Testimony for Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts, and Cultural Development public forums, Old South Meeting House (10/19/05)
My name is Kathleen Bitetti, I am a practicing artist and also the executive director of the Artists Foundation, a nonprofit arts organization founded in 1973 to serve artists of Massachusetts.
There are seven key areas that are important to the artist’s community that I would like to bring to your attention.
1. What are the foundations of creative economy and what communities have been left out of the discussion?
The untold story is that artist’s unpaid or underpaid labor is what support the creative economy and allow it to grow. The majority of the studies of the creative economy don’t take this into account. For example, artists do not get paid for participating in Open Studios events, in fact they have to pay fees to participate in them (some as high as $100). Seldom do artists earn moneys from exhibiting their work in non profit spaces. If there is a stipend offered it rarely covers the costs incurred by the artist to fabricate or even frame their work. Although the current state and local arts grants programs are important, most artists do not receive grants to support their work. What funds most of the artists? Their own money and/or credit cards.
Nor do the studies take into account the commercial art gallery sector. The commercial galleries are usually left out of any dialog on art policies and are not supported/promoted in anyway by arts councils. Commercial galleries are one way that artists can earn income. They are important small businesses/micro businesses.
Also missing from this picture are the grass roots, alternative spaces and artist run spaces and what they contribute. Many of these organization do not receive public funding of any kind, yet do incredible and important community based programming (the New Freedwoman Project, Transcultural Exchange, Studio Soto, the South Boston Arts Association (all Boston) Artspace@16 in Malden to name a few).
It is essential that when the arts are promoted on local, state and national levels that artists, the commercial sector, as well as the grassroots/alternative/artists run organizations are acknowledged, promoted and supported. Who is not at the table is just as important as who is.
2. The need to address Health Care for the uninsured or underinsured.
Affordable health care for the self employed, uninsured, and underinsured is a major issue facing the artist’s community and the overall cultural community. Many artists work in tourism industry (think waiters and waitresses) which is another industry that the majority of the workers lack healthcare coverage. In December of 1993, the Artists Foundation was a co-founder of the Artists Health Care Task Force.
The Task Force held a series of public forums in the spring of 1994 to gather testimony from Boston artists on health care reform. The Task Force's findings and artists' testimonies were published in a report to the United States Congress in July of 1994. On September 1st 2005, the Artists Foundation presented an update on this report to National Hearing for Health Care Reform at Faneuil Hall to several members of the United States Congress.
Our 1994 report endorsed a national single payer health care insurance system that is not tied to work status and does not discriminate against pre-existing conditions. That endorsement still holds true today.
The AF is working with Health Care for All on their current health care campaign.
What else the AF has done?
The AF is currently exploring the possibilities of establishing the following models in MA
Talk of establishing Volunteer Doctors and Dentists for the Arts in Massachusetts.
Seeing if the NYC model highlighted on NPR- artists bartering for health care can be established in MA
3. The need to reshape how artists and artist run organizations are seen by policy makers. The goal is to have policy makers see them as important entrepreneurs and creative small businesses in the Commonwealth.
It is AF’s hope that local, state and national policy makers will become be more aware of artists and artists run organizations and how they operate in the Commonwealth. We hope that policy makers will see artists and artist run organizations as small businesses, as self employed, and as entrepreneurs, and we hope the policy makers will become more inclusive to artists in their thinking, outreach, and policy making on issues such as small business, commerce, and labor.
Likewise we are encouraging artists to see themselves also in this light to seek out programs and resources that may prove helpful to them in their creative endeavors.
What could be done?
A) Support, both in financial and in staff, for the state wide Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. This is essential to reaching this goal. Likewise such funding needs to also be dedicated to this office’s sister offices found in every town/city.
and/or
B) The AF would like to see a Statewide Office or at least a statewide position dedicated specifically for Business Assistance for Artists and Artists Run Businesses. Liora Beer, Neighborhood Business Manager Arts & Culture Specialist for the City of Boston, Office of Business Development Business Assistants Center, who is also an artist, has been doing ground breaking and much needed work in this area. She has developed a highly effective, low cost, high quality model that could be funded and replicated statewide.
4. The need to create more income streams for artists.
There needs to be a statewide initiative to promote the buying of art made in Massachusetts and to promote attendance of performance based-work created in Massachusetts. The AF is currently exploring the viability of a statewide media/marketing campaign on this. We are in the process of approaching potential partners: statewide tourism agencies and chambers of commerce, etc.
5. Fair trade means fair trade
Artists are always asked to donate work to various causes and institutions.
Yet they can not deduct the fair market value of the work on their taxes.
Artists can only deduct the materials costs of producing the work. Of course
if an artist doesn’t earn enough in annual income a tax deduction may
not be helpful. There is a need to pass legislation that will change
the state and federal laws to allow artists to deduct the fair market value
of the artwork they donate. The AF has established some fair trade means fair
trades guidelines for artists and auctions.
We hope this committee will take the lead in crafting such state legislation.
6. Addressing housing and studio space issues.
One of the most important issues facing Massachusetts is affordable housing. Artists face this issue two fold if they need to have a separate work space. There needs to be standards set or at least guidelines for artists housing for Massachusetts. There is a clear need for affordable rental live/works spaces and work only spaces for artists. Not every artist is in a position to buy property or wants to own property. We are also seeing that there are many zoning changes implemented in order to create luxury lofts- but often those very lofts are not affordable for artists. These zoning changes are being use to gentrify areas and push fixed income, low, and middle income people out of their neighborhoods.
Again we hope that this committee will work on setting state-wide standards for artists housing.
One key model to look at is Providence RI and the state of RI. One of the AF’s board members is a key player in the down city project for downtown, RI and could serve a valuable resource.
7. Employment for artists
Most artists earn the majority of their income in ways other than by primarily selling or producing their art. How people can support artists other than buying art is to hire artists and give them flex time with benefits and/or be supportive in other ways of artists in the workplace. We hope to promote this initiative to Massachusetts employers. MIT is one example.
