Guided by the vital role of art and artists to the health of our state, the Illinois Creative Workforce Partnership seeks to advance our understanding of the realities and needs of arts workers and the larger cultural ecosystem to which they belong. A collaboration between Discovery Partners Institute; Arts Alliance Illinois, the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts at the University of Illinois Chicago, it funds research at the intersection of artistic labor, education, workforce development, government policy, and the social and economic impacts of the arts. The partnership’s goal is to identify nation-leading and transformative improvements in how the state trains, educates, supports, and employs its creative workforce.
Do artists work in different fields? Many studies focus on artists who stay in creative jobs, but we need more research on those in other careers. This study uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau to look at what jobs are held by arts graduates in the U.S. and Illinois. Our findings show that arts grads work in various fields, not just in arts and design.
The arts ecosystem has a persistent and acute record of exclusion and inequity – a record that is born out in arts education and labor force statistics. Recognizing that equity and justice in the arts are vital to ensuring that our cultural organizations, institutions, and productions represent the voices, perspectives, needs, and experiences of diverse communities, this spotlight issue examines the demographic characteristics of Illinois arts graduates in arts jobs, disaggregating this population by race, ethnicity, gender, and disability status. We ask: does unequal entry into post-secondary arts education extend to unequal entry into arts jobs after graduation?
Claire Rice, Executive Director, Arts Alliance Illinois
Carolyn Randolph-Kato, Associate Director of the Arts Impact Initiative, UIUC
Rebecca Rugg, Dean of the College of Architecture Design & the Arts, UIC
Meg Bates, Director, IWERC
Kevin Hamilton, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation, UIUC
Deba Dutta, Interim Executive Director, Discovery Partners Institute
Marc Doussard, Professor and Head of Urban and Regional Planning, UIUC
Jennifer Novak-Leonard, Director of the Arts Impact Initiative and Research Associate Professor, College of Fine and Applied Arts, UIUC