Friday, October 3, 2008

Reading: All about artists!

Wow- the National Endowment for the Arts has undertaken a huge study of artists of all disciplines in the workforce! It's fascinating and, thankfully, adds facts to underscore the importance of artists in our economy. Factoid: "Representing 1.4 percent of the U.S. labor force, artists constitute a sizable class of workers—only slightly smaller than the total number of active-duty and reserve personnel in the U.S. military (2.2 million). Artists represent a larger group than the legal profession (lawyers, judges, and paralegals), medical doctors (physicians, surgeons, and dentists), or agricultural workers (farmers, ranchers, foresters, and fishers)." Page 2 of executive summary. How refreshing to add this to the mix of hard information respecting artists! We need to read, internalize and promote this type of substantive artist study.

No comments: