Close

March 25, 2021

Pandemic Art Residency: Op-Ed @ Hyperallergic

One of the basic truisms of freelancing is: You can have time, or you can have resources, but you will almost never have both simultaneously. A foundational lesson of this workflow is doing the work when it’s available and saving as much as possible for the slow times. But its counterpart is this: When times are slow, that’s the opportunity to do your own (uncompensated) thing, and you should not waste this time wallowing in anxiety about the next paid gig.

I truly never expected the government to identify freelancers as a vulnerable population needing to be covered by unemployment. Mostly 1099 workers pay disproportionately into public benefit systems without being able to access them. Imagine my complete surprise when I discovered that freelancers were being offered unprecedented unemployment benefits through Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. In other words: every 1099 worker is being offered a paid artist residency. Trump may have killed NEA funding, but the pandemic inadvertently resuscitated it on a mass scale.

Read more here…

One Comment on “Pandemic Art Residency: Op-Ed @ Hyperallergic

Joyce Shapiro
March 25, 2021 at 1:13 pm

Very well thought out and said! Greatly appreciate your creative perspective on this time. Just like Biden and our country now having the opportunity to support labor, which never would have happened pre-pandemic, you have pointed out how to create opportunities from challenging times.Thank you for sharing. Off to my residence-y now!

Reply

Leave a Reply