Julianna Yau’s blog

The last day of the Summit was another day packed with information and enthusiasm.

The day started with presentations from Tamara Winikoff, the Executive Director of NAVA (National Association for the Visual Arts, Australia). Very regrettably, she was only given about a half hour at the beginning of the day. I was lucky enough to have attended a presentation with her on Saturday, where she not merely gave a thorough overview of what they have done in Australia but also had time to take several questions (she was there for three hours in total on Saturday). I will have to remember to put together an entry on that presentation—I have the equivalent of four pages of notes on my computer from that!

Following Tamara’s presentation was one from [Mr.] Kelly Hill, who provided us with a high-speed overview of the stats found in this presentation. What was both a surprise and not a surprise is that in 2001, the average income for an artist (from all revenue sources, including second and third jobs) was $18,700. This is compared to the average income of the Canadian worker at $31,800. What’s even bleaker is that there is no major increase in this income with an increase of education or age for artists, even though there is for people working in other sectors.

These figures are terrifying for an emerging artist like myself. Although I am fortunate enough to be able to foster other skills to maintain a job outside of the arts to support myself financially, not all artists have or want that option. Indeed, I am often chilled by the thought of having to maintain a Day Job my entire life so that I can produce the artwork I am compelled to create. Even jobs within the art sector itself aren’t financially appealing. Many are not merely paying less than other jobs requiring the same level of work but also have less job security because of a reliance on government funding which is decreasing and because of fluctuations from other revenue sources.

The morning’s panel discussion dealt with “the force of markets”. Being very new to the art world and one of the 20-30 artists at the Summit who was under 35 (remember, there were approx 450 total delegates and about a half to a third were self-identified artists), this portion of the Summit was very intriguing because I haven’t seen enough to have an innate understanding of the art market (aside from the understanding that artwork is valuable well after the death of the artist and living artists usually are Starving Artists).

Again, as a young emerging artist, Paul Wong’s portion of the panel discussion was particularly meaningful for me. He spoke of being a self-taught video artist who was the “bastard child of the arts” who was not welcome in the art, film or educational worlds in the 1970s. He spoke of having both good and bad relationships with galleries, where shows had been cancelled and he was sometimes never paid. He spoke of having to diversify his sources of income from reproduction fees, commissions, private collectors, curating and creating advertisement. It was somewhat reassuring to know that other artists feel disengaged from the industry, even though I am working in one of the traditional media he feels has an advantage over new media such as video work. I have actually found it more difficult to find a gallery which shows work similar to mine because I work in a traditional medium (stone) and neither a style which is purely traditional (e.g. figurative work) or something “wild” and “out there”.

Related posts

• Visual Arts Summit – Day 1 (0)
• Visual Arts Summit - Day 2 - Summary (0)
• Visual Arts Summit - Day 2 - Further Thoughts (0)
• Shawna Dempsey’s remarks – Visual Arts Summit 2007 (1)
• Visual Arts Summit - Day 3 - Closing Remarks (2)