Artists in VT

With all the great talk about artists and artistic attractions in our communities on the network, I did a bit of digging to see how VT stacks up to the rest of the country.

Here's an interesting report (albeit a few years old, from 2014, but using data from 2012) about the economic activity generated by artists in Vermont, which is impressive. The creative industries (including visual arts, fashion, literary arts, culinary arts, and the related) generated 440 million dollars in sales and output in 2012. (And over 7,000 people employed as a result, either directly or indirectly).

And maybe this is common knowledge, but it was new to me (but not surprising in the least) that VT has the second highest number of artists per capita in the US, short only to Washington DC. (Reminds me of how VT has the highest number of olympians per capita - three times over - of any state... but that's getting off topic.)

Needless to say, the surfeit of artists is a huge asset for our state, from tourism to simply having creative people able to design craft beer logos or visit schools or play music in churches and at farmers markets or even just think differently about how we should be running our communities.

FWIW, I also ran across a magazine, less than a year old, called the Vermont Art Guide which piqued my curiosity.

Honestly, I'm embarrassed to have not known the extent to which we were replete with artists. What else does this mean for our state?