and authors, is Substack. It can take a lot of work on the side of creatives to make this be successful, to build their audience, and create additional content for these sites, one more thing to add to their plate in order to make a living as an artist.
All of this to say that being an artist and earning a living demands a lot of time, effort, and skills that have nothing to do with actually creating art. As for myself, as I've embarked on this full time creative and artistic path, I've had to get crafty at putting together a robust combination of ways to support this adventure. I make and sell original art, sell art prints and notecards of my art, teach in-person classes and workshops, and more recently started to offer online courses and e-books. You can find all of that on my website! indigomoone.com. I also have a newsletter and blog ~ this very thing you're reading ~ as a way to generate interest in all the things I do in hopes that others will find and support all of my artistic offerings.
My next step is to do what many other artists have done, and offer folks a way to become a patron of the arts, of me. It's a strange and vulnerable thing to do, to directly solicit financial support for my artistic endeavors, and almost feels a little cringey to be honest. But one does what one must! I'm proud of the art and creative content I create, I work very hard and know I'm worth it!
One way artists have done this is to add a Buy Me a Coffee donation button to their site. This makes supporting artists fun and easy. In just a couple of taps, you can make a payment AND leave a supporting message to the artists that you love. All for the price of a cup of coffee.
So, if you feel called, and have enjoyed this blog and these insights into a creative path, you can encourage me here:
Thank you for ongoing support, financial and otherwise!!! I can't express my gratitude enough!
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