James Freeman on thu 5 may 11
As the father of an art student (formerly auto design at College for
Creative Studies, currently illustration at Kendall), I found small solace
in the following:
Snippets from USA Today:
"Conventional wisdom has long held that pursuing a career in the arts is a
likely ticket to a life of perennial unhappiness, hunger and unemployment.
But the opposite appears to be true -- graduates of arts programs are likel=
y
to find jobs and satisfaction, even if they won't necessarily get wealthy i=
n
the process -- according to a new national survey of more than 13,000 alumn=
i
of 154 different arts programs."
"Arts graduates are finding ways to put together careers and be employed --
and many of them are satisfied with their work,"
"A large majority of respondents (92 percent) who want to work say they are
currently working. More than half (57 percent) either are working as
professional artists (41 percent) or have done so in the past (16 percent)"
"Two-thirds of arts graduates reported that their first job out of school
was a close match for the kind of work they wanted."
The downside:
"At the same time, very few professional artists reported being happy with
their income -- from a low of zero craft artists to a high of 29 percent of
art directors. For artists in general, the median salary was $34,800
according to 2003-5 data collected by the National Endowment for the Arts
(full-time artists earned more, but still about 15 percent less than other
professionals). Only one-third of professional artists surveyed by SNAAP
said they were satisfied with their level of job security. Still, nearly
half (47 percent) said they were very satisfied with opportunities to be
creative in their work. An even larger share (64 percent) of arts graduates
who became teachers reported high levels of satisfaction."
But...
"More generally, the disconnect between salary and security on the one hand
and meaning and satisfaction on the other suggests that many arts graduates
appear to have devised ways to negotiate uncertainty and low wages to find
personal fulfillment"
But then...
"The survey also revealed the deep impact that training in the arts can hav=
e
in later life. Of those who found work outside the arts, 54 percent said
their arts training has been relevant to their non-arts jobs. This group of
graduates also did not stop producing art on their own time. Among this
group, 70 percent told SNAAP that they still make or publicly perform their
art. Among all arts graduates, nearly 4 in 10 volunteered at an arts
organization."
Then we end on a down note:
"Arts alumni who were not professional artists at the time of the survey
cited three main reasons for their change in path. More than half said they
wanted to become artists but did not do so because they couldn't find work.
More than half of a separate group -- those who started working as artists
but later stopped -- said it was because higher or steadier pay was more
readily available in other fields.
About one-third of those who abandoned the goal of becoming artists cited
debt burdens. Debt weighed most heavily on those trained in fine and studio
arts: about one-third said that their cumulative debt had a "major impact o=
n
their career and educational decisions." In contrast, fewer than 20 percent
of dancers reported the same concern."
Here is the full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-05-03-inside-higher-ed-arts-pro=
grams-college_n.htm
All the best.
...James
James Freeman
"...outsider artists, caught in the bog of their own consciousness, too
preciously idiosyncratic to be taken seriously."
"All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should
not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed."
-Michel de Montaigne
http://www.jamesfreemanstudio.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesfreemanstudio/
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