Support Your Local Artist

Wouldn’t you like to know where a great place to invest in real estate will be five or 10 years from now?   Well, according to Business Week Magazine:  Look at where artists are living now.

 

Art and culture has long been thought of as a cure-all to economically depressed neighborhoods, cities and regions because it has been proved that artists — defined as self-employed visual artists, actors, musicians, writers, etc. — can stimulate local economies in a number of ways.  Artists are often an early sign of neighborhood gentrification, the advance guard of what’s hip and cool.  

 

Because of their typically lower incomes, artists will usually seek out cheaper neighborhoods where they can afford the rent, and because of their creative nature, they are able to improve these areas, attracting hip, and cool galleries, restaurants and stores.  They eventually get tired of scraping by as waiters or bartenders and sometimes apply their abilities in more entrepreneurial ways often influencing innovation on the part of their suppliers.  For example, a painter may need a certain type of frame that is not manufactured, forcing the frame maker to create a design that happens to also work well for other artists.

 

Artists bring more than culture to a community and businesses don’t often understand the extent to which art affects them.  Nonarts businesses also use artist contractors to improve product design, help with marketing or even use dramatic theory to solve employee relationship issues. A strong artistic community also helps local businesses attract employees who want to be able to regularly go to the ballet or the theater, hear authors read from their latest books or attend art-gallery openings.