Priorities on Display

One of my new joys is volunteering as Curator for the Ballweg Gallery at the Goodman Community Center. This lovely venue provides a wonderful opportunity for breaking and seasoned artists alike to share their work in a welcoming and supportive space.

The way I’ve chosen to build my business helps me appreciate what life is like for independent artists. Interior designers are considered artists of course, but the economics of doing the work is much different for most designers who can be employed to do their work or who can generate their income selling other people’s products as part of their design work. Interior designers have been the more fortunate among artists for this reason.

There are changes afoot for interior designers that other artists have been confronting for years. The proliferation of HGTV and online resources has made interior design seem more like a commodity than something for which one should pay a professional. It’s a big problem – if purchasing a haute design is perceived to be as easy as buying a television, interior designers seem irrelevant and unnecessary. Of course that’s wrong – nonetheless this gross misconception combined with the disappearance of traditional retail has threatened the economic position of interior designers everywhere.

To counter this problem, there is movement afoot to rebrand the interior design profession in ways that will make it more exclusive and inaccessible. Of course, the economic interest of interior designers is to be better understood as architects rather than salespeople when it comes to compensation. There are other good reasons too – but lets be real here. By limiting the supply of designers along these lines, the obvious outcome is that more demand for fewer designers preserves economic opportunity for those fewer designers. That is, opportunity for those already economically privileged enough to pursue the additional credentials required for consideration. If interior designers are truly artists, that way of thinking does not ensure opportunities for the most talented among us.

Every art form requires extensive preparation as well as technical knowledge and ability (when was the last time you improvised a blues saxophone solo within a minor pentatonic chord progression?) but there remain multiple ways to become an artist. Musicians don’t stop being called musicians if they fail to attend Julliard and no one is trying to make the case for that to happen. Closing off pathways to the profession is the survival strategy for interior designers who want to keep a steady paycheck for what they do – and of course they deserve one. They are not the only ones.

Interior designers are increasingly having to face the same difficult choices that other artists have always had to face. It’s unfortunate that ANY artist has to sacrifice the security of knowing how to pay the bills in order to fulfill their purpose on this planet. However I don’t think the solution is EVER to make it impossible for someone to pursue their purpose for lack of privilege to pursue it. My little home is filled with original artwork and I chose an unpaid opportunity to support other artists. It’s a small step in advancing my belief that our collective work in the arts has value and improves our world. Therefore we as interior designers should not abandon our message as artists in order to convince others of that fact.