No abstract

A growing gap between national metrics of arts participation and the many, evolving ways in which people participate in artistic and aesthetic activities limits the degree to which such data can usefully inform policy decisions. The National Endowment for the Arts' Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) is the primary source of arts participation data in the USA, but this instrument inadequately evaluates how members of minority and immigrant communities participate in the arts. As the USA nears a historic demographic shift to being a majorityminority nation -non-Hispanic White individuals will no longer be a demographic majority by about 2041 -obtaining more accurate measures of artistic activities that are meaningful to a more diverse population will be of increasing importance for public policy-making. To better understand the extent to which the SPPA's questions capture the range of artistic activities engaged in by members of immigrant communities, we cognitively tested a subset of the survey's questions with Chinese immigrants to the USA as a pilot case. We found that interviewees participate in a range of culturally specific and non-culturally specific arts activities that they did not report in response to the survey's questions. In this article, we draw upon these interviews to discuss the reasons underpinning the gap and suggest implications for updating research tools and future research. A better understanding of the gap between measured and actual "arts participation" will lead to improved measures and information to support artistic expression and arts more reflective of contemporary society.

There is a growing recognition within the arts and cultural field that the public roles and work of artists are changing. Within the field, artists are increasingly lauded for their work as entrepreneurs, civically-minded problem-solvers, and agents for social change. Amid a shift away from the arts policy paradigm that has largely focused on nonprofit organizations over the last half-century within the United States, there is a hypothesis stemming from within the arts and cultural field that a policy paradigm focused on artists' roles in community change, development, and placemaking will take hold. Public opinion and perceptions have an important influence on the formation of public policies, yet whether and how artists' roles in public life are perceived beyond the arts and cultural field is unknown. This lack of understanding impedes the arts and cultural field's ability to monitor if such a policy paradigm shift is occurring and to develop policies to support artists' work within and with communities. Therefore, we developed and pilot tested survey indicators to gauge public perceptions of artists within communities. In this article, we describe the indicators, report on the national pilot test topline results, and discuss the indicators' merits to be used over time drawing from the pilot test results. Understanding public perceptions of artists within communities can inform and influence policies supporting artists' work and offer a means to monitor shifts to the larger arts and cultural policy paradigm in the U.S.

There is a disconnect between artists' applications of entrepreneurial behavior in their practice and evaluations of artists as productive members of community. Informed by interviews with Nashville-based artists, this study investigates how artists understand their creativity, artistic practice, and approaches to entrepreneurship in the context of an artistically oriented community. The results demonstrate that artists engage in entrepreneurial behavior by deploying creativity in multiple domains, including art, business, and the social, with their skills in each being important in preserving the motives of their artistic practice. The findings highlight artists as multifaceted creatives capable of transforming their practices through entrepreneurial pursuits. KEYWORDS: entrepreneurial artists, arts entrepreneurship, domains of creativity, the business of art, artists in community.