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The founder of the Black Liberation Space in Iowa City watched as creatives gathered, learned together and found the confidence to pursue their careers in one shared space.
But a lack of “hope” that they could make it as an artist troubled Andre Wright, considering Iowa City’s “robust artist community,” he told the Press-Citizen.
Wright is the co-creator of Humanize My Hoodie and his recent purchase of the former Varsity Cleaners space will lend itself to the continuation of the ongoing work he is doing. That includes entrepreneurship and career opportunities for creatives locally, through his Wright House of Fashion institution.
But he doesn’t want to be the only organization doing that work. He’d like to see the city and Johnson County focus on supporting individuals, not organizations, for the purpose of having deeper conversations about how this arts community can evolve.
“I want them to say (that) we claim ourselves to be ‘the small city for the arts,’ but I want them to invest in that small city, too,” he said.
As Iowa City works to become the self-proclaimed “Greatest Small City for the Arts,” it must face challenges for visual artists in pursuit of their craft. Still, these creatives find community, mentorship and opportunities to support their work.
In a three-part series, the Press-Citizen is exploring the visual artists that live and work here; the challenges some face in pursuit of their creative work; and what can be done to better support visual artists in Iowa City.
In the second installment, the Press-Citizen spoke with visual artists in Iowa City over the course of several months to learn about the challenges they face in making a living off that creativity.
Many expressed satisfaction regarding some aspect of working as an artist in Iowa City. Some were grateful for organizations including Public Space One or the Iowa City Downtown District for the opportunities they provide. Others spoke of finding community among other artists in the area.
But artists also shared challenges regarding working in the Iowa City area. They spoke of a need for more places to either exhibit or sell their work, both in the private and public realms. They longed for more affordable, local studio spaces and housing.
Part One::Iowa City artists must balance creativity, financial reality: ‘You hope that you can find an audience’
Why creative work is important locally, and how the artist landscape is changing
Surrounding the arts is a lack of understanding that “creative work has financial value,” Kalmia Strong, program director at Public Space One, told the Press-Citizen.
Artists are often asked to do things with only “exposure” as payment, something widely criticized among creatives.
“I think there’s a lot of work to be done in terms of demonstrating how creative work is valuable and essential,” she said.
David Schmitz is an administrator with the Iowa Arts Council, the state’s art agency that seeks to create opportunities for the arts to thrive by “nurturing cultural leadership and investing in projects that provide access to arts experiences” statewide.
He said the arts in Iowa are visible through festivals, museums and the cultural organizations providing creative programming. But individual artists are less visible on a year-round basis unless they’re doing a performance or being featured by these organizations.
“The thing that I like to always remind people is that we know that we have more than 40,000 individual artists and creatives working in the state,” he said.
Arts organizations create jobs and attract tourism, but the arts also support a healthy community with artists helping with community revitalization to providing a desirable place for folks to live in, according to state policy briefs by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.
The Center for Cultural Innovation released a report in 2016 called “Creativity Connects: Trends and Conditions affecting U.S. Artists.”
The report, aided by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that:
- Technology has altered an artist’s landscape.
- Artists share economic challenges with other segments of the workforce.
- Training and funding for artists aren’t keeping up with their evolving needs.
- New technology and social media cause artists to become increasingly more responsible for duties that would otherwise be handled by agents, managers and marketers, causing artists to spend substantial time to learn and utilize their online platforms effectively.
- In academic or community training programs, young artists aren’t being educated in business or marketing skills or in thinking about entrepreneurial options.
- “Too few” artist fellowships, grants and awards offer support for new art forms, hybrid or interdisciplinary work for community-based artists and artists working in non-art sectors.
Artists seek more professional gallery spaces to exhibit their work, but their mediums may make that more difficult
Kai Kiser moved to Iowa City in 2015 to study creative writing before also pursuing visual arts.
They graduated, met their partner and got involved with nonprofit work. But since Kiser is no longer a student, they’ve found that the opportunities they once enjoyed at the University of Iowa — collaborating with other artists or participate in workshops — are more difficult to find.
The visual arts space tends to be more “limited,” Kiser told the Press-Citizen.
The Eastside artist, who uses they/them pronouns, said work displayed in gallery settings seems to be considered more fine art, like sculptures or paintings.
For those like Kiser working in digital art, there’s not as many spaces to show their art.
In Iowa City, exhibition spaces include:
- The ArtiFactory
- Public Space One
- AKAR
- TAAG Studios & Gallery
- Iowa Artisans Gallery
- University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics through Project Art
But there is variance among those locations. For example, the ArtiFactory, while it does display art exhibits, is limited to its smaller space in the basement of the Wesley Center.
Thomas Agran, Iowa City Downtown District public art manager, said the downtown district’s gallery walk, which invites community members to stop in to numerous downtown stores to view art being exhibited, helps people share their work.
“There’s not really a gallery scene in the kind of conventional sense of that in Iowa City, and so the opportunities to sell work are scattered (and), not in a disparaging way, but they’re not always super professional,” he said. “Gallery walk being an example of a place where people can share their work, and that’s great. But it’s not like a long-term gallery relationship with an artist who’s in a gallery who’s representing them. Those kinds of things are hard to find right now in Iowa City.”
An easier way to exhibit art, Kiser said, would benefit them as an artist in this community.
But the ability to have your work shown can be further affected by an artist’s medium.
Ali Hval is an interdisciplinary artist and an avid muralist, responsible for murals in Iowa City like the one on the backside of Studio 13 and the “live music” on the side of Elray’s Live & Dive bar.
She told the Press-Citizen in an email that Iowa City has done a “wonderful job” of producing opportunities for local artists, “specifically the Iowa City Downtown District’s efforts with public art.”
“Generally speaking, Iowa City doesn’t have the budget for public art that bigger cities like Cedar Rapids do, so artists here are forced to travel and arrange multiple public art opportunities in order to sustain themselves,” she said. “It can be hard for a lot of people, especially considering gas prices, shipping and lodging costs.”
Cedar Rapids’ public art fund is $60,000 annually, according to the city’s public art plan. That’s $10,000 more than Iowa City’s current funding.
Hval, in a later phone call with the Press-Citizen, described some of her ceramics as “sculptural.”
She said that finding a space for pieces like that can be difficult, so she opts to travel to find exhibits. Hval said there isn’t anything wrong with that as she wants to show her work outside of Iowa City.
“I think it would be nice to have a contemporary art venue in town, just so we could have other artists coming from outside of town to show work in places,” she said.
Hval said the medium that she receives the most paid opportunities for is murals.
One reason is because it’s a less pricey form of public art that can be commissioned, she said.
“You’re looking at something that could be anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 for a pretty decent-sized mural that does a lot to change a space,” she said. “Whereas if you wanted to (put) a sculpture for that same amount, you’re not gonna get anything very big, because that’s going to be the cost of the materials alone and you’re not really accounting for the artist’s labor.”
India Johnson is an artist and bookbinder whose 50-square-foot textile piece titled “Demand/Prayer” was displayed at the First Presbyterian Church in Iowa City earlier this year.
It’s fitting, considering she has an interest in art outside of gallery settings, she told the Press-Citizen in an email.
Her background is in book art, so the work she makes often utilizes delicate materials, she said.
But in pursuing art in spaces outside of gallery settings, Johnson has found that “sites, organizations and entities” that don’t have the arts as an “explicit part of their mission aren’t necessarily used to working with artists.”
“There’s a lot of extra logistics involved when you want to install fine art outside of a gallery or museum,” she said.
The Iowa City Arts Festival charges $150 or $300, depending on the desired size of space, for artists to host a booth and sell their work. That on top of artists who don’t have high output, or artists whose mediums make it difficult to sell their work at a high price (Kiser said they can’t sell a digital print for $500), make artists like Kiser question whether participating in the festival is financially worth it.
“I think having more accessible spaces to display and sell art could be really valuable to a lot of artists,” Kiser said.
A need for more affordable housing and affordable studio spaces
The median price of a home in Johnson County is $275,000, up about 10% compared to a year ago, according to the latest available data from Realtor.com. According to Rent.com, the average rent for a studio apartment in Iowa City is $1,125 a month.
Artists and non-artists share one concern that isn’t unique to Iowa City: There needs to be more affordable housing. That, compounded by the cost of living and availability to make a living off local art opportunities, can be especially challenging, Jenny Gringer, a printmaker in Iowa City said in an email to the Press-Citizen.
Beyond a place to live, some visual artists need a place to create and store their work, which sometimes involves materials that can be dangerous to store in a home or art that is too large to be made, or stored, at a home.
Agran said the need for studio space is one challenge he hears often from artists.
“Iowa City has this sort of reputation as being a place that’s really full of creative people and artists and makers, but it is very hard to find studio space to work in that is affordable in any capacity,” he said.
Alexandra Ackerman is a watercolor and mixed media artist who has been in Iowa City for about 10 years. She has a studio downtown and told the Press-Citizen in an email that she also feels there’s a lack of affordable work space for visual artists in Iowa City.
She splits her space in half to share with her partner, allotting her 250 square feet of a 20-by-25-foot room. She pays $200 a month.
She also would like to have more places to sell her work. Currently, she sells cards, prints and “small work” at Prairie Lights.
Studio spaces in Iowa City include just a few rooms in the basement of the Wesley Center, currently rented by the ArtiFactory, Public Space One and TAAG Studios & Gallery.
The latter began when owner and artist Bella Vine needed a space in Iowa City where she could create her art, Vine told the Press-Citizen last year.
Several artist friends requested she get them a space, “excited” about the possibility they’d have their own.
She leased old dental offices at 1041 Arthur St. and started TAAG Studios. Eight years later, of her 15 studio spaces, four recently became available, the most she’s ever had.
At the time Vine was searching for a studio space, she came across a few options.
Landlords wouldn’t rent her an office or commercial space, concerned that her doing art could cause property damage.
Vine is a sculptor and painter.
She recalled that one studio she was looking at was in a basement in the downtown area, priced at $1,200 a month. The size, she estimated, was about 10 feet by 11 feet.
“Ideally, I would like to have had a place downtown,” she said. “But I have come to realize that is not going to happen, and if you do happen to have the space near downtown, you’re very lucky. You better hang on to it.”
Artists can benefit from entrepreneurial lessons and mentorship opportunities
In India Johnson’s experience of working to display art in a public or semi-public place, administrative work takes two to three times longer than working with a “dedicated art venue.”
To pay for this kind of public work, Johnson seeks grants.
Pursuing grants can be complicated for some artists. That means selling work and making a living off art often requires business or entrepreneurial skills. Some artists are prepared for that. Others aren’t.
Desiree Dahl is primarily a printmaker and illustrator, which doesn’t always qualify for grant funding the way murals, sculptures and outdoor installations often do.
Dahl cites the Iowa City Press Co-op as contributing to her development as an artist, and finding a community. Her challenge as an artist is making consistent, sustainable income from her work, saying that for her, it can be difficult to “connect with people who want to invest in art and have the disposable income to do so.”
She’d like to see grant opportunities that support artists starting and sustaining small businesses.
Dahl said she has experience in grant-writing and marketing and sees those subjects as beneficial for artists to know. She said she would benefit from classes related to running a small, creative business.
“I don’t really have anyone close to me who I can go to for advice if I have a business-related question,” she said. “I’ve been very reliant on the internet to build skills pertaining to entrepreneurship.”
For those selling work, there are many aspects to consider that aren’t always supported or taught. How to photograph a piece of art to advertise it and setting up shop online are components that need to be considered, Kalmia Strong of PS1 said.
“Some people get that in school or somewhere else. But there are a lot of artists that I know who haven’t had the opportunity to have that kind of experience or training,” Strong said.
Andre Wright once worked in economic development, fostering connections at the city and county level. He credits that for opening up other doors for him as an artist.
Wright said it took him a long time to figure out how to make money from his art.
For those looking to create work to share beyond the scope of friends and family, it becomes a matter of getting people to understand their story. Wright said he believes marketing is part of making that happen.
“I feel being able to tell a really compelling story and talk about your pieces and why you do what you do is uber important, and that is also a part of business,” he said. “But then also think about what’s your business model? What’s your unique selling proposition? If we got 50 artists in a room, and you guys all drew the same painting, why would I buy yours? … And so I believe our ecosystem needs to obviously allow more training when it comes to that micro-enterprising.”
How Iowa City Downtown District has offered paid art opportunities, despite its limits as a SSMID
Agran listed the paid art opportunities through the Iowa City Downtown District, including the benchmarks program, which Agran described as being geared toward helping people get their first public art opportunity.
While there is not a consistent number, Agran estimated there are two or three larger-scale mural projects each year.
This year, the downtown district introduced a new program seeking artists to paint the doorways or alcoves in alleys. Agran said this project is more “involved” than the bench paintings, but less involved than the larger murals, providing the downtown district another chance to connect with a different set of artists.
Agran originally participated in the benchmarks program as an artist.
The program began unpaid, something that he’s worked hard to successfully change.
“I would say that as we increase funding, there’s a pretty direct correlation with increased applicants, as those opportunities are funding artists at more sustainable levels and more fair wages for what the work is,” he said.
This year, Agran said there was a “slimmer pool of applicants.”
Agran said there’s a balancing act, one of the downtown district wanting to work with local artists, but also having to consider what it can do differently to broaden the pool of voices beyond the local community if local artists aren’t applying for these opportunities.
“We’re a very small town and so there are ebbs and flows of people that are engaged and interested in working in this way that’s like part of a college town and part of a small community,” he said. “So the applications I think, ebb and flow kind of naturally with the rhythms of Iowa City as well.”
The downtown district has offered CoSign, which provides matching grants toward creating locally designed and customized signage for downtown Iowa City businesses.
“That was a program that was accessing people who, maybe they don’t want to paint a mural, maybe they are not really graphic designers, but they have pretty cool visions and ideas for working outside of the box,” Agran said.
Agran said funding for public art at the municipal level, per capita, used to be “considerably higher in Iowa City.”
In 1999, the Iowa City Public Art Program was allotted $100,000. That amount would be awarded twice more, in 2000 and 2002, dropping to $50,000 until 2010, when $14,750 was approved for the program. The public art program received its smallest amount of funding in 2013, just $3,000. It took seven years for the program to return to the $50,000 mark.
In the absence of that, Agran said, the downtown district has filled the need for public art funding in Iowa City.
“What that creates is some challenges, because the city of Iowa City’s jurisdiction is every part of Iowa City, whereas downtown district is operating specifically and legally within a very, very small geography. And I think that there are ways in which the funding and resources the downtown district has put towards public art have given a bit of a path for the city. But that is at the expense of the greater city, because not everybody is downtown or is served by downtown,” he said.
Iowa City Public Art Program finds some growth after years of little funding
Wendy Ford, Iowa City’s economic development coordinator, also serves on Iowa City’s Public Art Advisory Committee as public art coordinator.
She said she anticipates the public art advisory committee will request $50,000 for 2023.
“We see (public art) as a real attractor to Iowa City,” she said. “Not only does it make the public places more attractive to folks who live and work here already, but when visitors from outside see how important it is to the city to have a good public arts presence, then they also see that city as a place that may be open and welcoming to them because of the culture that that helps create.”
Ford was with the city when funding for public art dropped in 2010. The decision came after a “strong need” to cut the budget of a number of departments, she said.
When the public art advisory committee sought a larger budget, the City Council asked it to come up with a strategic plan to show how that money would be used.
The public art advisory committee explained that it uses the money for some of its programming and opportunities. Among them:
- Sculptor’s Showcase
- Matching grants, usually one or two rounds per year
- A few large projects, like the Oracles of Iowa City or an upcoming art project in the Black Hawk mini park, as determined by the public art advisory committee guided by the knowledge of the community’s interests thanks to a public survey a few years ago
- Maintaining public art, which will cost more as as the amount of public art grows
Typically, funding for the public art advisory committee’s work comes from the city only, but there have been instances where outside funding has supported a project, like when the University of Iowa supported the Oracles project by providing $12,000.
Supporting the arts at the city level extends beyond just the public art program.
The city committed $1 million toward the Englert Theatre and FilmScene’s “Strengthen Grow Evolve” campaign in 2019, according to KCRG.
“Even though the Public Art Advisory Committee budget is only $50,000 a year, there are many times that amount going out to support arts and the artists in our community through these other venues as well,” Ford said.
In the public art program’s strategic plan are seven ways the advisory committee could generate additional funding.
That includes:
- Hotel/motel tax set-aside
- Private development percent for art, which enables a development bonus if private developers provide a percent of total development costs to be utilized for the arts
- Percent for public art
- General fund annual allocation
- Endowment fund (Community Foundation of Johnson County)
- Grants
- Private funding
In the Riverfront Crossings District, developers can utilize a height bonus for public art, where an additional floor of a building can be granted. In return, a contribution to the city’s public art program must be made equal to 1% of the sum of all construction costs on building permits of the project.
The public art program gets the money, but it must be used toward art in the Riverfront Crossings District, according to Iowa City code.
While that may contribute toward the program’s opportunities to provide more art in Iowa City, Agran said that public art spikes — if they happen — “will only happen in the places where the most money is already being invested in Iowa City.”
“So I think that there are really broad questions to ask about how do we equitably fund and resource public art and artists opportunities in Iowa City at the municipal level,” he said.
Paris Barraza covers entertainment, lifestyle and arts at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach her at [email protected] or (319) 519-9731. Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.