Minnesota artists struggle to keep creating as costs rise
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Nicole Fedele spends her evenings in her Minneapolis studio, using a blowtorch to heat metal for hazy, atmospheric pieces made from steel and wood.
“The steel kind of floats over the paintings, and then with strong lighting, they create this beautiful shadowing,” Fedele said.
She moved to Minnesota from New York City in search of something increasingly difficult to find there: enough space and financial breathing room to make her work. Now she has a car, an apartment, a studio and the specialized tools she needs for her artwork.
But she still does not make enough from her art to pursue it full time.
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“It's day job. Close the laptop at five. Go to the studio,” Fedele said, describing her daily routine. “Work on the art until you know — I try to cut it off around 10:30 at night, 11, so I can get a decent amount of sleep,” Fedele said. “The hustle is pretty exhausting. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”
Minnesota wages have largely kept pace with inflation, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. But those statewide numbers do not mean every worker is keeping up.
Artists, whose incomes can fluctuate with commissions, sales and project-based work, face a particular squeeze. Their living and material costs have increased, while customers have become more cautious about spending money on art.
Those pressures also ripple through the businesses artists rely on.
Mike Menasco is one of the owners of Artistic Indulgence, a custom framing workshop and gallery serving mostly local clients. The shop has provided his sole income for 30 years.
“Our framing industry, it's all across the board. Everything's gone up at least 30 percent in the past few years,” Menasco said.
Joe Mahon, regional outreach director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said discretionary spending on things like dining out or buying art, tends to decline when prices rise or the economy feels uncertain.
“That's going to be kind of a double whammy,” said Mahon. “It's not just that the cost of living has gone up for them, but maybe their incomes are even a little bit more volatile.”
For artists and arts businesses operating on thin margins, that combination can be dire.
“I'm sitting here worrying about bills coming in, and it just it cuts into that, and you just stop being creative sometimes,” said Menasco.
Fedele said the price of the steel she uses has increased by 40 percent. The cost of silver for her jewelry has also skyrocketed.
“Just to make a tiny little simple, piece of jewelry or something could be $100 in material by itself,” she said.
Larger manufacturers can sometimes control costs by buying raw materials in bulk and storing them, Mahon said. Most independent artists do not have the money or space to do that.
Springboard for the Arts, a Minnesota nonprofit, offers resources intended to make creative careers more sustainable.
Anitra Budd, a copy editor and wordsmith, works for the organization as an artist career consultant. She hosts workshops designed to help artists turn their creative practices into careers.
“We really want artists to feel seen,” Budd said. “They get to talk to somebody who's like, ‘I know what it's like to have an uncertain income stream. I know what it's like to have somebody come into your carefully put together booth at a trade fair and say, ‘Oh, I could make that. Why are you charging so much for that?’”
Springboard also piloted a guaranteed-income program that provided payments to artists over five years. The organization also offers emergency relief funds for artists facing severe financial strain.
“It turns out, when you give creative artists the cushion, the knowledge, the certainty in their income that a portion of it is going to be taken care of no matter what, it allows them the headspace to clear their mind to actually be able to make more art,” said Budd. “And to be a more engaged member of their own communities.”
For Menasco, supporting artists and giving them room to create is not a luxury.
“It is a necessity. You need art in your life,” said Menasco. “If you didn't have art, what would make you happy?”
