Hellooo again. It’s officially the month of Halloween. Time to settle in with our favorite spooky movies, eat candy, and generally embrace the spookiest season around.
This time around I’d really like to talk about the impact that the arts has seen during COVID-19 and just why culture is still so important this year. October is the National Arts and Humanities Month and while there is certainly never a bad time to talk about these things, 2020 definitely seems like an impeccable time to dive into it further.
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2020, due mostly to effects from COVID-19, has had a significant impact on the arts in a variety of ways from monetary losses to individual impacts on artists and creatives.
According to a research update from May 4, 2020 by the Americans for the Arts organization, some $4.98 billion was lost to nonprofit arts organizations and 66% of the 11,000 surveyed expected to see a severe impact on their organization. But the responses also noted that many of these organizations were also still creating “artistic content to raise community spirits and morale!”
In that same research update, 15,700 artists and creative workers were also surveyed. 95% reported lost income and 61% reported that they were experiencing a “drastic decrease” in creative work that made income.
These survey results definitely lay out some scary things for the arts and humanities space. Obviously many industries and areas have been impacted by COVID-19, but it’s been especially damaging to the arts.
In an especially enlightening piece from The Atlantic, Helen Lewis really laid out how the theater scape in Britain was fairing over the summer. Theaters have seen budget cuts from the Arts Council (which distributes state funding to promote arts across the board) while putting forth efforts to do fundraising and “lobbying of the government by artistic directors, and high-profile figures in the arts.”
I think the way Lewis ended the piece speaks volune to how just about everyone in the arts right now is fairing:
There are flashes of positivity; most theater-makers describe themselves as natural optimists. “Someone right now is writing a really great play they wouldn’t have got round to,” Barney Norris told me. Then he added dejectedly, “But there’ll be no money.”
That’s what makes this very strange moment in time for the arts and humanities so double-sided. As a writer and just as someone who has friends who are also creators, I know that this year has provided people with more time than ever before to actually just create. Whether that has been in the form of working from home and taking extra time that might have been spent on commuting to actually create or just channeling more effort into creating things because of how overwhelming this year has been for everyone, I know that there’s been so much amazing creativity being channel out there.
But then when you see numbers like the above, it’s just another stark reminder of how often the arts are just kind of left by the wayside.
I know as a writer myself, I feel like I’ve written so much more this year. This has come in the form of this very newsletter, my freelance work, and my own personal writing. There’s just been an outpouring of ideas, not only for me but for a lot of other creators.
The effect the pandemic has had on the arts is certainly intense, both on the negative and positive sides. I think it’s something worth keeping an eye on, especially when art and media is something we all enjoy so much. There’s still a lot to come for the arts as the world continues to deal with the pandemic.
People are getting round to writing or drawing or creating that thing they might not have been able to otherwise. And that is, in my mind, a wholeheartedly good thing. Art, no matter the form it takes, is valuable.
Coffee (little pick me ups for the week:
Here’s a good vibe to keep this week.
A thread of amazing TikTok duets that’s “pretty much a guy wrote a musical number about a grocery store and everyone is adding onto it and I am deceased.”
@SydneyBattle on Twitter had their dad film a tour of local ditches.
The Bigger Picture: A new short film from Paradox House that I absolutely love! It’s a short watch and really digs into the two characters for one moment in their life.
The website for the National Arts and Humanities Month has some great ideas on how to support the arts that are local to you.
Some lovely writing advice I saw:
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