Living Visual Artists At The White House

I noticed that there seems to be a great emphasis on the performing arts atthe White House.
The visual artist seem to get pushed into the background often. I am aware that the Obamas have selected some paintings to be shown in the White House.
It would be nice to feature a special exhibition of works by contemporary living artists.
Music doesn't need much support. Painters and sculptors need more support from the present administration in my opinion. In the present economy visual artists need champions, the could use the dollars.

Re Invention

I am now in a period of of reinventing my self as an artist again. My artist in residence gig played out. I had a good run for 14 years. I don't know what I will do yet. I do have more time to make art, so I will work on that.
This economy is not very conducive for selling.

People are holding on to their money ,waiting to see how things are going to shake out.

I'll get by.

New Adjustment

As of today, my artist in residence gig is done. I had a good run for fourteen years.
I saved money to have a soft landing. I paid off my bills so I could get by.
I have not pushed sales of my work for quite awhile.
The recession took it's toll on my list of buyers.
My plan is to live frugally. I do have a decent inventory of work to sell.
I'll post more info later.

Signs Of Life

I surf the web to find out if artists are selling their work with any frequency. From what I can tell there seems to be some selling going on. I do believe half of what I read about sales in these times. I do believe the daily painters are selling the works that are under one hundred dollars with some regularity. It must be a chore to paint the work, photograph it and upload the image on the web. It would be for me, but there are a lot of artists who are doing it. So in this time any sale is a good one. I'll have to survey some of the art festivals in the area this year to get some idea about art sales. It will be informative.

The Tradeoff

There's a trade off to have any kind of art life/career. One can read about artists in magazines and think how great it would be in their shoes. The problem with that kind of thinking is, while it looks good, it has it's downsides . Often those artists who lives seem to be terrific, have the same relative concerns as the rest of the art world. Art careers require a great deal of maintenance, the more successful the artist is, the more maintenance is required. The artist James Rosenquist recently lost his studio as a result of a wildfire in Florida. I don't know any one who would trade places with Mr. Rosenqiust. Those big studios that are shown in art magazines require a constant influx of cash, an artist has to be selling a lot of art to get that to happen. The trade off comes into play when one decides to be an artist, that's just the way it is.

NYT surveys economy and artists

The NYT is asking artists to tell how the economy has affected their lives.
Google NYT artsbeat , look for Attention Artists.. The entries are very informative to read.
I was hoping the media would do this. The entries give examples of how artists
are coping with the recession. I found this by chance.

Artist Income

I recently read a letter from an artist who said he makes 70k-100k a year. Considering the fact that the income is from art, that's pretty good. Paying one' s way with art is quite a feat in my opinion. Art is something that people can move to the bottom of their needs or wants list. To make five or six figures in art is very special, especially in this economic time.