From the Field

New Survey Identifies Challenges Faced by Women Artists

The new Artists Speak Report, commissioned by Anonymous Was A Woman and written by journalists Charlotte Burns and Julia Halperin and SMU DataArts, presents data from the Artists Speak survey, an international survey of over 1,200 women artists featuring topics ranging from experiences in the art world to career, finances and family. The goal was to gain insight into the lives and careers of women artists, homing in on specific challenges and opportunities. Among the key takeaways:

A significant majority (79%) of the artists surveyed cite community and networks as key to their careers.
63% say that a lack of institutional support hinders their careers.
Only a quarter responded that they are treated equitably in the art world.
About half rely on sources of income unrelated to their art career.
One-third reported an annual household income below $50,000.

Read the full report for more insight into experiences of women artists.

State Tax-Cut Tracking Resource

Following years of broad-based tax cuts and sluggish revenue growth, many states currently face budgetary challenges and fiscal strain. Preliminary analyses of fiscal year 2026 state tax policy and budget proposals indicate that the state tax policy environment will generally mirror FY2025. To help make sense of the current policy landscape, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has created a new resource, Tracking the Fallout from State Tax Cuts. The resource highlights the latest state tax developments and their impact, including information about cuts to public services and disinvestment stemming from revenue losses along with state level case studies and analysis of tax-cut trends.

How Youth Arts Engagement Can Contribute to Well-Being

A recent RAND literature review commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, Stitching the Threads Together, explores the ways arts engagement promotes youth well-being. Surveying the state of literature across different disciplines—including psychology, sociology, medicine, education and political science—the researchers were able to identify five interrelated mechanisms. They are:

building agency to make positive social change;
promoting health and wellness;
encouraging self-expression;
creating social connections and community; and
developing a range of skills such as public speaking and critical and creative thinking.

Each of these mechanisms contributes to different aspects of youth well-being. However, the researchers also identified significant gaps in the literature, including a limited understanding of how different types of arts engagement may promote well-being differently, and a limited ability to capture the impact of arts engagement at multiple levels, ranging from the neurobiological to the community level. Ultimately, more empirical data is needed to provide a fuller picture of how the arts foster youth well-being.