- About Youth Vital Signs
- Who We Are
- Background
- Key Findings and Grades
- Arts Scene
- Going Green
- Poverty
- Youth Voice
- Youth Spaces
- Health and Well-being
- Youth Housing and Homelessness
- Education and Learning
- Safety
- Employment and Training
- Transportation
- Culture, Identity and Belonging
- Mobile Text Survey
- Grader Profile
- Differences Among Us
- Youth in Action
- Links to Community and Resources
- Find Us
Key Findings and Grades - Arts Scene
FAST FACTS
The Starving Artist
The average paycheque for artists in Canada is low, and getting lower, despite their high levels of education. Young, emerging artists do even worse. Artists age 15 to 24 earn an average of $8,300 per year in Canada, 27% less than the average income of their peers in other fields.
Source: 2008 Statistical Profile of Artists in Canada (based on 2006 Census Data), Hill Strategies
The Art of Money
For every dollar invested in the arts, arts organizations earn or raise an additional $12.75, according to an estimate from the City of Vancouver. Of all the provinces, B.C. has the largest percentage of its labour force in arts occupations – 1.08%.
Sources: Alliance for Arts and Culture, and 2008 Statistical Profile of Artists in Canada (based on 2006 Census Data), Hill Strategies
The Funding Bucks
Most performing arts are subsidized, either by grants or booze. For teen audiences and artists, this is a double-whammy. There is limited grant support for many of the arts that suit our tastes (such as hip hop, slam poetry and indie music), and few financial incentives for private venues to host all-ages gigs.
YOUTH IN ACTION
Art at the Purple Thistle
In 2001, eight kids got together and created the Purple Thistle, an arts and activism centre in East Vancouver. Run by a youth collective, the Thistle is a place where we can hang out, participate in paid training programs about publishing or community engagement, and dabble in creative experimentation at drop-in programs such as darkroom photography, silk-screening, animation or painting.
www.purplethistle.ca