This is the first article in a new series titled "What Artists Are Saying." Every other month, I will talk to artists about a specific topic. The range of subjects will be broad, from issues relating to art shows to artists' lifestyles to new directions in art. This first installment is on artist-relocation programs, a hot topic among artists today.
As an art-show exhibitor, it's hard not to be intrigued by these programs. The theory behind these incentive-laden programs is a sound one. Municipalities offer money, inexpensive property, guaranteed loans or other benefits to artists to get them to relocate to areas of their city in need of revitalization. Artists use their craft and creativity to improve their properties, thereby improving the conditions of the area. In the end, the artists get an affordable, supportive place to live and work, and the city gets a vibrant, more beautiful area of town. Everybody wins.
Whether it be the financial incentives, the prospect of affordable housing or gallery property, or the sense of community created by a group of artists living close to each other, the attraction of relocation programs is obvious to professional artists looking to improve their circumstances. And many artists have taken the plunge, relocating miles - sometimes time zones - away to reap the benefits of these programs.
So what's it like to participate in one of these programs? Are the incentives worth it? And perhaps most importantly, are the artists who participate in these programs happy with their decisions? Let's hear what some artists - each intimately familiar with an artist-relocation program - have to say about their respective programs.
Janet and Jay O'Rourke make exotic hardwood boxes and turned and carved lidded vessels. They relocated in 2007 from Hood River, Oregon, to participate in an artist-relocation program in Paducah, a city in Western Kentucky on the Illinois border.
"We are living the dream," says Janet O'Rourke, who also does illustration work. "We have recently opened up a gallery in our new home [in Paducah], the gallery being downstairs."
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