SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) - One of the more than one hundred artists that have benefited from a guaranteed income pilot program in San Francisco during the pandemic spoke from KRON4.
Through a grant with the city and now private funding, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has been sending a check to these artists once a month since May.
There is no rule on how to use it either. They can pay for rent, art supplies, or whatever else helps them live and work in San Francisco.
San Francisco and art go hand in hand but over the years and especially during the pandemic it's become increasingly more challenging to create and make rent.
One artist tells KRON4 this pilot program has been a lifeline for his life's work.
“Creating is such a human thing but the paradigm we live under now doesn't foster that so it takes humanity out of life in general because it's robbing people of their birthright,” Chris Watts said.
Chris Watts has been creating art for the last decade but in that time it's become harder to get by as the cost of living in San Francisco skyrocketed, forcing him like many others to make money while staying true to his identity as an artist because watts explains, this form of self-expression is as much a necessity as water.
“It fills me with joy, it brings me to tears, it makes me contemplate it, just that's a really good question. Yeah, art is everything for me," Watts said.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts stepped in with a city grant and now private funds to give watts who is one of 130 artists $1,000 every month to spend how they please for 18 months.
The guaranteed income pilot helped Watts book a trip back home to see loved ones in New York for the first time in three years.
“We're acknowledging how important the arts are in general and that this income program has been really great in that regard of like we appreciate you and what you do so where is extra money and that's a blessing," Watts said.
More than 90% of the funds focused on BIPOC and queer artists who fell below the line financially to make ends meet and lived in a zip code hit hardest by the pandemic.
"The pandemic in so many ways was a mirror or a magnifying glass to rising inequality, something that always scratches our heads at YBCA. They're the anchors of their communities," Aisa Villarosa, the senior director of external affairs of YBCA, said.
Watts calls this a beautiful beginning that shows artists they are valued and that their work matters.
He now has a heightened sense of responsibility to pair the financial gift with his gift of talent to create art that is a catalyst for profound change.
Leading up to native American heritage day next week - YBCA has also extended a deadline for indigenous artists to apply for a grant of up to $2,500 to go toward artist-led meetings or activities held either online or in person.
That deadline is now November 21.
For more details, visit the YBCA website or the Guaranteed Income Pilot for Artists website.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3Hrqm7Z
No comments:
Post a Comment