C4 Atlanta recently closed the Atlanta COVID-19 Artist Impact Survey. Our staff would like to share some of the preliminary findings ahead of our full data analysis. We will be sharing more detailed findings shortly.
The purpose of this survey was to gauge the overall impact of losses by individual artists and impact due to COVID-19 related social distancing and medical issues.
C4 Atlanta partnered with Dekalb Entertainment Commission to distribute the survey.
The Atlanta Regional Commission has agreed to help with data analysis and is currently pouring over our data for deeper dives.
This survey is modeled off of another survey by MidAmerica Arts Alliance of midwestern arts organizations. We have used their survey as a model in order to compare data between our two regions. In addition to releasing our findings publicly, we will share our data with MidAmerica Arts Alliance in order to compare trends nationally in COVID-19 impact.
We intend to release a follow-up survey later in the summer gauging longer-term impact and changes as the pandemic progresses.
All findings are as of April 24, 2020, the date our survey initially closed.
Here is a snapshot of our preliminary data:
- As of April 24, the total amount lost for all artists responding (about 978 of 1014 total responses) is between $5.1 and $6.9 million.
- Initial lost income estimates (per artist) – As of April 24, it is estimated that the average about of income lost is between $5,230 – $7,092 per artist and could be even higher since some artists reported losing $20,000+.
Who responded: 1014 individuals
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- Gender: 66% women, 32% men, 2% nonbinary
- Ethnicity: 62% White, 23% Black, remaining 15% Asian, Latinx, and other races or declined to answer
- Disciplines: From all sorts of disciplines but the largest sectors represented were 28% theatre or acting, 23% film production, 14% visual, 12% music, with other disciplines represented in smaller percentages.
- Percentage of overall income derived from art making or arts industry work: 50% get most or all of their income from their art practice. 65% get at least half.
What has been lost (as of April 24, 2020):
- Amount of Gigs/Jobs lost: 66% have lost 3 or more paying gigs; 34% have lost 6 or more
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- 75% of responding artists have lost more than $1000 so far; 40% have lost more than $5000 so far. Some have already lost more than $20k.
- Overall 83% have lost enough to impact their livelihood
- If they earn income from outside of the arts, 72% have lost or partially lost that income.
What does that mean for them?
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- For April 2020, 25% are NOT confident they can meet their financial obligations
- By August that number rises to 75%
- If they were to have to rely just on savings, 40% could make it three months or longer. 15% could make it six months.
- 64% report that their creative output has decreased. (Only 17% report their creative output has increased.)
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What do they need?
- 44% reported that their mental health was impacted.
- Top Three Biggest Needs:
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- Salary and wages – either gigs, if feasible, or replacement (63%)
- Mortgage or rent relief (40%)
- Communication tools/resources (19%)
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- 58% of responding artists intended to apply for some form of emergency relief funding.
We’ll release more findings shortly!
Special thanks to our partners Shelbia Jackson at Dekalb Entertainment Commission, Josh Phillipson and Maria Sotnikova at the Atlanta Regional Commission! Thanks also to the many other artists, artists groups and arts organizations who shared this survey.
Xerophile, a documentary film production studio lead by Stephanie Liu and Monica Villavicencio (WarnerMedia Filmmakers in Residence): Monica Villavicencio and Stephanie Liu founded Xerophile, a documentary-style production company, in July 2019. They’re passionate about helping individuals and organizations create compelling narratives for a better world. Monica and Stephanie are recent arrivals to Atlanta from San Francisco, where they met working at Twitter’s Live Video team. Born in Chengdu, China and raised in Mississippi and Tennessee, Stephanie is a writer, filmmaker, and sci-fi devotee. She has produced content from Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Comoros for the World Bank and made TV for ABC News and CCTV America. In previous lives, Monica reported and produced for NPR, the PBS Newshour, and the University of San Francisco. She also writes fiction.
Soul Center, a space that curates art, conversation, and community for youth lead by Erin Washington: Erin Michelle Washington is an artist, community builder and teaching artist from Montgomery, AL. She attended Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and obtained her MFA in Acting from San Francisco’s award-winning, American Conservatory Theater. While in the Bay Area, Erin co-lead a youth initiative, The Nia Project, which provided artistic outlets for youth residing in Bayview/Hunter’s Point. In 2009, Erin started Soul Productions, a company that exposes urban communities to emerging independent artists who are pioneering new approaches to music and theatre. She has since taken her thoughts on community on the road. She has participated as a New Play Producing Fellow in the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage, A Community Producer at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and The Public Theater for “Party People”, a multimedia community-based theatre piece that explores the movements of the Black Panther Party and Young Lords.
Najah Ali, Actor, Director and Radio Producer: Najah Ali is an Atlanta actor and director. She is from Philadelphia, and received her theatre and math BA from Goucher College. She started her Atlanta performing arts career as an apprentice at the Shakespeare Tavern. Her local projects include: Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and others! She now manages a non-profit online radio station.
Badie Designs, a graphic design and illustration company led by Taneka Badie-Geary: Taneka Badie-Geary is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. She has been an entrepreneur since the age of 15. Since a child, she has always loved art and design. Taneka founded Badie Designs in 2012, when she was still in college. While being an honors student she built up her clientele through resources from the school’s career services department, volunteered and completed two internships. She earned her bachelor’s of fine arts degree in graphic design from the Art Institute of Atlanta. Taneka Badie is very hard working and determined to succeed in her career.
Gibron Shepperd, Fashion Designer: Gibron Whitney Shepperd was born in a multicultural/multiethnic home in Southern California. The oldest of four children, he spent much of his youth in the nature of Northern California with his family. These exposures have influenced his perspectives on design, creating an attitude of a bourgeois bohemian. He creates for a design world that is sophisticated and sensitive.
Rose Barron, Visual and Performance Artist: Rose M Barron currently works and resides in Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America. She has a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Georgia, an MA in Photo Concentration from Georgia State University, and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Photography. Her multi-disciplinary art work has been exhibited in several solo exhibitions across the southeast including Atlanta and Huntsville, as well as internationally at the Espacio Común in Panama City, Panama. Collections of her work include the Four Seasons in Morocco, the Fulton County Arts and Culture fine arts acquisition Program, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Marriott Courtyard in Nashville, the March of Dimes Corporate Office Collection, the APG Collectors Portfolio. Barron has shown in many group exhibitions across the nation including the Athens Center for Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Art on The Beltline, the Art Center in Xi’an, China, Fe Gallery in Pittsburgh, and Umbrella Gallery in New York City.; awarded artist residencies include Taller Portobelo, the Hambidge Center for the Arts and Science, University of North Texas, and the Rensing Art Center.
candi dugas, Writer, Producer and Director – candi dugas is an award-winning writer, producer, and director of creative projects that change conversations to compel complete freedom. Her most recent works include 30-minute one-acts about grief and women’s friendships: “That Day” and organic soul connections within society’s racial boundaries: “eye of the storm” – along with her full-length scripts for stage and screen: Wild + Free (navigating the 2nd half of life and the realities of post-modern racism in a small, Georgia town) and Desire’s Kiss (celebrating feminine sexuality despite traditionally religious taboos), which won Best Full-length Screenplay during the 2013 Urban MediaMakers Film Festival. candi has also written three self-published books, with a fourth on the way, on meditation, sexuality and spirituality, and navigating the spiritual journey. Currently she is producing Broadway Brunch (BB) at Grace Church in Midtown ATL. Designed and developed by candi, BB brings together professional theatre with community over a meal in safer space to explore themes that uplift and challenge the people. More than doubling average weekly attendance, BB’s greatest success is being a springboard to action for community needs, like affordable housing. candi is a native Atlantan, proud mother of Jordan, clergy with the Church Within A Church Movement, pastor of Worship & Arts at Grace, and a member of the Dramatists Guild, Working Title Playwrights, Suzi Bass Awards, and United Way of Metro Atlanta’s Volunteer Involvement Program. She can’t wait to get started with her peers during C4’s 2019 Hatch Training Intensive for Artists in Community! Learn more and connect at candidugas.com.
Nicolette Emanuelle, Performance Artist: Nicolette Emanuelle is a professional performance artist known for her fierce stage presence and her ability to mix multiple mediums in her performances. Her talents include aerial arts, stilt walking, burlesque, acting, musical composition, and musical performance on multiple instruments (e.g. cello, piano, vocals, and accordion). She is also the founder and co artistic director of The Hereafter Artist Collective whose mission is to bring the works of past artists to life through performance art. She currently teaches aerial arts and coaches a teen aerial performance company called Earth to Sky Performance Co. Nicolette has a passion for community centered artistic events and creative collaborations. She produces and performs regularly around the Atlanta area (which she is happy to call home).
Emily Getsay, Visual Artist, Curator and Arts Administrator: Emily M. Getsay (M.) is a Queer Conceptual Artist, Activist, and Curator. As a conceptual artist, their pieces stem from ideas that allow an expansion of oneself through relatable and textual lens. As an activist in their hometown community of Atlanta Georgia, M. addresses the many social and political issues that arise living as a queer, non binary person, in the south. Their work opposes systematic and cultural barriers such as stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS, Sexual Harassment, Human Trafficking, Gender Identity, and coping with mental illnesses. Through their work, they explore the liminal space between perception and actual reality and create work that translates those ideas to others. As humans we are always excepting new information and trying to comprehend how we can apply it to our lives, all the while moving through time and space. M. tries to bring those ideas and knowledge to the surface so that it becomes transferable across cultures and society.
Bridget McCarthy, Writer and Actor: Bridget McCarthy is just tickled to be in such great company. She is an actor, activist, comedian, writer, and theatre maker who is proud to call Atlanta “home”. In 2013, she stepped into a prison in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and witnessed a theatre-making circle. She fell in love with theatre as a tool of amplification, empowerment, and connection for unexpected voices. She has devised and produced new theatre pieces with her neighbors experiencing incarceration, homelessness, folks who are reintegrating into life after sexual slavery, with those battling addiction, and with brave new Americans coming to the US seeking asylum. In addition to community work, she is an advocate for eating disorder awareness and mental health destigmatization. Her one woman show is called Fat Juliet: One Woman’s Unsolicited Thoughts About Eating Disorders, Christian Extremism, Shakespeare, and AC/DC. It premiers this summer in Atlanta and is available for booking starting this fall. For more information or to connect, please visit BridgetMcCarthy.net , or connect on Instagram @SomethingWittyPlease.
Okwae Miller, Dancer and Choreographer: Okwae A. Miller is an Atlanta-based professional dancer and emerging choreographer who strives to create progressive experimental and research-based interdisciplinary work rooted in personal identity, history and the universal human experience. Heavily influenced by social injustice and intersection of cultural communities, his work has a high regard to identity politics, social anthropology and creative environments. With a highly graphic choreographic approach each work beholds distinct integration of technology, characterization of quality and collaboration. Mr. Miller is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has studied and trained in dance at Duke University, The Ailey School, American Dance Festival School, and Spelman College. His work has been featured at The Bakery Atlanta, The B-Complex, the MAD Festival and Emory University. Miller is the Artistic Director of Okwae A. Miller & Artists.
Magdalena O’Connor, Sculptor and Body Painter: Magdalena O’Connor is a sculptor, welder, body painter and special effects artist living and working in Atlanta, GA. Body painting since 2006, Magdalena has won many competitions internationally and went back to school in 2014 to study welding/fabrication. Passionate about learning and sharing knowledge Magdalena has taught props and mask making workshops for many years with participants going on to win international competitions.
Bree Stallings, Muralist and Visual Artist: Bree graduated from Queens University of Charlotte in May of 2013 with a Bachelor Degree in Studio Art and Creative Writing. She resides near uptown Charlotte where she works as a painter, illustrator and muralist. Currently, she teaches adults and children intermediate and advanced drawing and painting techniques at her studio called the Learning Lab. Using art as her vehicle, she raises awareness for many causes that affect her life and those closest to her such as economic mobility, sexual health advocacy, displacement and homelessness and environmental consciousness.
Ashley Thomas, Muralist and Art Educator: Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Ashley credits her bold colorful painting style to the plethora of colorful experiences growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana and Atlanta, Georgia. Ashley is said to be a very unique teacher with a knack for hooking even the most disengaged student to art. From oil portraits to city murals Ashley loves to change the energy of any street block or home/office hallway through her energetic and lively style. Ashley was trained at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. She enjoys spending time with her rescue dog named Bud and going to live performances around the city of Atlanta. Ashley has provided free art clinics for all ages in Atlanta, Georgia. She has taught for over thirteen years in public schools from Hampton Virginia to Atlanta Georgia and everywhere she goes people are delighted by her talents. In 2012, Ashley was chosen as a finalist by Wonderroot to create a public art piece for University Ave in Pittsburgh Atlanta. She was a finalist in the Verizon HBCU art competition and has shown in a plethora of juried exhibitions across the southeast. In 2018 Ashley completed a mural at Westlake High School and a mural on Cleveland Ave. Ashley is not only up for any creative task but always leaves her mark. She has also run a fine arts non-profit, The Big Picture, in Hampton Virginia where she held weekly art clinics and artist mentorship to the kids and teens of Lincoln Park Housing Projects in Hampton, Virginia. Ashley is currently looking for opportunities to paint murals in the city of Atlanta.
Ankhet Williams, Poet and Visual Artist: Ankhet is an artist and poet from Atlanta, Georgia. She uses Acrylic and oils for paintings and free verse poetry.
Kristan Woolford, Digital Media/Filmmaker and Art Educator: Kristan Woolford is a Video Production Teacher at Maynard Jackson where he works to train Atlanta’s future generation of filmmakers. He currently serves as the Creative Director of Black Noize Media Group, which is a web based digital media distribution platform that utilizes entertainment and media to serve as a nexus for hip hop culture, community engagement and activism among youth and youth adults.
