As a public art consultancy, we commission artists on behalf of clients and know that supporting artists within the creative process is a much needed and important role.

We have had an overwhelming response to our survey with 56 artists taking part. Significantly 69.1% of respondents were practicing professional artists with experience in producing public art. We want to say a big thank you to everyone that took part and were open and honest in their feedback.

Here is a snapshot of what we have gathered.

The top three most important areas from the multiple-choice section were:

• How to find public art opportunities

• Writing a successful proposal

• Negotiating contracts and agreements

Artists also shared wide ranging suggestions for consideration such as building long-term partnerships and fostering creative risks, through to more collaborative opportunities, sharing skills, encouraging a participatory relationship with communities and ensuring budgets are realistic.

If both the artist and client were confident and well versed in these areas, imagine the public art projects we could all be working on!

However, artists also reminded us of the challenges in making public art and the responses to this question gave us a deep dive into the barriers and struggles artists face, such as establishing credibility, securing income, gaining experience, managing time, and building valuable partnerships.

To combat these challenges, artists highlighted the need for skill-building, mentorship, networking, accessible small-scale projects, and a strong support infrastructure to help artists grow and sustain careers in public art.

There’s a lot to consider here and our next step will be to build on this research to further develop a programme that is sustainable and useful to artists. Thank you to all the artists that have offered to be part of a discussion group. We need to work out how we deliver this, whilst being mindful of everyone’s time, interest and expectations.

The Public Art Practitioners Survey was a start, and it is something we will build on. Please look out for updates in the New Year.

Louise & Laura