Skip to main content

National Endowment for the Arts

Search
Follow us on twitter Follow us on facebook Apple store Follow us on instagram Follow us on youtube
Menu
  • Grants
    Grants
    • Grants for Arts Projects
    • Challenge America
    • Our Town
    • Research Awards
    • Partnership Agreements
    • American Rescue Plan Grants
    • Creative Writing
    • Translation Projects
    • Volunteer to be an NEA Panelist
    • Manage Your Award
    • Recent Grants
  • Initiatives
    Initiatives
    • Arts & Human Development Task Force
    • Arts Education Partnership
    • Blue Star Museums
    • Citizens' Institute on Rural Design
    • Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network
    • GSA's Art in Architecture
    • Independent Film & Media Arts Field-Building Initiative
    • International
    • Mayors' Institute on City Design
    • Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge
    • NEA Big Read
    • NEA Research Labs
    • Poetry Out Loud
    • Save America's Treasures
    • Shakespeare in American Communities
    • Sound Health Network
    • United We Stand
  • Stories
    Stories
    • American Artscape Magazine
    • NEA Art Works Podcast
    • National Endowment for the Arts Blog
  • Impact
    Impact
    • States and Regions
    • Research
    • Accessibility
    • Arts & Artifacts Indemnity Program
    • Arts and Health
    • Arts Education
    • Convenings
    • Creative Placemaking
    • Equity Action Plan
    • Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
    • Literary Arts
    • Media Arts
    • Native Arts and Culture
  • Honors
    Honors
    • NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships
    • National Heritage Fellowships
    • National Medal of Arts
  • News
    News
    • Press Releases
    • Upcoming Events
    • NEA Chair's Page
  • About
    About
    • NEA Chair's Page
    • Leadership and Staff
    • What Is the NEA
    • Publications
    • National Endowment for the Arts on COVID-19
    • Open Government
    • Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
    • Office of the Inspector General
    • Civil Rights Office
    • Appropriations History
    • Make a Donation

Breadcrumb

  1. Home
  2. Stories
  3. American Artscape Magazine

Art Works: How Art is Work

American Artscape | 2010 No. 1
NEA Arts cover no 1 2010
Being executive director of a theater company doesn’t mean you get to sit back and watch others work, as Michael Cochran knows. At his theater—Market House Theatre in Paducah, Kentucky—Cochran does everything from working on the publicity to coordinating catering and concessions to maintaining plumbing and setting up lights, in addition to his artistic duties of selecting and directing the plays the company stages.   Photo by Jim Keeney
Download Issue All Issues

About this Issue

Depending on your lens, art is many things: transformative, evocative, beautiful, provocative. Behind these great artistic performances and exhibitions you experience, however, a great deal of hard work is going on. Dance steps must be learned and perfected, canvas must be purchased and stretched before being painted, symphonies must be written and then scored into parts for each instrumentalist. On a more practical level, babysitters must be arranged to free up time to work in the studio, grants must be submitted or a full-time job attended in order to pay for supplies, sets must be built, hotels and rehearsal space must be secured for visiting artists. When we take in the ballet, the photograph, the poem, we are seeing only the finished product. This issue of NEA Arts will look at all the steps leading up to that final product, the work behind the artwork.
 
A couple of months ago, the NEA began the Art Works blog on our website where we keep track of Chairman Rocco Landesman’s travels around the country as part of the Art Works Tour, but also look at interesting examples of how art transforms communities. If you have an example you would like to share, or just want to comment on something you read there or in this issue, please join in the conversation on the blog.

Included in this Issue

Cast of young actors, with one front and center with arm raised shouting something to the audience

Making Art Work

Backstage at Market House Theatre
Two dancers in the studio with right right arms and legs extended out to side

Early in the Morning 'til Late at Night

The Workday of Artists
man at letterpress machine with a stack of broadsides in front of him?

The Business of Books

Behind the Scenes at Coffee House Press and Narrative
Several students working in a costume shop

Designs on the Future

The Design and Architecture Senior High in Miami, Florida
 two young girls in festive costume dancing with multi-colored fans

From the Ground Up

Local Arts Agencies Think Artistically and Act Locally
Two actresses - one expostulating the other next to her with head on shoulder

Nothing Glamorous At All

A Talk with a Working Actor
young actors in a cardboard locomotive mock-up with  another shoveling pretend coal into the firebox.

Festival Theatre

Audio Available
Two women seated on a rooftop open sky and clouds and the city skyline in the background.

Interview with Hannah Tinti of One Story

Audio Available
Photo of book cover: Things I must Have Known by A.B. Spellman

Interview with A.B. Spellman

Audio Available
Artists in the Workforce 1990-2005 book cover - performers of various ages onstage facing front

Artists at Work

Stay Connected to the National Endowment for the Arts

Sign up for our newsletters and magazine
Newsletter Signup Magazine Signup
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Equity
  • Civil Rights
  • FOIA
  • No Fear Act
  • Inspector General
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimers
  • Open Government
  • USA.gov
  • Note on Scam Regarding NEA Grants
400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20506
202.682.5400
Follow us on twitter Follow us on facebook Apple store Follow us on instagram Follow us on youtube