At The Weekly Footnote, we’ve written essay after essay discussing the current contraction of LA’s art world. But where does that leave all the artists? If they’re not selling work, what exactly are they doing all day?
1. Zines/Printed matter: There has been an uptick in local-artist run zines. This is interesting. In a publishing market with only a few legacy arts publications and an increasingly illiterate population, starting your own zine in print, has become, inexplicably a thing. Many artists figure if they can’t get print in the press that exists, they might as well write their own. They’re not completely wrong, as the same strategy has worked intermittently online for at least two decades. Recent indie publications include DivaCorp’s zine (even after their crash and burn Frieze week painting solo show), a zine by arts library Heavy Manners in which they’ve partnered with street art godfather Barry McGee, On the Rag–a zine by Sammy Loren where they constantly tell everyone how important they are, and The Wallace, a zine from a collection of curators, gallerinas, theater kids, and artists.
2. Brick and mortar indie spaces: Many artists have gone ahead and started small brick and mortar galleries to show themselves, their friends, or whoever might make money or get them attention—these are usually less than 1000 square feet and in less expensive parts of town. Looking at The Beach and Tip of the Berg and a small micro-gallery set-up in Long Beach that mimics the size and shape of post-box-sized little free libraries, but built with white walls and for displaying miniature work.
3. Workshops: Even artists have skills, everyone could use some more, and the ones who don’t—like to meet people who have them. Many creators have started a workshop or workshops where they can sell riso screen printing access and lessons, expertise in media, new media, or law, or a willingness to create and critique poetic verse. Many of these workshops seem to be more about trying to meet like-minded hipsters, but if you don’t like that kind of thing there are other cities you can live in.
4. Art handling/fabrication: The traditional go-to side hustle for the working artist with genuinely useful skills and a willingness to perform physical labor is to make what other (generally more-established and worse) artists draw on paper or AutoCAD or move it around after its been made. These hustles have been known to make artists resentful, which is widely considered unattractive, but it also keeps them fit, which is widely-considered attractive.
5. Teaching: Despite everything, people are still under the impression that they should get a higher education. And even more despite everything, they’re under the impression that learning about art counts as that. There are still art students and they still need someone to grade them. This is the most dangerous of the side-hustles, as it’s the easiest one to get cancelled out of.
6. Being born rich: The world of art has always included those who buy their way in. Membership in this club is small, but the culturally-literate rich are generally lonely—so they are generally desperate for friends. They throw parties, get generous with drugs, and sometimes, if you’re very lucky, fund their friends’ projects. So we can’t eat them yet.
Apart from generating cash to live, side hustles do another thing. They offer an artist a distraction away from the reality that they have artwork sitting on the floor or in storage that is not selling. At least if they have some creative outlet, the silence of the art market doesn’t seem quite so deafening.
Image: Tip of the Berg Gallery, Courtesy Google Street View.