Supporting Yourself as an Artist: A Practical Guide

With all the resources available to assist them, why do most of the one million working artists in America lack the support they need for their creative work? In Supporting Yourself as an Artist, Deborah Hoover, a successful arts administrator, argues that the missing link is information--not only about where artists' resources are, but about what they are, and how to tap into them. This unique guide outlines a step-by-step approach by which artists can develop a critical network of individuals, organizations, and information resources that will enable them to support themselves well as artists.

Based on eight years of research, during which she interviewed more than 100 artists nationwide, and on her own experience as arts administrator and fundraiser, Hoover illustrates how artists have obtained free or low-cost contriubtions of everything from printing services to tax assistance. She includes first-hand accounts from corporate represntatives, patrons of the arts, arts administrators, and artists themselves--people who are anxious and willing to help artists find adequate means of support.

More than just another list of funding sources, Supporting Yourself as an Artist helps artists develop procedures for identifying the right funding source for a specific project, for witing proposals, requesting funds by phone or in person, dealing positively with rejection, and much, much more. Each page is filled with practical, easy-to-use information for painters, filmmakers, poets, playwrights--artists of every kind. Whether you live in New York, Portland, or Austin, if you are an artist supporting yourself by your art, you will find this an invaluable resource, to be used time and again in your career.

"I only wish that this had been written sooner. It's a life-sustaining consomme: rich but transparently clear. An essential aid for financial muddleheads like me."--Richard Leacock, Filmmaker

"This book is the artist's best guide to creating funding opportunities. It helps artists see how they can be as creative in funding their work as in making their work. This guide also provides a larger vision for funding artists that all arts administrators will find useful."Anne Hawley, Executive Director, Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities

"An excellent job....It's comprehensive, lively, well-written, and filled with information available nowhere else. It should be required reading for every artist and every person who is concerned with the support of individual artists."--Starr Ockenga, Photographer

A practical handbook on how to survive as an independent artist

BLContains solid, easy-to-use information on everything from getting funds to getting help on taxes to getting free equipment

BLBased on interviews with more than 100 practicing artists plus the author's own extensive experience as the director of MIT's innovative program for the arts

About the Author:

Deborah A. Hoover, formerly Executive Director of the Council for the Arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is now a cultural advisor to the Gambian government.

About the Author:
Deborah A. Hoover, formerly Executive Director of the Council for the Arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is currently a cultural advisor for the Gambian Cultural Committee.