This post is an excerpt from my article on Sixty Inches From Center, which supports and promotes art and writing that thrives primarily outside of mainstream historical narratives.
This is the fourth in a series of articles made in collaboration with the Chicago Arts Census to explore the living, labor, and material realities of art workers in the city of Chicago. Click here to read the other articles in this series. Please visit the Chicago Arts Census website to learn more about the Census, how to get involved, and to take the survey.
A discussion between five Chicago-based artists and arts administrators discussing the barriers to receiving support, creative solutions, and what they hope you’ll keep in mind when supporting disabled artists.
Making a living off of your artwork is the dream for many artists. What happens when achieving that dream puts the rest of your life in a tailspin? Securing funding as an artist can be challenging to begin with. Layer on the need to balance what funding you can and cannot accept in order to maintain critical benefits — such as social security and health care — and that support becomes a double-edged sword. This is the dilemma many artists with disabilities and chronic illnesses find themselves in. In a recent conversation with five Chicago-based artists and arts administrators, we discuss barriers they’ve encountered when receiving support, creative solutions to these challenges, and what they hope individuals and organizations will keep in mind when supporting disabled artists.
Courtney Graham: I’m really honored that this group has offered to share their experiences with me and with each other. So, let’s jump into some introductions.
Sandie Yi: Hello, everyone! This is Sandie, I go by she/her, and I’m the co-director for Bodies of Work with Carrie, and I teach art therapy and counseling at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago at the moment, and I also have a position as the arts and cultural coordinator at Access Living.
Carrie Sandahl: Hello, everyone, I’m Carrie Sandahl. I go by she/her pronouns, and co-director of Bodies of Work with Sandie. I’m a disabled artist, do research on disability in the arts, and run an artist residency program for disabled artists called the 3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency Fellowship.
Andy Slater: Hey everybody, I’m Andy Slater. He/him are my pronouns. I am an artist. I am blind. I actually worked on the Chicago Arts Census as a part of the [research and development] team.
Max Guy: Hey everybody. My name is Max Guy, I’m an artist and I have type one diabetes so I think that’s how you know I kind of fit in this context, and I work as Manager of Institutional Giving at Hyde Park Art Center. And I’ve been teaching as a lecturer at the Art Institute of Chicago for about a year.
Anonymous: Thanks. I’m an artist, I’m disabled, and I think I’ll leave it there. [Editor’s note: This artist asked to remain anonymous because many people in their immediate community do not look kindly on, and often heavily stigmatize, persons with disabilities. Sixty acknowledges and respects the artist’s preference in this regard, and thought it’d still be germane to include their perspective because it illustrates an additional intersecting layer of support (or lack thereof) that disabled artists have to contend with based on other aspects of their identity.]
Courtney Graham: Thank you, everyone, let’s jump into our discussion. To start, you know navigating systems of support can be especially challenging for artists with disabilities. Could you share a little bit about how balancing things like grants or fellowships with other benefits has impacted you?
Andy Slater: I’ve been on social security disability insurance [SSDI] since 2005, which is I guess an upgrade from SSI [Supplemental Security Income]. With that you also get Medicare as opposed to Medicaid, there’s a lot more freedom, you can earn more money, and there’s just kind of more of this sort of security to it. I’ve been receiving it since then and it can be absolutely mind-destroyingly confusing as to what some of the rules are depending on your benefits, because you have earning caps every month.
Over the past 2 or 3 years I’ve been able to receive a couple grants. Now I’m trying to navigate how this might affect whether or not I continue to receive benefits. The most important thing to me is keeping my Medicare. I also have a dependent, my son, who receives monthly benefits and insurance. Something like getting a grant might be more than I’m allowed to earn each month and could kick me off. So I’m currently trying to navigate that, and I thought I had answers, and then it totally depends on who you talk to. You go to one person, and they say ‘oh, no it’s fine don’t worry about it.’ The other says, ‘oh, well, you need to go down to the office, because I think that you’re going to either have to lose your social security or pay money back.’ So it gets really dicey and I’m really not sure where I’ll end up, what kind of guidance I’ll get from social security. If there’s any kind of agency out there that can help mediate or provide resources and answers that would help. I’ve never had that education, because I never had the opportunity to receive these grants and fellowships and things like that, and it gets very confusing.
There’s also the stigma and fear that something’s going to happen if you accept money. My experience, basically, is always wanting this and one of my goals is to be able to earn income and survive on my art. It might be getting to that point. But then, what are the consequences going to be? I lose my social security? Wishing that there was some kind of support system outside of social security administration to help us navigate. That would be great.
Read the rest of this piece at Sixty Inches From Center.