What would you say to spending a few days in the "Land of Enchantment" next spring? What if doing so also offered the opportunity to watch demonstrations and take hands-on classes with some of today's top pastel artists? What if you could, at the same time, check out the newest products for pastel artists? Add to it all the chance to hang out with other artists who share a passion for pastel and you've got a good idea of what to expect at the 2009 Convention of the International Association of Pastel Societies.

A schedule of events and classes for the 8th IAPS Convention is now available on the IAPS website. The biennial gathering is scheduled to take place at the Hotel Albuquerque in Albuquerque, N.M., May 28 through 31. Plans also include pre- and post-convention workshops with Richard McKinley, Maggie Price, Margaret Evans, Jimmy Wright and Lorenzo Chavez.

You can also watch previews of the other seven 40-plus minute videos to help you decide if you’d like to subscribe to an individual workshop ($14.99) for a six-month period with unlimited, 24/7 viewing access, or subscribe to all of them for a six-month period ($69.99) with unlimited, 24/7 viewing access. You don’t have to download anything, and you can watch any time of the day as long as you have a high-speed Internet connection.

If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our e-mail newsletter for advance notice on new workshops. (Go to our homepage and enter your e-mail address in the left-hand corner.)

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.