When possible low or zero interest loans , with zero interest being preferable, could help artists buy and /or set up their new businesses. Property when possible could be bought and resold by the state to visual artists based on merit and economic need. Support to these artists could provide help running a business. The selection of these artists would be by small business owners, urban planners and other artists. This assistance would encourage a community to use selective zoning to create an art district and the loan program could be set up by a small business administration or other agency. It is important to remember that tax incentives (tax cuts) do not effectively address those who could use economic assistance the most. Again, tax incentives should not be used to encourage studios, art galleries or other businesses in a newly created art district. These do not help those who could benefit the most from this kind of program and tend to create a more unfair tax base. Tax incentives can at times also out live what (in this case) little use they might have.

This magazine similar to a Collector’s Guide could be distributed throughout the region showing only artists chosen by economic need and merit. Their studios and other places that represent their work would be listed. The artists chosen would be selected by artists selected on a rotating basis. Aside from possibly a modest monetary compensation, one piece of each member of the jury’s artwork would be displayed inside the magazine on one or two pages. The rest of the publication would show the artists they selected. These magazines could even be distributed outside the region to further insure economic prosperity for the visual arts and artists. The state of New Mexico has adopted a similar idea publishing a website for New Mexico artists.

The impact of these and other proposals based in part on economic need on the artistic climate in the US could become more positive. Established galleries and art venues tend to keep to “safe” established artists. Consistently using economic need together with merit as two criteria could help further the supply of new, unique, and exciting visual arts.

Note: while the state New Mexico does not allow cultural money to individual artists, this idea may work well run through a small businesses administration program. Running the program through such a program may also work well in other states.

FDR funding of the arts

The main federal cultural programs of the '30s were based on concern for a labor market: professional artists and others engaged in cultural work. The skyrocketing popularity of media like the phonograph, radio and movies had recently supplanted many thousands of live performers: some 30,000 musicians had been displaced by new mechanical modes of music reproduction; the government estimated that well over 30,000 theater workers were unemployed by the mid-'30s. With over 70 million movie tickets being sold every week, live theaters were closing all over the United States. The Loew's theater chain boasted 36 houses offering 40-50 weeks of live entertainment each year before 1930; by 1934, Loew's had only three such houses operating. These new electronic media resulted in "technological unemployment" for workers in the live media.*

The concern for professional artists' employment dovetailed with the federal programs of the 1930s. Chronic unemployment was the central and most persistent feature of the Depression: by 1932, estimates of the total number unemployed ranged from 8 to 17 million workers -- this, at a time when the total U.S. population was just 125 million. A variety of federal efforts were taken to address unemployment in cultural fields.*

While the New Deal arts programs were effective, the key element was economic need. The most effective programs of that period most consistently kept economic need in focus while providing meaningful work. Focusing on that aspect, economic need, will probably work today for all professions. That focus in the arts will also help alleviate the friction that the NEA and other arts administrations have as to their purposes and perceived biases.

Today: 1 in 8 Americans, (this figure was before the present state of the economy) which would include a sizable number of visual artists, live at or below the poverty level. It is important to remember the original role of government arts funding was to provide an opportunity for these artists and other artists who live at a low income to work at their craft.