SEE VITAL SIGNS 2018
New numbers show a 31 per cent increase in the number of artists living here, as well as a big gains in government funding
A special eight-page section produced by The Spectator and Hamilton Community Foundation, inside today’s Spectator and
ART HAS A LONG WAY TO GO before it becomes the new steel, but the figures show that Hamilton has become quantifiably cool.
“Cool,” that is, if you think artists are cool. Art is a growth industry in Hamilton. Actually, art is more than that, it’s a huge economic stimulant.
Data put together by the Hamilton Community Foundation’s (HCF) Vital Signs project show that a total of 2,205 artists were living in Hamilton in 2016, that’s a 31 per cent increase from 1,680 10 years earlier.
Those 2016 figures include 665 musicians and singers; 345 authors and writers; 295 producers, directors, choreographers and related occupations; 245 painters, sculptors and visual artists; 235 artisans and craftspersons; 165 dancers; 55 conductors, composers and arrangers; and 65 “other performers.”
As well, HCF researchers found 8,975 Hamiltonians work in cultural jobs, a 23 per cent increase over the same period. These are people involved in technical and management jobs in broadcasting, film, video, sound recording, performing arts, publishing, printing, creative marketing, libraries, archives, architecture and design.
We’ve known instinctively the city has been undergoing a cultural renaissance. Now we have the numbers to prove it. Hamilton artists are punching above the national average in terms of labour force percentage (0.81 vs. 0.78).
This doesn’t mean we should be trading in our drill bits and monkey wrenches for paint brushes and guitars. Art remains dwarfed by sectors like manufacturing, which, according to the 2016 census, employs more than 33,000.
And artists aren’t particularly big earners. A 2011 national study by Hill Strategies found artists earned an average of $31,400, about 36 per cent less than the average for all occupations. Many supplement their incomes by waiting tables and driving cabs.
STILL, IT’S EASY
to underestimate the importance of art, which is why business groups like the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce are making its promotion a top priority.
It’s also why governments at all levels are earmarking more money toward the development of creative industries.
The HCF found Hamilton artists and cultural organizations received $2.49 million last year from Canada’s most prominent art funders, the Canada Council of the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an increase of 16 per cent from 2011. The City of Hamilton, too, has been increasing grants, providing $9.2 million, according the CMF, to the City Enrichment Fund from 2015 to 2017 to support arts organizations, festivals, events and projects.
This doesn’t include hundreds of thousands of dollars more coming to city groups and individuals from other government sources like the Ontario Music Fund and the Canadian Music Fund.
In terms of OAC grants, Hamilton has consistently outpaced other Ontario cities, with the exception of Ottawa and Toronto. Last year it drew almost double the amount of grant money London did, and about $200,000 more than Waterloo.
Governments at all levels are increasingly steering funding to the arts as awareness of their value as an economic stimulus grows. Hosting the Juno awards in 2015 brought as much as $12 million into the community. Theatre Aquarius estimates its 120,000 annual visitors generate more than $12 million.
Government grant money is crucial to a free festival like Supercrawl, which, according to organizers, injects $14 million to the local economy annually.
This year, Supercrawl director Tim Potocic expects to derive some $600,000 of the festival’s $1.5 million budget from various sources of government funding.
“It’s absolutely essential that we receive government funding at all levels,” Potocic says. “With a free event, we wouldn’t be able to present the level of talent that we can without it. We’re paying artists that are paying a sound person, road manager, techs, lighting person, marketing people, management, it’s a trickle-down effect.”
The Hamilton Chamber of Commerce agrees. Art enhances the quality of life in the city, and that draws investment, whether it’s people moving here or businesses deciding to establish here.
“All levels of government need to provide support to the arts and cultural community,” says Huzaifa Saeed, policy and research analyst for the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce.
“Not only are they creating economic multipliers, but they are also indirectly assisting in making our community more viable for investment in other sectors. That has been very clear for us.”
“All levels of government need to provide support to the arts and cultural community,” says Huzaifa Saeed, policy and research analyst for the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce. Government grant money is crucial to a free festival like Supercrawl, which, according to organizers, injects $14 million to the local economy annually.