It Takes a Village

Collaboration, partnership, resource-sharing and mentorship are crucial to ERPA.  The Field is also seeking additional funding from individuals, and private and public funders to realize the full impact of ERPA.  If you are interested in working with us as an artist, funder, mentor, resource, or press relationship, please contact: erpa@thefield.org.  Thank you!

Needs Addressed

Rumor has it that 40 artists arrive in New York every day – energetic and ambitious.  They work hard, two or three jobs usually.  They sleep little.  Their income is sparse and their expenses (hopefully) as sparse.  It is exhausting, precarious, tenuous, dirty, and overwhelming. But they love making art, so they do it all, day in and day out.  They do it all because there is hope for something better: a show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one job that pays all their rent, a glowing review in The New York Times, a grant from an esteemed foundation, a union card that guarantees them a livable wage, a non-roommate studio on a tree-filled block, the ability to afford dinner and a movie.  This “better life” dreamed of by artists, however, is getting harder and harder to attain in New York.  The combination of soaring real estate prices, gentrification, overheated competition for press, funders, and gigs, outlandish food and clothing prices all combine to push artists further out - out to the edges of the boroughs, out of economic stability, out of career achievement, and out of hope.  The “turnover time” that artists stay in New York or in the arts is decreasing rapidly.  Ten years, fifteen years used to be common.  Now we see people coming and going in two years, five years.  It is just too hard to live here.  Why not move to Philadelphia or San Francisco or Berlin or Madrid?

Goals & Objectives – Is there anything new out there?

We need solutions.  We need new economic strategies that speak to the exigencies of a modern world that values speed, ease, and gratification.  It is not as simple as ‘artists need more money’ or ‘artists need a space of their own’ or ‘non-profits should work like for-profits.’  Something radical needs to change and we say, put it in artists’ hands. They (you, we) are in the trenches, we know what we need, we know how it works.  ERPA is not a top-down approach that imposes un-actionable ‘business’ projects on artists.  And ERPA is not yet another grant program that diverts artists from their goals or their creative processes.  ERPA aims to inspire artists, and business people and government agents and philanthropists, to think and work and live differently in the arts and for the arts.  To do this we will beg, borrow and appropriate models, resources and ideas from other sectors that can positively impact the arts community.  We will look closely at those around us who are already addressing these challenges and seek inspiration and collaboration from them.  Perhaps it’s about micro-financing for the arts, perhaps it’s a NYC “sin tax” funneled to the arts, perhaps it’s an investment fund targeting experimental theater groups, perhaps it’s a DIY web portal that puts touring directly in artists’ hands and removes the middlemen?  We don’t know exactly what the answers will be.  But we will guide the search and steward the process.

The Artists' Congress was developed by Diane Vivona, former Director of The Field. The program was a forum where performing artists could speak freely about their concerns and initiate dialogue and action in the performing arts community. The project was sponsored by The Field, in association with New York Foundation for the Arts, but was driven by artists. Any interested performing artist could participate, and dialogue included various members of the performing arts community, including funders, presenters, administrators, critics, politicians, philanthropists, and audiences.

At the annual meeting, the Artist Representatives presented their collective findings. By bringing artists and members of the arts community together to discuss current issues, the Artists' Congress created a forum for ongoing communication that supports the various perspectives of the arts community, acknowledge needs, shift models, and facilitates further action.

Currently, the Artists' Congress is on hiatus. To learn more about past Artists' Congress process and findings, please download the 2003 Artists' Congress report regarding that year's focus on funding, or the 2004 Artists' Congress report about Arts Service Organizations.

Artist: Erik Sanko
Photo: Erik Sanko
Website: www.eriksanko.com