Similarly, Susan’s rent stabilized apartment in SOHO was filled with ample evidence that a working artist lived there. Canvases of various shapes and sizes were leaned against open stretches of wall space and paint brushes with dried or freshly dipped paint rested on stained pieces of cloth. Susan had been living in the apartment ever since her husband, a famous painter in his own right, had passed and left her alone amongst the memories, questions and frustrations that accompany the decades long effort to fulfill an unfulfilled legacy. Time just seemed to melt away.
The stories of James and Susan comprise just a smattering of the stories captured in Above Ground: Information on Artists III Special Focus New York City Aging Artists, the most recent study conducted by Joan Jeffri, the director of the Research Center for Arts and Culture and the Program in Arts Administration at Columbia University’s Teachers College. In her ongoing effort to provide long-term, systematic research and documentation on the condition, needs, and situation of the living artist in America, Jeffri turned her attention to artists between the ages of 62 to 97 years old and came up with some findings that may surprise but always enlighten. Nat Creole spoke with the life-long advocate of the arts to broaden our understanding of the arts community and where our elder artists fit into this mosaic. This we share with you… |
Nat Creole: What was the impetus for carrying out this study? Was there an implicit set of assumptions as to what the research might yield?
Joan Jeffri: This study is the culmination of 20+ years of work by the RCAC. This includes studies of jazz musicians for the NEA, dancers in career transition, training and career development of actors, painters and craftspeople, and ongoing studies called Information on Artists in different US cities about benchmark information including health insurance, pensions, income from art, education, etc. For these studies, and almost all others conducted on artists, the median age is between 35 and 40. The median age in our study is 73 and the age range between 62 and 97.
No one has tackled the unique and urgent needs of artists as they grow old. While foundations and other funders have long directed their largesse to emerging and even mid-career artists, notably few have concerned themselves with the artist as s/he matures into old age—artistically, emotionally, financially and chronologically. Special attention to aging artists is important for material support and policy-making and is made more urgent in a time of scarce resources when the baby boomer generation is about to enter the ranks of the retired.
By studying and documenting the situation and circumstances of aging artists, we can provide choices for a generation now dealing with challenges artists have faced and surmounted: retirement, multiple jobs and careers, the connections of life to meaning and to meaningful work. Artists‘lifelong engagement with their work, their tenacity and resilience, are qualities sought by a population that will live decades longer than its ancestors.
There are ten hypothesis including retirement, career satisfaction, income, education, identity and professionalism, multiple jobs and health insurance and the overarching hypothesis is that artists are models for society.
NC: Conversely, what was a stereotype about elder artists, or artists in general, that the study was able to refute?
JJ: Many expected that aging visual artists would be working in silos, isolated from the world. To the contrary, 77% of these artists communicate with other artists daily or weekly, and their social network of other artists on average is 29.
NC: What were the issues that pointed to a common plight among artists regardless of age?
JJ: While many artists have been documented to have health insurance (except grassroots jazz musicians), this has proved to be extremely expensive and generally not offered by arts service organizations. The real estate dilemma in NYC is critical – while 44 % of older visual artists in our study live in rent stabilized or subsidized housing (and only 2% are thinking of leaving NYC!), once these people pass away or move, the spaces will be deregulated and younger artists will not be able to afford to move in. This will endanger the creative capital of NYC which makes New York the destination that it is.
NC: What do you think is the most important or helpful piece of information in regards to improving the lot of elder artists that the study produced?
JJ: The positioning of artists as models for society—tenacious in their work, with a strong lifelong engagement (which gerontologists cite frequently as having health benefits), most of whom never retire from their art—is something the baby boomers, now of retirement age, can learn from. At a time when the aging population of NYC will increase by 44% by 2030, and when younger people are turning increasingly to freelancing instead of long-term job commitments, this is a finding that can bear real fruit in policies and programs for older artists and older people in NYC. In addition, the implications for immigrant artists are serious – with a much smaller percentage of Chinese artists in Queens, for example, with retirement plans, than other artists we interviewed. These artists, brilliantly trained in China and here for 20+ years, still have an insufficient knowledge of English and of the art market system here.
NC: With yet another segment of the nation’s artistic community addressed, what is next for the RCAC?
JJ: This is a long-term project. The next phase will be to interview performing artists in NYC, LA, SF and Chicago to make some significant comparisons, not only with visual artists, but with the larger studies of the aging population in this country. And, after that, we hope to do an international piece in another country. We will also be helping other organizations that can change policy and programs by supporting them with the study’s data. |
