Always happy to draw attention to the good work of arts organizations, I was pleased to get a comment on yesterday’s post about creating contests and engagement events which expect artists to work on spec.
In her comment, Eva Buttacavoli, Executive Director of The Contemporary Dayton in Ohio writes about her organization’s efforts to create the expectation that artists should be paid for their work.
In EVERYTHING we do, we have and will continue to, pay artists for their work. We actually also pay for all RFP finalists’ specs – and, as the city’s art center, we use requests for art (for festivals, lobbies, walls in blighted areas), to teach community leaders (and the folks who ultimately write the checks) that we have a culture of and expectation to pay artists – and we actually will not help promote or support any project that does not. Our artists have learned to champion themselves and their work – and have passed that expectation along to most projects for which they are invited.
She includes a link to a recent effort where artists designs were used on vinyl wraps placed on electric boxes around downtown which seems like a fun idea for other communities to pick up on – https://www.downtowndayton.org/artwraps/
Many of the electrical boxes in Santa Cruz, CA are painted (directly on the box, not a vinyl wrap). I believe that artists have been paid for the work. In the county, outside the city, there was a program called “Outside the Box” that definitely paid artists, but I don’t know how much: https://www.scparks.com/Home/FindaProgram/ArtsCulturalPrograms/OutsidetheBox.aspx