Would you be willing to work for £7,500 per year? The equivalent of just over €8,600, that’s the average annual salary an artist based in Northern Ireland can expect to earn, according to a report published last month by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. While the figure is almost double that in the Republic, both sets of numbers serve as a grim illustration of the reality facing creative artists in 2011.

Given the current economic climate, it’s difficult to fathom a mass outpouring of public sympathy for those affected, with the oft-mocked image of the ‘starving artist’ conjured up in conversation with more frequency and more spite than ever before. However, like any stereotype, there is some truth contained within the hyperbole. Artists have traditionally suffered for their art. For aspiring musicians, filmmakers, painters and others, money remains a common denominator in bringing their work to a bigger audience while maintaining a reasonable lifestyle.
Naturally, when the Northern Irish government decides to cut over £4.2 million from its arts budget between 2011 and 2015, that lifestyle becomes even more difficult to maintain. Despite its modest spend amounting to just one per cent of total expenditure, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland is expected to be one of the hardest hit regional bodies over the next four years. So where does that leave the artists themselves?

Sean Kelly, director of Belfast’s long-running Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, admits that managing this year’s festival was particularly challenging. Ultimately, it was deemed a success, but that came at the cost of streamlining resources and cutting back in areas of expenditure. With many festivals nationwide suffering from dwindling crowds and some folding before they even get off the ground, Kelly doesn’t quite foresee doom on the horizon for Cathedral Quarter, but does believe that he is living in a city in crisis.
“I can see a struggle going on at the minute unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed before,” he begins. “There is considerable unease, generally, within the whole sector of Belfast. Artists in the city don’t get the level of support and investment that’s required. In some ways that comes with the territory and isn’t unique to Belfast, but a lot of very talented people have left the city in the last couple of years because the work is just not there. They’re going to other major cities in the UK and further afield to find work, and that’s very worrying.”

Not everyone is as quick to sound the death knell for Belfast’s cultural identity. BBC Radio Ulster broadcaster and co-founder of the city’s Oh Yeah Music Centre Stuart Bailie sees things very differently. “Life has never been easy for an artist,” he notes. “That’s historical. If you are a good artist and you are focused, there are numerous opportunities for earning, funding and commercial enterprise.”
Bailie is quick to point out the many arts-related events that populate the capital, including the upcoming MTV European Music Awards, set to take place at Belfast’s Odyssey Arena in November, but not before heaping praise upon the local arts community for their lobbying which ensured that the Arts Council’s funding went unchanged this year.
“Essentially, we’ve never had it so good,” he ventures. “Seriously.”
So where does the truth lie? It’s a simple question, but one that yields a complicated answer. Given that this is the first of a projected four years of cuts, the only real certainty is uncertainty. The one guarantee is that money, or lack thereof, will shape the future of many creative people. At last year’s Music Show, Paul Brady, Sharon Corr and others challenged then Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan over the lack of government support for artists, displaying a passionate sentiment that Kelly is all too familiar with.

“It’s quite ironic to see our political leaders paying lip service to the benefits of arts and culture and how Belfast has been reborn and yet they’re not actually putting their money where their mouth is,” he notes. “It’s very difficult because the media often turn it into an ‘arts versus hospital beds and schools’ scenario and that’s a sterile argument. The reality is that a vibrant, dynamic economy would have both, but I think it is incumbent on anybody involved in the arts to shout as much as possible.”
It would appear that in the immediate future, the onus is on the artist more than ever before to become self-sustaining. Hot Press recently reported on the phenomenon of crowdsourcing, where artists appeal for public donations while offering individual incentive schemes. Perhaps this is the way forward? It is in itself a creative process, albeit one that poses obstacles. But as we have seen throughout history, barriers hold little trouble for the best and brightest among us.