Practising professional artists

The Australia Council artists survey, Don't give up your day job, collected information relating to practising professional artists in Australia.

The survey including full-time and part-time artists; employed and self-employed artists; and artists regardless of whether all, some or none of their income was from art practice.

The survey did not include artists whose primary involvement was in design (furniture, interior, fashion, industrial, architectural or graphic); artists working primarily in the film industry; or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists working in remote Indigenous communities.

According to Don't give up your day job, there are 40,000�50,000 practising professional artists in Australia.

Musicians make up the largest group with more than 12,000, while dancers are the smallest group, numbering between 1,000 and 1,500.

Estimated numbers of practising professional artists in Australia, 2001

Practising professional artists	Range	Midpoint
	From (�000)	To (�000)
Writers	7.0	7.5	7.25
Visual artists	8.5	10.0	9.25
Craft practitioners	4.0	4.5	4.25
Actors	6.0	7.0	6.5
Dancers	1.0	1.5	1.25
Musicians	12.0	13.0	12.5
Composers	1.0	2.0	1.5
Community cultural development workers	2.0	3.0	2.5
Total	41.5	48.5	45.0

Source: Australia Council, Don�t give up your day job: An Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia (Throsby and Hollister 2003).

The total number of artists grew between 1993 and 2001. During this period, the number of writers increased from 60,000 to 73,000; visual artists from 75,000 to 93,000; and actors from 42,000 to 65,000.

At the same time, the number of craft practitioners declined from 55,000 to 43,000; and the number of community cultural development workers from 30,000 to 25,000.