DOI: 10.3886/icpsr35599
title: Artists Training and Career Project, United States, 1989-1990
title: Archival Version

description: The Artists Training and Career Project, conducted by the Research Center for Arts and Culture (RCAC), studied the training and career choices and patterns of actors, craftspeople, and painters through national surveys of a sampling of artists in each discipline. Topics include training and preparation for painting and craft careers, acceptance in the marketplace, critical evaluation, public response, involvement in professional organizations, and career satisfaction. As a complement to the surveys, RCAC also conducted personal narrative interviews with artists and related experts. The survey of craftspeople was conducted in 1990 and included 1,257 respondents. The survey of painters was conducted in 1991 and included 889 respondents. As well, the survey of actors was conducted in 1992. Funding for the study was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).


Also archived at ICPSR and available for research purposes are 1381 ACTORS' EQUITY surveys (AEA) and 528 non-EQUITY (non-AEA) (total 1909). These surveys are in hard copy, and there may be costs associated with access to these materials. Please contact ICPSR-help@umich.edu if you are interested in using the data.


Digital data for The Artists Training and Career Project: Actor were not provided for the NADAC or CPANDA version of this data collection.
description: The Artists Training and Career Project: Painters: Questionnaires were mailed to 2,000 US painters in 1991, selected randomly from lists provided by organizations with painter members. A postage-paid return envelope was included with the questionnaire, and a reminder postcard was sent ten days after the questionnaire.


The Artists Training and Career Project: Craftspeople: Questionnaires were mailed to 3,942 United States craft artists in 1990, selected randomly from lists provided by organizations with craftsperson members. The questionnaire was eight pages long and contained 151 questions plus a request for additional comments "to learn something about the many things respondents want to say that do not fit onto little lines or in boxes and categories." A postage-paid return envelope was included with the questionnaire, and a reminder postcard was sent ten days after the questionnaire.
description: Response Rates: The response rate for the Artists Training and Career Project: Craftspeople is 33 percent, and for the Artists Training and Career Project: Painters is 46 percent.
description: For both data files, random sampling was used and was based on merged lists of artists obtained from their corresponding organizations around the United States. For both data files, the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent, and in certain selected questions, plus or minus 0.5 percent.


The Artists Training and Career Project: Painters: The names of 20,035 painters were submitted by organizations. After the duplicates are removed, the sample was 18,329. Of the 18,329, a random sample of 2,000 was drawn and was mailed questionnaires.


The Artists Training and Career Project: Craftspeople: There were 41,705 craft artists on the lists submitted by organizations. The lists were then merged and purged to avoid duplicates, and a random sample of 4,195 craft artists was drawn. A second check of the lists revealed that the sample needed further purging to eliminate missed duplicates, business or organizational listings, and incomplete mailing addresses. In the end, the questionnaire was sent to 3,942 individual craft artists.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: The Artists Training and Career Project: Painters
DS2: The Artists Training and Career Project: Craftspeople
description: Craftspeople and painters in the United States.
description: mail questionnaire
Others contributed to this data collection. Robert Greenblatt, computer consultant; Mary Greeley, project coordinator; and Zoe Freedman, project coordinator, contributed to The Artists Training and Career Project: Painters. Robert Greenblatt and Mary Greeley contributed to The Artists Training and Career Project: Craftspeople.


Data collection for this study was conducted by Research Center for Arts and Culture. Funding for this study was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
This data collection was previously distributed by the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA). The CPANDA Identification Number (study number) for the entire data collection is c00020. The CPANDA Identification number for the Artists Training and Career Project: Craftspeople is a00029, and for the Artists Training and Career Project: Painters is a00027. CPANDA conducted the following processing steps for release of this collection: produced a codebook, checked for undocumented codes, performed consistency checks, provided frequencies, performed recodes, and reformatted the data.Users of the data are requested to notify the Research Center for Arts and Culture (Research Center for Arts and Culture, Teachers College, Columbia University, Box 78, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027) about their intended uses of the data. Reports or publications based on the data should acknowledge the work of Columbia University to create the data. RCAC would appreciate receiving copies of reports or publications based on the data.
Also archived at ICPSR and available for research purposes are 1381 ACTORS' EQUITY surveys (AEA) and 528 non-EQUITY (non-AEA) (total 1909). These surveys are in hard copy, and there may be costs associated with access to these materials. Please contact ICPSR-help@umich.edu if you are interested in using the data.


Digital data for The Artists Training and Career Project: Actor were not provided for the NADAC or CPANDA version of this data collection.
To protect the anonymity of respondents, all variables that could be used to identify individuals have been masked or recoded. For details regarding these changes, please refer to the Codebook Notes provided in the ICPSR Codebook in this data collection.Due to the limit in the number of allowable columns of 256 in Excel 97-2003 (file ending, xls), the Excel files being distributed with this collection are in the later version of Excel (file ending of xlsx).