Now I’m here, I’m not off in some house in Woodbury. This puts me at a certain table. Before, I had cards to play, but I wasn’t sitting at a table. Now I’m sitting at the table. If I want to be in Art-A-Whirl, I can trade space with an artist for Art Crawl. – Lisa Mathieson, Tilsner artist My loft has done so much for my career. The front I’ve made into my gallery and the back is my living area. It has helped tremendously with sales – people come in and say, “Wow, this is great!” I have parties constantly and I’ve made so many sales and connections because of it…It’s just a lot harder to get the same kind of energy going at a house. – Matthew Rucker, Northern artist
Limited Income Benefits Examining how these career enhancements translate into individual economic returns requires a nuanced interpretation. Although 51% of artist respondents acknowledged that the artist space helped them increase the percentage of income they earn from their artistic work, only 35% credited living and/or working in the artist space with helping them increase their overall income (Table 9). The survey sample does not capture any high-income earning artists that may have left the artist spaces. Table 9 Artist Survey Results: Income Living and/or working in the Artspace building has… Respondents selecting agree to strongly agree (%)
All
Northern
Tilsner
Traffic Zone
helped me increase the percentage of income I earn from my artistic work.
51
50
52
50
helped me increase my overall income.
35
35
36
34
These findings and those indicating time and productivity gains suggest that the artist spaces allow half of artists to substitute time spent and money earned on artistic work for that stemming from other sources, but only slightly more than a third are able to increase their overall income. In one artist’s own words: Living in the Northern helped me to make a living off of what I do, rather than doing something else and trying to steal time to do what I love to do…Everyone here is striving to that, even if only a few do it. – Connell Johnston, Northern artist
Artist space advocates and those concerned with economic development may be disappointed that more artists do not experience boosts to their overall income. However, these findings do suggest artist spaces help highly skilled individuals concentrate their talents in relevant work, thereby freeing up less apropos “day jobs” to others in the labor market, a phenomenon in keeping with the job-chain model of economic development advanced by Timothy Bartik (1993), and Daniel Felsenstein and Joseph Persky (2007). 43