Lately I’ve been wondering about the migratory patterns of artists in California. We know from artists who live and work in cities across the state are being forced out due to high rent, low pay and a lack of infrastructure to support their practices. But what happens to our cities when artists leave? What is left behind and where do they go? 

I was recently sitting with our Director of Programs, NeFesha, talking about our plans for the grassroots artists advocacy program we are building with a grant from The Kenneth Rainin Foundation when a well-known Oakland artist walked by. Nine years ago, Fantastic Negrito won the NPR tiny desk concert. As a former performing arts presenter in Grass Valley, CA, I had followed his career and seen him years ago at BottleRock in Napa. NeFesha called out to him, and despite his being with his nine-year-old daughter, he strode over, elegant in his feather-adorned fedora, and without knowing who we are and what we work on, he said, “Why is this a ghost town?”. He said he had recently returned from Europe and shared that he mostly now performs outside of the United States because other countries "just get it, you know.” 

Earlier that day, we met with a program officer from another Bay Area foundation whose mandate is “community vitality,” and she took notes on her laptop as we described the various programs we present to engage artists, culture bearers, and creative workers to advocate for the public policies and funding they need to thrive in California. It was evident this foundation was leaning into systemic solutions rather than individual grants to cultural nonprofits, a practice that, on paper, suggests an investment towards long-term solutions but could, in the short term, decimate regional programming that has long relied on philanthropic support.

And just last week, I met with a frustrated touring musician who had moved to the rural community I live in, in Northern California from Los Angeles during Covid to give his daughter a better life. He shared how he immigrated from South America to the United States for the “pursuit of happiness” and now found himself looking for grocery subsidies because, despite a storied career, he found that rural California offered him fewer opportunities and access to resources. We met at the office of the local arts council, which had been an administering organization for the Creative Corps, an innovative statewide jobs program for artists that received a one-time $60 million budget appropriation and now faced a season of having to choose which artists in the community they would choose to apply for to the limited grants at our state arts agency due to recent budget cuts. In fact, in 2024 ,the California Arts Council (CAC)  received $56 million in grant applications, with an estimated only 12.5% of statewide arts and culture nonprofits applying. With the CAC’s budget cut to $21 million, two-thirds of qualified high-scoring applicants who run arts and culture programs in communities like this one, providing much-needed services in our prisons, schools, after-school, and for our nighttime economies across California, were left high and dry.

Study after study shows that the arts contribute to community vitality, economic growth, public safety, positive youth development, social justice, and more recently, neuroscience research has proven that access to arts contributes to a healthier life that can be a prescription to diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, trauma and PTSD and our current mental health crises and epidemics of isolation and loneliness. Yet despite all of this evidence and our own desires that tell us we need to listen to music to soothe our souls, read a book to expand our horizons, watch a live performance to escape and learn collectively, dance to express our emotions and experience joy, make art to reduce cortisol levels helping people better handle stress, or engage in a cultural practice born out of centuries of tradition, the arts continue to be under or defunded by philanthropy, local government and the state. You don’t have to look much further than Oakland to see how arts are continually devalued.  Arts workers who have shovel-ready contributions to attend to our communities' needs are widely underutilized and taken for granted.

When we look back at the first three decades of the 21st century, what will we remember? Will it be the continued automation that tries to replace our creativity with pre-programmed and aggregated data so we consume more things we don’t need? Will we live in ghost towns bereft of cultural vitality with increasing violence and polarization on a planet that calls out for creative solutions and human behavioral changes?  We believe there is a choice. We can and should lean into what we already know instinctively and now with mounting evidence that arts and culture, if properly invested in and accessed equitably, can build joyful communities with meaning and belonging for all. What artists do is real work and deserving of thriving wages with access to affordable housing and space to work from, and the infrastructure to support a creative life. Let’s celebrate a world that supports health, healing, and hope and finally recognize and value the essential contributions of artists, culture bearers, and creative workers. 

This op-ed was written by Julie Baker, arts advocate and CEO of CA for the Arts, an organization dedicated to championing the importance of arts and culture in vibrant California communities. Save the date for our upcoming Arts & Culture Summit on April 22, 2025, where arts leaders will convene to discuss critical issues, including artist housing, workspaces, well-being, and more. Learn more here.

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating the positive impacts of the arts on community well-being, economic development, public safety, youth development, and social justice. Neuroscience research has further revealed that engagement with the arts promotes a healthier life and can even serve as a treatment for diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, PTSD, and mental health issues such as isolation and loneliness. Despite this evidence and our innate understanding of the importance of artistic expression, the arts remain underfunded by philanthropy, local government, and the state.

The devaluation of the arts is evident even here in California, where arts funding was recently cut, and the contributions of artists and cultural workers are overlooked and undervalued. We are at a crossroads where we must choose between a future dominated by automation and devoid of cultural vitality, or one where the arts are recognized and supported as essential contributors to healthy, joyful, and equitable communities.

Artists deserve thriving wages, affordable housing and workspaces, and the infrastructure to support a fulfilling creative life. It is time to recognize the invaluable contributions of artists, culture bearers, and creative workers, and to invest in a world that values health, healing, hope, and the transformative power of the arts.