According to a recently released 140-page study, "Artists in the Workforce: 1990–2005," from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), 2 million Americans identify themselves as artists. “Artists now play a huge but mostly unrecognized role in the new American economy of the 21st century,” said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. “This report shows how important American artists are to both our nation’s cultural vitality and economic prosperity of our communities.”

Some interesting snippets:

• The number of artists in the U.S. is growing, nearly tripling since 1970.
  
• Artists are more educated. Artists are twice as likely to have a college degree as other U.S. workers.
• Women remain underrepresented in several art-related occupations such as architecture, music, production and photography. Women do outnumber men, however, in the fields of dance, design and writing.
• San Francisco has the highest number of artists per capita. Santa Fe comes in second place.
  
• Los Angeles-Long Beach has the most artists overall (140,000), followed by New York (133,000). 
• Artists are diverse. The percentage of Hispanic, Asian or Native American artists grew from 9 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2005.

While the numbers indicate that artists make a big contribution to the U.S. workforce, the average income for an artist in the U.S. is $34,800—well below the average for other professionals. Perhaps there is hope, though, that as the number of working artists continues to grow, a higher value will be placed on the artist's contribution as a working professional. To download the full report, visit the NEA website.

Just thought I'd draw your attention to a potentially revealing pastel poll happening over at WetCanvas! The matter at hand--what's your pastel painting style?--is drawing some interesting responses. As you can imagine, this is something we often discuss at the magazine. We like to know what our readers like to paint--and why.

You'll find the results of the WetCanvas! poll (so far) below. Check back in and see what style is "winning" now. And think about casting your vote if you're a member. If you're not a member, I seriously wonder what's holding you back. It's free!

Hyper-Realistic (Can't tell it from a photograph)		14	7.14%
Painterly (Realistic but still clearly a painting/drawing)		125	63.78%
Impressionist (Inspired by Reality but with great license)		46	23.47%
Expressionist/Abstract (Most anything goes)		11	5.61%
Voters: 196

"I suppose everyone has their little quirks," says pastel artist Marie Meyer, "And mine is this: I really dislike duplicating my pastel colors." The artist is a self-described fanatic about weeding out duplicates from her pastel box. "Having duplicates in there slows down my work," she says, "as I find myself dithering over which stick to choose when they are, in fact, the same color!" Meyer also wants to avoid duplicate colors because she doesn't want to carry around a lot of dead weight in her pastel box—space that could be occupied perhaps by some new, unique color that would add something fresh to her palette. So, Meyer decided to do something about it. The outcome is a new multi-brand color chart of pastels—a 136-page reference guide that covers all open stock artist pastels.

"Before I took up art I worked in high-tech," Meyer says. "My experience there taught me that there are useful scientific methods for identifying and describing color with great precision. And so I decided to put that experience to work to create a new classification scheme for pastels that would making shopping easier and efficient." Her integrated color chart details the appearance of more than 5,700 sticks from 24 brands of soft and hard pastels. To see how it works, check out the chart below.

Pastel Society of America Hall of Fame artist, Alan Flattmann, had this to say: "Marie Meyer's Multi-Brand Color Chart for Pastels gives us an amazingly simple method of identifying color in a precise way.  It takes the mystery out of understanding color by showing how to think about color in terms of hue, chroma and value." You can find out what other artists are saying about the resource—and place an order—online at www.huechroval.com.

The opportunities for showing your pastel artwork continue. The Chicago Pastel Painters have made a call for entries for their second biennial juried exhibition. The exhibition is scheduled to take place February 5 through March 27, 2009, at the Koehnline Museum of Art at the Des Plaines campus of Oakton College, just outside Chicago.

The Juror of Selection and Awards, Doug Dawson, will also be offering a three-day workshop (March 6-8) in conjunction with the show. Awards include a $1,500 Best of Show, as well as $8,000 in cash and merchandise awards.

Some details: Accepting slides or digital images. Entry fees are $35/entry for up to three images. The postmark deadline is November 22. Visit the Chicago Pastel Painters website for a full prospectus or send a No. 10 SASE to: Mike Barret Kolasinski, 4124 North Monticello, Chicago, Illinois 60618.

Pictured here: Silk Blouse (pastel, 25x21) by CPP member artist Michael Latala.

Congratulations to Mike Beeman, of Cheyenne, Wyo., for winning the June Creative Spark challenge. His beautiful painting, Spring Bouquet (at right), fit well with Carole Catchen’s prompt on letting shape contribute to a painting’s total composition.

“Both positive and negative shapes are created as equal components within the composition and should come together much like a composer would arrange notes for a melody or musical arrangement,” says Beeman. “It’s important to me that shapes create a sense of tension between the essential form and the background.”

The artist won $200 toward the purchase of a Heilman pastel box. Our thanks to Heilman Designs for their generosity!





Other favorites of the PJ editors included Refined Reflections, by Stephanie Wellman; Meadow Matriarch, by Deborah Maklowski; and Tea for Two, by Deborah Kidwell (pictured, L-to-R, below).

   


Did you miss the deadline for the June challenge? There’s still time to get involved in the August challenge—deadline is Aug. 29, and the prize is Mount Vision Pastels!