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The topic of this week’s Twitter Chat, makerspaces, and the conversation we had around creativity missed one aspect that I would like to explore further: engagement and benefit to the professional arts community. I am a practising, exhibiting professional artist which I have been doing for the past six years alongside co-directing an artist-run initiative focused on supporting the formation of collaborative artworks. As we explored in the Twitter Chat, many class members (and lecturers) are passionate about the importance of creativity in society and in their own lives, as are many Australians. In 2009-2010, over 4.5 million Australians visited an art gallery and over one in five Australians created visual arts and craft.
However, the importance of creativity is not reflected in the financial support given to Australia’s creative practitioners. As David Pledger shows Australia’s independent artists’ are the lowest paid members of the Australian workforce. This is assertion is based on research of Australian Bureau of Statistics data, by the Australia Council for the Arts, which showed that in 2007-2008, Visual artists earned an estimated median annual income of $4,500 from their creative work. This is two-thirds of the median yearly income made by other artists ($7,000) and less than half of the median creative income of craft practitioners ($10,000). The technology and equipment provided in makerspaces may be the only way that professional artists can afford to practice, prototype and create work. As @StephVenturato suggested libraries should support creative production that isn’t anywhere else and @pberetta99 stated that libraries are in a great position to support creativity whatever form that assumes. Artists who do continue to practice may also face other social hurdles, for example, institutionalised sexism in the Australian and International art gallery systems has not improved. As the CoUNTess showed in 2012, women artists make up 60-65% of the artist population yet get 33-40% of the pie, while male artists who make up 33-40% of the artist population get 60-65% of the pie. Situating makerspaces in the library binds them to the IFLA Code of Ethics and the ALIA core values statement making this kind of discrimination unacceptable, and the makerspace all the more revolutionary.
Libraries, and consequently makerspaces, are socially intertwined spaces as @RobynneKay describes makerspaces are about community and creativity and sharing information. As can be seen through our Twitter Chat this week, libraries and artists are accustomed to finding creative ways to make more with less. Makerspaces should not only create a space for the community to make things but form a space to think about making. These spaces provide opportunities for the community to join broader conversations about practice and collaborate with other curious and creative people. This was reiterated by @EdwardShaddow who tweeted that Most makerspaces are just a space for people to come and collaborate. Hackers, knitters, artists. I hope that in the future, the creative communities and spaces that form around makerspaces help to develop a culture within Australian society which values and supports their creativity.
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If I could make a decent amount of money off my writing I would actually be writing full time. I think writers make more money off speaking engagements and workshops than they do off their writing. (Short fiction writers… I have no idea about those novelists). The lack of funding for Arts is such a bug bear of mine, so I shall refrain from ranting to the converted, and merely say “hear hear”.
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A very interesting post Ruth form the perspective of artists. It is sad to think that women are still consistently earning less than men. As someone who is not very artistic, but loves spending time looking at other peoples’ work in galleries I am saddened to see that artists as a group are so badly paid. I feel art and its beauty are important in our lives and that we should as a community should be valuing it appropriately.
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Ruth, I love the idea that makerspaces could be places that support female artists. In fact, there could be programs directed specifically at doing this, that could team up with members of the arts community to run such things. This was really something I had not thought of but makes perfect sense. 🙂
I sometimes feel like art is a bit left out of the maker movement, because not all artists are crafters or tinkerers… but I believe it is possible that space can be created for them to be there. -
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Hi Ruth – I really like the idea of makerspaces being a space for the community to think about making (not just the making itself). The social connection I think is a really important component of making and art – I do tend to forget that artists don’t create in a bubble, they need ideas and inspiration too!
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