Twenty five St. Paul artists will receive $500 a month for 18 months under a new program meant to boost the city's creative workforce — and inspire copycats across the country.
Springboard for the Arts announced Monday one of the first guaranteed income pilots in the nation aimed at artists, giving them cash payments, no strings attached.
Funded by the McKnight and Bush foundations, it's meant to work with St. Paul's People's Prosperity Pilot, launched by Mayor Melvin Carter last year, which itself is testing a new mode of providing direct, steady assistance to families in need.
"Of course, our first priority is that is direct, unrestricted support for artists," said Laura Zabel, Springboard's executive director. But because it's connected to the city's work, "we'll be able to do some research and demonstrate the value of supporting the creative community in the context of this bigger policy work that's happening at the city and national level."
The pilot, which starts in April, comes at a critical moment. The arts and culture industries have been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving artists in the lurch. During the quarter that ended in September, when the national overall unemployment rate averaged 8.5%, 55% of dancers, 52% of actors and 27% of musicians were out of work, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.
Artists are nearly four times as likely to be self-employed as other workers, the NEA has found — about 34% of artists compared with 9% of all workers.
"Part of being an artist is so much volatility and so much uncertainty month to month," said Zabel. "A particularly interesting question that we want to investigate is: What does even baseline stability allow?"
A nonprofit with offices in St. Paul and Fergus Falls, Springboard loves a pilot project and a quick turn. Within a week of the pandemic hitting, forcing closings and cancellations across the arts, Springboard began getting $500 emergency grants out the door and into artists' hands.
For this pilot, it will be randomly selecting the 25 artists from among those who applied for emergency funds and who live in the Frogtown and Rondo neighborhoods. At least 75% of recipients will be Black, Native American or people of color, Springboard said.
St. Paul will align the programs and the research to analyze their results.
"Springboard for the Arts is a vital partner in our work to ensure no one is left behind in this pandemic," Carter said in a news release.
Zabel suspects that this new pilot could make a difference beyond the lives of the artists, helping to sustain entire neighborhoods. Because it's tightly focused on two neighborhoods, Springboard hopes to see how this kind of stable income might affect the culture and the character of those areas, Zabel said.
Might it even help artists stay put?
"It's the oldest story in the book," she said, "of artists getting displaced along with other people when neighborhoods start to attract investment and development."
Jenna Ross • 612-673-7168 • @ByJenna
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