Friday, March 26, 2010
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Healthcare Reform Bill: What to Expect
On Sunday, the House passed the Health Care reform bill and the bill is headed in direction of becoming a law. So, what changes are likely to happen and when? Here’s a good breakdown and Q&A about the new law:
from Kaiser Health News
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2010/March/22/consumers-guide-health-reform.aspx
from reuters.com:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319
It is important to note that the healthcare reform bill is NOT a law yet. Also, we are NOT health insurers, doctors, politicians or lawyers. We are artists. (my theater degree came with surprisingly little coursework on healthcare policy.) So, with all of those caveats firmly in place, here are some things that, we think, are of particular interest for artists and other self-employed people:
Soon:
- Young people will be able to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of 26. So, artists who are finishing high school and/or college, will be able to continue on their parents insurance while they get their career up and running (we know this will make a lot of parents sleep easier at night!)
- Health insurers will not be able to exclude children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions
- There will be a tax credit for some small businesses and nonprofits to help provide health insurance for their employees. The basic guidelines for nonprofits are that you have under 25 employees and have an average salary of under $50,000.
In 4 years:
- State health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals will open.
- Most people will be required to obtain health insurance coverage or pay a fine if they don't. Healthcare tax credits become available to help people with low incomes. Health plans no longer can exclude people from coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
- Employers with 50 or more workers who do not offer coverage face a fine of $2,000 for each employee if any worker receives subsidized insurance on the exchange.
If you want to see how the reform will affect your particular situation, try this tool:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/what-health-bill-means-for-you/
As you can see, much of the far-reaching measures, such as a clause that insurance companies can no longer deny adults with pre-existing conditions (although there are some stopgap measures for adults with pre-existing conditions), will not take effect for another four years.
While we can’t fix health insurance, Springboard for the Arts healthcare programs can help get you to the doctor today. The Artists’ Access to Healthcare (AAH) program gives uninsured or underinsured artists vouchers that can be used, like a gift certificate, to cover the costs of medical visits. The program currently exists at the N.I.P. Community Clinic in Minneapolis, but will soon include Doctor Sam’s clinic in Northeast Minneapolis. Our Guide to Healthcare for Minnesota Artists helps connect you to state healthcare programs, insurance providers and low-cost clinics and programs. This year, we will present a free Health Fair, free flu shots clinics and a free screening day for artists. And, if you have an unexpected medical bill, we may be able to help pay for some of it via Springboard’s Emergency Relief Fund.
For the most current info about our healthcare programs, please stay tuned to our e-newsletter, or subscribe by clicking here. If you can’t find what you are looking for, please let us know how we can help!
-laura
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
by Ann Markusen and Marcie Rendon
Ever wonder why Minnesota doesn’t celebrate our Ojibwe and Dakota artists the way the southwest does its Pueblo, Apache and Navajo artists? That's one of the questions Marcie Rendon asked in our three-year study of how the state’s Ojibwe artists do their work and make a living. You can download it free from our website: http://www.hhh.umn.edu/projects/prie
We found Native artists all over
the state making beautiful work, sharing it with their communities and beyond. Yet they struggle to build careers. They are more apt to be self-employed than artists in general and less likely to have found formal employment. A few teach in tribal or state colleges or work in staff jobs in cultural centers or as graphic artists for their tribes. Some run their own enterprises, such as Marcie McIntire’s beautiful gallery in Grand Portage, Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, or Richard Schulman’s North Star Coffee Bar in Cass Lake that provides space for young musicians to rehearse, perform and get feedback. But most make and market their own creations. Like many artists, they face stiff materials and equipment costs, lack space to work and think, and are baffled by how art markets work. Some find outlets in their own communities, like the gift shop at Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen that displays and sells one-of-a-kind work by White Earth artists. Or opportunities to perform at tribal casinos. Commissions and sales of visual art for tribal community and social services complexes. Some score with non-Native organizations: a public art project, such as Steve Premo’s outdoor mural for Hinckley and Robert DesJarlait’s mosaic for the Minneapolis Franklin Library. Or land a book contract with a commercial or non-profit press.
We discovered many ways that Springboard and other artist-friendly organizations, including funders and educators, can nurture Native artists’ careers. A prerequisite involves understanding how Native artists work and how they bridge traditional culture with contemporary urban or reservation life. Recognizing, too, issues surrounding sacred practices and access to materials from nature, and the Native ethic of sharing and giving away work. Rather than teaching, funding and providing services structured by Euro-American notions of the artist as an autonomous creative individual, those with resources and space to share could begin by listening to Native artists.
Some gatekeepers, as we call the folks with
resources, have pioneered in creating space for Native artists to present their work, share it with their communities, and get paid for it. Juanita Espinosa has done this for years at Two Rivers Gallery in the Minneapolis, while encouraging generations of young Native artists through her Native Arts Circle network. Phil Norrgard, the Director of Fond du Lac’s Min No Aya Win Clinic, invests tribal funds in contemporary Ojibwe artist work that hangs on health care center walls, generates income for artists while emphasizing the role of art as healing. Fargo’s The Plains Museum, UMD’s Tweed Museum and the U’s Weisman exhibit and sometimes purchase Native work. Minnesota funders have helped the American Composer’s Forum, based in St. Paul, run its First Nation’s Composers Initiative.
Labels: Markusen, native artists, Ojibwe artists, Rendon
Monday, March 1, 2010
In the arts community, our top 3 subjects for handwringing and debate are:
- declining audience participation numbers
- lack of public recognition of the intrinsic value of the arts
- lack of pay and respect for artists
I believe we’ve done some things in service of issue #3 that are contributing to the other two. Specifically, I think that in our effort to command greater respect for the profession of being an artist, we’ve excluded people from identifying as artists and prevented them from seeing the art in their everyday lives. We want artists to get paid, obviously, this is something I feel strongly about. But in order to do that, we’ve created all these ways of defining who is a “professional artist” and that’s usually linked to those who make their living as an artist. But what about the hobbyist? The avocational artist? Aren’t they real artists? Those who used to practice but don’t anymore? At what point do you lose the privilege of calling yourself an artist?
I’m not sure excluding people and having fewer people who identify themselves as artists is a good route towards public support of the arts.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately in relation to people who work for arts organizations. When I go to conferences and convenings of other service organizations, there is invariably discussion of how we find out what “the artists think” about this or that topic. While I admire my peers dedication to making sure their programs align with their clients needs, I’m always struck by how many of these administrators don’t include themselves in the category of artist. In fact, I think a lot of administrators are afraid to call themselves artists – fearful of being called out or challenged, fear of being a poser or a faker, I guess? I find myself having this conversation a lot:
Me: “So, what’s your background? Are you an artist?”
ArtsManager: “Oh, NO! Goodness, no, I’m not an artist, I’m just an arts supporter. An arts appreciator. Well, I do have a degree in piano performance, and I still play a little bit, in fact, I just played for a friend’s wedding last weekend.”
Me: “That sounds like you’re an artist.”
ArtsManager: “Oh, no, no, no. I’m not an artist.”
What?! Why are we doing this? My post a few months ago stirred up a lot of debate on this question of artist vs. administrator – but can’t we be both? Too many times, I see administrators who stop identifying as artists and artists who resist the idea that you can be both. There are some great exceptions to this – my friend and colleague Karen Atkinson refers to her work creating GYST – a training and software business for individual artists – as a large, ongoing art practice.
Being an artist is an important part of my identity and it’s important to my work at Springboard. I acted in three commercials last year and gathered props from thrift stores for my husband’s Fringe show – hardly a banner year if that’s all I think of as my artistic practice. But I refuse to give up this part of my identity, both because I do still practice (even if it’s occasional) and because I use my artistic brain and the creative process in my job every single day. I think that if, as a community, we led the way in saying, “Hell, yeah, I’m an artist!” then perhaps others would feel comfortable saying it, too.
“I’m a doctor and I’m an artist.”
“I’m a teacher and I’m an artist.”
“I’m a senator and I’m an artist.”
“I’m a lawyer and I’m an artist.”
And I really believe that allowing, and even pushing, more people to call themselves artists leads to better support for art and artists.
What do you think?
-laura
Labels: laura zabel, rants
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Comparing anything to food must be
one of the highest compliments. Very few things in the world are tied as strongly as food is to the individual experience. We are dependent on it to live, it engages all five senses. (Foods make wonderful noises, they do!) It is a moveable and transcending event that is enjoyed by oneself and in mass with equal fondness and fervor. The spectrum of culinary nuance in spices, creative variation in recipes, simple pleasures of fresh fruit, and an intrinsic tradition of sharing make it simultaneously an unparalleled individual experience and a highly relevant expression of culture and community.So what can the art world learn from food? Or maybe a better question would be, How is art food, and what is it about food that we can identify and enhance in our art experiences? Do we not experience individual and group wonderment through concerts, dance, and even the simple act of gazing in awe at a masterpiece with 20 other onlookers? Isn't our creative variation inherently bound to our interpretation and expression? Why does something as seemingly simple and pure as Yves Klein's IKB, the primary colors and grids of Mondrian, or the peculiar grace of a George Ohr ceramic work, strike us with such intensity that we want to... touch the artwork. And above all else, how does sharing and the social actions of our cultural surroundings create a sense of community?
Too many questions.
The point is there is great potential to grow the arts via models of thinking that line up with food. It has value to you, it provides meaning, it feeds strange abstract parts of you that you can't touch but know exist, it creates a vortex around which to contemplate with oneself or share with many, it moves with trends like crops change with seasons, with attention and cultivation it thrives and begs to be shared.
More questions.
How much more valuable do you find an artist you know than an artist you don't know? Certainly owning a Hirst piece is pretty valuable but how does that compare with being able to walk into an artists studio on your way home from the grocery store and pick up a pair of prints to go with dinner? How does that Silver Oak Cabernet taste when paired with the new album you just bought from a local band you just saw? When you make dinner, do you always cook for an army from New York, or do you cook for a couple friends that share studio space and bring a performance to dinner instead of a loaf of focaccia?
Think about what makes your art experience most valuable here in the Twin Cities. An abundance of highly talented, extremely creative artists, creating new works. Picking it fresh from the easel and delivering it to you, in person, pretty much like Community Supported Agriculture but in this case Community Supported Art. Stop by your local arts grower, ask how the season's looking, inquire about what's coming up in the next harvest, take a little bushel of something home. The truth about the Community Supported anything, whether food or art, is that they're here because of you and you're here because of them. Think of it like a good meal. Pick up something fresh from a local grower and invite the friends over or just look, listen, touch, smell and taste for yourself, and while you're at it make some good food too. Support. Share.
Community Supported Art
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Okay, I know. Life moves fast and, most of the time, it’s hard enough to think about anticipated events, yet alone the unexpected. But, unforeseen emergencies like fire, theft and flood, happen everyday. So, how does one prepare for such events? Luckily, our awesome friends at the Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF) are making it as simple as ever. Each month in 2010, CERF is offering one, easy-to-implement tip on how to cover your "A's" (art, assets and archives, that is) and we’ll be posting them right here on the SpringBlog. This month, CERF asks you to find a “SOL:”
Without a SOL*, You May Be “Out of Luck”
Find a *Safe Offsite Location to store copies of your images and critical records such as business documents, sketches, and process notes. A SOL is a place 50-100 miles away from your studio that is unlikely to be affected by the same disaster. Read more about SOLs and safekeeping your Artist Business online at studioprotector.org
