In 2004, Demos published a pamphlet by Charlie Leadbeater and Paul Miller called Pro Am Revolution. The authors, who define ‘pro-ams’ as amateurs who work to professional standards, write:
The 20th century witnessed the rise of professionals in medicine, science, education, and politics. In one field after another, amateurs and their ramshackle organisations were driven out by people who knew what they were doing and had certificates to prove it.
Leadbeater and Miller argued, however, that this ‘historic shift’ was reversing and that we were witnessing the rise of the pro-am. They called for rethinking the ‘all-or-nothing categories’ of professional and amateur, suggesting instead a spectrum which includes (in the arts, for example) hobbyists at one end, full-time professionals who make their living as artists at the other, and categories in between, including those that would be described best as ‘pro-ams’: people who hold steady day jobs but spend considerable time seriously pursuing an art form (writing, doing fringe theater, sculpting, dancing, playing music, making films, and so on).
As in other fields, the twentieth century saw the rise of the professional nonprofit arts organization and with it professional training programs (and the corresponding disparagement and even displacement of amateur arts organizations and artists). While we may be graduating tens of thousands of students with arts degrees each year, including some percentage billed as ‘professional training’ degrees, as everyone in the arts knows, most of those who train for and aspire to careers as professional artists are unable to support themselves by making art. Indeed, many that call themselves ‘professional artists’ would actually be categorized as ‘pro-ams’ under Leadbeater and Miller’s definition: they may work to professional standards but they’re not making money doing it.
One understands why chronically underemployed artists maintain the professional mantle; if they called themselves part-timers or amateurs they would lose legitimacy with agents, producers, and other gatekeepers, with their peers, and probably in their own eyes, as well. I’m not suggesting that there should be no ‘professional’ category of artist or that artists shouldn’t expect to make a living wage when they work with large professional organizations (see two previous posts here and here for rants on that). However, the ‘professionalized’ ethos of the arts and culture sector in the US seems to be at odds with the difficult reality that most artists (and many administrators) are unable to make anything close to a living in the arts (even when they are working at so-called ‘professional’ nonprofit arts organizations).
Moreover, such an ethos seems out of sync in an era in which amateurs working to professional standards are increasingly embraced as talented and vital contributors across many fields. (Leadbeater and Miller make the point, for instance, that evening and weekend serious stargazers have helped to make important discoveries in astronomy.)
Additionally, there are many more channels available for independent creators to network, make something amazing happen in the world, promote their work, and cultivate a niche or loyal fan base. Meaning, they don’t necessarily need to wait around to be discovered and hired by professional gatekeepers, experts, and intermediaries to have an important and satisfying career in the arts.
As larger forces push institutions toward cooperative infrastructure models and blur the line separating professionals from amateurs it seems that the arts field may be limiting its future (rather than saving it) by continually scrambling to redraw the line and put people on one side or the other of it. Other fields are embracing this shift—witness the open source and crowdsourcing models that are increasingly pursued not only because they often are more efficient, but because they often yield better ideas, contributions, and products.
Despite the fact that a majority of nonprofit arts organizations sustain nothing close to a living wage for anyone working at them, we hold onto the idea of being a ‘professionalized sector’ (with all the jargon, behaviors, goals, practices, and processes that come with that idea) because we perceive that it is meaningful and beneficial (for art, for artists, for the communities we serve) to do so.
But is it? Once you get beyond that relatively small number of institutions that have a sufficient base of support to sustain a full time staff and pay living wages to artists? And if it’s an ideal that has been realized by so few, why is it still held up as an ideal for the entire sector? Especially if, by privileging the idea of professionalism we (perhaps inadvertently) not only discount the vibrant amateur sector, but in a sense, perceive the arts and culture sector to be ‘lacking’ rather than ‘self-actualized’, so to speak? Among the consequences of our fetishism of professional status, it strikes me that we have relegated ourselves to being a sector with huge numbers of unsuccessful and underemployed professional artists rather than a sector with huge numbers of successful, part-time or occasional, pro-am ones.
Perhaps it’s time for the arts and culture sector in the US to embrace its true nature and the possibilities of this new era and rethink what constitutes a ‘satisfying’, ‘successful’, or ‘legitimate’ life/career in the arts in 21st century America?
Diane Ragsdale is currently a promovendus at Erasmus University in Rotterdam where she is lecturing in the cultural economics program and pursuing a PhD. For the six years prior to moving to Europe, Diane worked in the Performing Arts program at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is a frequent speaker at arts conferences within and outside of the US. You can read her blog, Jumper, on ArtsJournal.com and follow her on Twitter @DERagsdale.
[...] is the role of an artist in the world today?” for its new State of the Artist blog. My post, The Professional Lens: Are we a sector of underemployed ‘professional’ artists or successful ‘… is now live. I hope you will find time to read it and [...]
Diane:
Thank you – especially for offering a continuum rather than a bright line in the sand. Productive dialogue will only occur when the sector is united along that continuum rather than divided by it.
Case in point: almost exactly a year ago, Collective Arts Think Tank published their “Follow up Letter to the Field” (http://collectiveartsthinktank.blogspot.com/2011/03/follow-up-letter-to-field-small-steps.html) in which the authors wrote “artists who do not get paid are not professionals. Period.” I argued on creative infrastructure (http://creativeinfrastructure.org/2011/03/20/catt-supply-demand-risk-reward/) that we shouldn’t measure our “professionalism” by the presence or, more likely, absence, of money. If we can join together along the continuum between patron and hobbyist through full time professional, perhaps then we can garner the “clout” that Arlene Goldbard and Barry Hessenius describe in the other conversation you are taking part in this week (http://arlenegoldbard.com/category/clout-a-blogfest/)
In a 1993 essay called “ Race and Architecture” the scholar Dr. Cornel West worried that the assimilation of architectural criticism into the literary criticism would lead to the watering down of a meaningful architecture in this country. Dr. West suggested that the assimilation of “architectural objects into the larger cultural practices has led in many cases to a loss of specificity of architectural practices and objects”.
I caution that the same may be happening in the arts driven by particular power structures who want to change the terminology of how we think and talk about the arts.
Ragsdale ups the ante one step further in her blog post by not only suggesting that everyone can be an artist no matter how much time they can devote to their practice but that concepts associated in the past with professionalism, such as knowledge and expertise, no longer have to matter.The new language seems to be saying that anyone can now be a type of professional, even amateurs, simply by calling themselves one.
Good thing pro-am doctors, only working on the weekends or in their spare time, hasn’t caught on.
The conflation of West’s thesis and Ragsdale’s proposition seems rather arbitrary. I would argue rather that the very real power structures that exist in the arts field – and in society at large – have driven how we think and talk about the arts to the extent that we consistently devalue any artist or work that is not created or presented within the context of the market. Market value being driven by the gatekeepers of the large organizations – presenters, producers, curators, media, etc. – and their perception of what will be best recieved by the very small percentage of the population that they see as their audience.
I think what she is urging is a reappraisal of how we talk about artists who have a life-practice in their medium(s), but who are making work that is undervalued by the larger institutions. This work may not have sufficient (or consistent) value in the marketplace, enough to make a living (whatever we may mean by “living”). But it may have high value as defined by the aesthetic experience of those who are engaged with it as audience.
I don’t read anywhere that she disdains knowledge or expertise. I think she is pointing out that many individuals with a great deal of expertise, who are creating work, are not necessarily able to make a living doing so, which seems to be the standard of whether someone is a professional or not (not how many degrees one might have; here again, a specious, analogy: the tired comparison with doctors is not germane as there are very, very few people with medical degrees who cannot find work in the always expanding health field, regardless of the state of the economy – or of their actual talent; also, for better or worse we cannot sue the individuals or institutions responsible for subjecting us to substandard work, however much we feel we have suffered due to the malpractice of their bad art, nor can we say that we have physically suffered in this regard.).
I think her argument is one that creates a great deal of anxiety, as it does call into question many of the markers on which we stake the legitimacy of artists (a history of employment by larger institutions, degrees, reviews, etc.). This forces us to consider the output of artists from a far more rigorous perspective: the actual work being produced, when it is produced, rather than venue, marketability or rate of production. Without a résumé as our guide, how can we know the work is good?
By pointing out that good work is happening in many contexts, often outside the larger institutions or other places where the market can sustain a living, is a call for greater, not lesser, rigor. But it places the onus on individuals to make decisions for themselves what is good, or even great, art, as opposed to accepting what they are told to value. To my mind Ragsdale is not calling for a lowering of standards, but rather, in this sense, asking that we take on the responsibility for standards as discerning individuals.
Thank you for this post, Diane. It is very thought-provoking. I am lucky enough to be a professional artist, drawing a salary from a dance company that I started almost 20 years ago. I also do tax preparation (as a mission-driven side project) for about 100 Philadelphia dance and theater artists, so I know exactly how many of them earn their income solely from their art, and it is a tiny percentage. I agree that as a sector, we should be embracing new models and supporting the people and organizations that are pro-ams and hire the pro-ams. Much of the pressure towards “professionalism” that you mention comes from the funders, who can’t imagine that an independent choreographer (who might be herself a pro-am) could possibly have the capacity or expertise to manage a budget, report back to the funder in a timely fashion, etc. Some do, some don’t. But funders need to realize that our ecosystem is healthiest when all levels are being supported, rather than just continually funding the most “professional”, and forcing us to continually hire expensive consultants so we can become ever more “professional” by their narrow standards.
Diane-
I was forwarded your article and among the blizzard of info that crosses our awareness on a daily basis, this caught my attention mainly because it dances around a fire I lit quite some time ago in an essay. You can read it on my site: http://sibfilmmaking.blogspot.com
I have a bunch of things to move off of my plate because I plan on addressing your essay blow by blow, and that’ll take some work. It will be be posted to a listserv of which I doubt you would want to subscribe, so, if after checking out my essay you would like to see my critique, email me and I’ll forward it.
Thanks,
jp
Yes! Let’s divorce the concept of excellence and professionalism with yearly income. 75% of the performers I work with do not make their rent money with their art but they are great artists. It’s been a journey learning how to communicate about the high quality work community based artists create but our audiences have quadrupled in the past four years since we began programming them.
Claudia Alick
Associate Producer, community
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
[...] The professional lens: Are we a sector of underemployed ‘professional’ artists or successful ‘… [...]
[...] in this country pay non-living wages to both administrators and artists led me to write a post for the McKnight Foundation awhile back asking whether we can rightly call ourselves a [...]
[...] So much of the arts industry seems focused on keeping an audience passive and in its consumptive place in the bleachers. But if no one grew up playing baseball would baseball remain popular? A consumer’s interest only carries us so far…. If no potbellied businessmen spent Sundays out at the over 50 softball league, swinging away and shagging fly balls, would support be as sustained? If dads and their sons didn’t go outside and play catch, mothers and their daughters, would the sport still be popular? If no child dreamed the dream of a career in the majors (or a flirtation with it in the summers) would so many families take their kids to the park? It seems that the only way the MLB survives is that there are countless participatory opportunities throughout the country: Co-ed, women’s, and men’s, little league, high school and college ball, the minor leagues, neighborhood and a plethora of amateur pick up games…. And art is very much like that. Its not only the folks who have made it to the major leagues who are ball players, and its not only the cream of the artistic gallery crop who are artists. Its not only the full time professionals….. [...]