Marketing Mondays. Out of Work. And Invisible

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Desiree Palmen, from the Internet

A recent article for MSMBC discussed the 9 Professions That Saw Most Job Losses in 2009.

Here's the list:

1. Architects
2. Carpenters
3. Production supervisors and assembly workers
4. Pilots
5. Computer software engineers
6. Mechanical engineers
7. Construction workers
8. Bank tellers
9. Bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks

Notice anything missing? How about this for #10: Artists

Not that this is a list anyone would want to be on, but how is it that a group struggling more than usual (and, as usual, more than most) to earn a living is not mentioned? Where’s the information that would have allowed the reporter, Eve Tahmincioglu, to acknowledge us?

The visual arts have seen countless artists lose what little paid employment they had. I’m not picking on the writer of the article; she’s simply the most visible indicator of how invisible the creative community is.

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The number of bank tellers without employment is greater than the number of artists without jobs, only because most artists never had a countable job to begin with.

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. An artist whose commissions dry up in this economy has an invisible job loss

. An artist who sees sales at Open Studios dwindle to nothing has an invisible job loss

. An artist who has been teaching privately and has no more students has an invisible job loss

. An artist who has no sales because her dealer closed the gallery has an invisible job loss

. The dealer who closes her gallery has an invisible job loss that impacts many other invisible jobs, not just for artists but for administrative staff, part-time installers, bartenders for the openings, and yes, #9, bookkeepers.

I wrote about this latter issue of collateral damage in Where’s the Bailout for the Arts? just after the banks got all those billions, while artists saw grant money dwindle, museums cut back, and galleries close. Think about the impact to our community in this economy: artists without dealers, dealers without galleries, galleries without collectors; curators without museums (or vice versa); and all the folks who are out of a job due to cutbacks and plain lack of work: art handlers, art critics, PR firms that focus on the arts, assistants, secretaries and all the backroom and behind-the-desk support that’s so essential to the running of these businesses.

The bottom line: Aside from a handful of famous names, 99% of artists—my figure, and it’s probably too low—and the art professionals with whom we work most closely are not given a second thought.

But I’m not posting this just to complain. My question to all of you: What do we, as individual artists and as a community, do to be more visible? And equally important, what can we do to stay off the list no one thinks to put us on?