Working After Art School | Open Thread

The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (based at Indiana University) recently released a survey of art school graduates. According to the New York Times:

The results of the 2010 online survey include responses from more than 13,500 students who were in fine arts, theater, dance, music, creative writing, media arts, film, design and architecture programs and graduated in the past 15 or so years from 154 arts high schools, undergraduate and graduate institutions.

Although the respondents did not represent a random sample, the survey found that 92 percent of alumni who want to work are doing so (the unemployment rate for April in the United States was 9 percent), while two-thirds said their first job was a close match for the kind of work they desired. Fifty-seven percent are working as professional artists, but don’t be surprised if your bedroom doubles as your office. More than 6 in 10 were self-employed since graduation. Working or not, 9 out of 10 reported they were pleased with their art training, and three out of four would attend the same institution again.

The study has a handy dashboard at which you can drill a bit deeper.

Apparently, those who go to art school teach. Not surprisingly, more artists are employed within "Arts Education" than any other category within the arts. But outside the arts, the highest percentage of arts graduates also indicated "Education / Training / Library" as their occupation category.

Zooming in on graduates of Fine & Studio Arts programs, we see that 70% of the respondents in this category were female (which doesn't necessarily correlate to percentages in the classroom, but I do hear that there are more women than men in graduate programs).

The top three occupations for graduates of Fine & Studio Arts programs were:

1. Fine artist (very reassuring)
2. Sales related occupation (understandable when you know what it takes to sell yourself as an artist to the world)
3. Food preparation related occupation (should Rirkrit Tiravanija be concerned?)

The breakdown for "Important Skills and Competencies in Profession or Work Life" reveals some interesting factoids. For example, the further along the spectrum ones goes from "Never a professional artist" to "Currently a professional artist" the more importance the respondents placed on artistic ability or technique. There is more of a disparity in importance on this factor than all others along this spectrum.

The other skill or competency that revealed a large difference of opinion was on entrepreneurial skill, with, again, those categorized as "currently a professional artist" rating it as much more important than those categorized as "never a professional artist." In fact, entrepreneurial skill was the single lowest rated skill/competency among those who had never been a professional artist. This makes total sense to me. There is no shortage of evidence that being a successful "professional" artist IS being a successful entrepreneur.

There were no surprises in where arts professionals choose to live...where the arts jobs are, clearly:

Screen shot from the The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project website.

Perhaps the most telling factoid, though, was that "44% of those have never been professional artists said higher pay or steadier income in other fields was a reason." It's not quite the same situation, I know, but a mentor of mine once told me that the LAST reason to go into the gallery business was to make money. There are simply too many other easier ways to do that. Personally, I believe the same applies to the artist business. If you're anxious about getting that money back quickly that you're spending going to art school, you might want to take a few law courses along the way.

Consider this an open thread on all issues "professional artist" and working related.