Abstract:
Literature revealed that often, contemporary visual artists need to develop the
non-artistic skills necessary for their professional development, but it was unclear what
skills were essential, how they were developed, what were artists’ professional goals, and
which institutions were best suited to offer such skill development. The purpose of this
inquiry was to identify the non-artistic skills important for a contemporary visual arts
career in order to develop a program model to assist artists in obtaining these skills to
achieve their professional goals. Through triangulation of document analysis of existing
artist services programs, survey for artists, and following focus group with artists, this
inquiry provided descriptive data that identified key components for an artist services
model.
