Be Brave

Being a fine artist or fine craftsperson (a maker) is an act of bravery. The sheer vulnerability of the nature of making things for others to judge. The lack of consideration in tax policies and “safety net” programs. The maker is fighting all the things; especially when first starting out.

COVID-19

March 2020. The month that began the massive nation-wide cancellations and postponements of events and markets where artists like me make a lot of their annual income. Daily, and sometimes hourly, emails rolled in. One after another saying an event cancelled because you don’t responsibly gather large crowds of people together when an unknown contagion is rapidly spreading and killing people.

Makers lost hundreds or thousands of dollars in non-refundable deposits. Some venues refunded despite their own policies, apparently understanding the optics and decency of it. Still other venues allowed fees to roll over to the next year. It was one of many points of anxiety for makers; wondering if they needed that fee back to cover other bills in an uncertain future or if the country would figure it all out soon enough to not push makers into such a desperate situation. We know in hind site that the lukewarm response from the Trump administration put us somewhere in the bottom third of possibilities based on how other nations responded.

What Are We?

After the massive loss of income for makers became apparent to the arts community, non-profits, artist associations, and other groups mobilized to raise and distribute money to help cover some of it. Overnight, makers had to become familiar with grant and loan programs, and organizations they probably didn’t even know existed before. In a massive panic, many makers carpet-bombed the organizations with grant applications. Those systems were unprepared for the level of need that grew as more makers’ schedules went empty. Groups like Artist Relief raised $20 million in 2020 and distributed it to artists using a system of several rounds of applications.

Confusion was rampant. Makers had to wait for a system never designed to protect them. They’re not considered a part of society worth protecting from financial devastation especially in a global pandemic. They’re told they don’t qualify for unemployment insurance (UI). They didn’t meet the archaic standards most states have had in place for decades. The anxiety continued to build. The Federal government passed the CARES Act. It funded the expanded definitions and standards (PUA). The older systems were never designed to be used in coordination with a Federal program so directly.

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The waiting was excruciating. However, I give a big thanks to the people who scrambled to make the systems function at all, especially under such an increased demand. The Act also created the PPP system and provided an off-shoot of the standard EIDL program. Both administered by the Small Business Association, with the former applied for via a financial institution, the latter through the SBA themselves.

The problem here stems from who UI is designed to protect. It doesn’t cover all unemployed people were working. UI has never been for people who aren’t working by choice, or the homeless or other “unfortunates”. Makers who were self-employed without any employees were not covered by state UIs, nor the new temporary PUA. By all accounts, this was a majority of makers in the US.

A second wave of UI applications smashed into the already overloaded systems as the definitions of PUA were updated. Most of 2020 has been an unbelievably hard struggle for the arts community. The entire community is seldom viewed as important let alone vital for a well-rounded, educated society. The arts are almost always the first round of funding cuts, whether it’s at the national level or your local school district.

Carry On

All of this is to say that despite the systems in place never being designed to help makers in a time of need, many have made a way through. We’re creative people, after all. Vaccines are rolling out. We’re still in the middle of this pandemic, and the way forward still has much uncertainty, but it also has hope. Makers are getting some event cancellation and postponement notifications again this year already. However, it appears that more have figured out how to adapt to the situation.

As artist Jennifer Costabile recently wrote on her Facebook business page JEMS of the Sea, “2020 was all about adaptability”. For many, that adaptability included pivoting to online sales. Etsy saw huge increases in shop openings. At the end of 2019, Etsy had 2.7 million active sellers, but by the middle of 2020, that number had jumped to 3.4 million active sellers.

Shopify already made up almost 6% of all online sales in 2019, and it grew by 34% in just the first quarter of 2020. That trend hasn’t really stopped. It wasn’t just typical makers pushing this massive influx. Plenty of regular 9-5 workers had to pivot as well to diversify their income. Many of them, however, were not single-income sole-proprietors without other means of income.

2021 will also be about adaptability. Makers are already expected to be savvy in so many areas of business (production, marketing, selling, accounting, etc.). Now you have to add online sales to that list. Collaborations, and partnerships are sure to expand and increase in importance.

The reason I started this blog was to share my adventure of making art my career. Through this whole ordeal, I’ve tried to also share some ways that other makers can adapt to this new reality with my COVID Shift series. My take-away from all of this is that I’m not sharing enough of what I observe and think with regards to making art my job. I worry I’ll quickly slip back into a sleepy regiment as things “return to normal”. I don’t want to do that, this has been a wake-up call for me.

What’s the one biggest lesson or realization you’ve had as a maker through all of this? Share it in the comments here or over on the Facebook page.