Artists on the South and West sides rely on free or subsidized community housing and the support of mission-driven arts organizations to maintain their art practices.
By Jasmine Barnes
Jala Bowers shares some of her original artwork in Grant Park in April. (Akilah Townsend/for City Bureau).
Rakya Graham, 23, is a painter and poet studying art at Harold Washington College in the Loop. Still, her only paying job — a server at The Cheesecake Factory — has nothing to do with her artistic passions.
“In terms of career, I think that’s almost every artist’s dream: to get paid for at least something they do in art,” Graham said.
Young Chicago artists are developing their crafts in hopes of following a rich local legacy of nationally impactful work, ranging from more contemporary performers such as singer-songwriter Jamila Woods to classic playwrights such as Lorraine Hansberry.
What would be a requirement in most professional fields — a living wage — remains a dream for many aspiring young creators. Reliable, well-paid jobs in the arts can be hard to come by.
Arts organizations consistently generate hundreds of millions in local revenue and economic impact through their work, even as the creatives who fuel them struggle to make rent in a city with one of the nation’s highest rates of inflation and a growing housing affordability crisis.
Young South and West side artists who spoke to City Bureau said they split rent with multiple roommates, live at home with family, and work service industry jobs just to keep pursuing their dreams.
Creators also are grappling with broader attacks on arts funding federally and locally, particularly as the movement against diversity, equity and inclusion undercuts organizations that focus on underserved communities. Local artists have also criticized the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, saying “dysfunction” among leaders is delaying grants and affecting operations when groups are counting on strong local support for the arts.
In the meantime, community arts institutions, accustomed to dealing with shaky funding, are creating opportunities for artists to improve their craft and educate younger generations.
Rakya Graham stands outside Harold Washington College in the Loop, where she studies art. (Akilah Townsend/for City Bureau).
‘Everything keeps getting more expensive’
For Graham, moving from her hometown of Milwaukee to Chicago was a risk in order to invest in her artistic goals in her “dream city,” she said.
She shares a three-bedroom apartment with two roommates on the West Side, works at The Cheesecake Factory and receives financial aid for her tuition at Harold Washington College. Her $11 hourly wage as a server mostly goes to taxes, so she relies on tips ranging from $15-$40 per hour, depending on the season. Her $600 portion of rent makes the fluctuations in pay bearable, she said.
Going to school and networking with friends attending Columbia College help her build connections in Chicago’s creative community, she said. Since relocating, she has participated in fashion shows with the Black-owned collective HourNine, performed slam poetry at the Big Kid Show at Dorian’s, and started promoting her work.
“I'm not paid for most of my art right now, but I feel like I've developed my community to be as big and resourceful as it was in Milwaukee,” Graham said.
Jala Bowers. (Akilah Townsend/for City Bureau).
Jala Bowers, 22, is graduating from Columbia College in the South Loop later this year with a degree in fine arts. She has made her studies possible at the private arts school by working part-time at Starbucks, getting scholarships and living rent-free with her parents in South Chicago — a half-hour Metra train ride from school.
She feels particularly aware of what an affordable and supportive situation she’s in as she faces the prospect of living on her own. She feels confident in her work prospects to become an art teacher and also hopes to pursue a master’s degree in education at Illinois State University.
“I will have a job,” Bowers said. “I enjoyed my high school [art education] experience, and I really just want to help other high schoolers who want to go to art school.”
But higher education isn’t a panacea for an artistic livelihood. Nakiya’h Longstreet, 21, has faced recent challenges as he pursues his career and education.
In 2024, a glitch in his financial aid led to unexpected debt and forced him to take a semester off from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he said. He’s living with his grandparents and working at a restaurant while his financial aid gets sorted out.
“It’s been rough, honestly,” Longstreet said. “Everything keeps getting more expensive.”
Longstreet has been investing in his artistic practice since middle school. His multidisciplinary approach includes painting, drawing and printmaking. He’s also passionate about serving his community, which inspired him to create Skate Englewood, an initiative that provides skateboards to youth in his neighborhood.
“I’m focusing on my artistic work that’s carrying my business forward and the entrepreneurship side, as well as starting a nonprofit for the Skate Englewood project,” Longstreet said.
Andrew Michaelson, the vice president of property development at Artspace Projects, knows that affordable housing is key to providing artists some stability.
The national company’s residential properties, such as the Pullman Artspace Loft on the Far South Side, rent apartments to artists who qualify for low-income housing. The Pullman building offers rents starting at $882 for a studio apartment and up to $1,367 for a two-bedroom as of 2025. For comparison, average Chicago rents for studio apartments in June range from $1,256 to $1,572 a month, while two-bedrooms exceed $2,000 a month.
Offering “permanently affordable, dignified space for people to live and work” provides the resources artists are least likely to have consistently, Michaelson said.
Still, it’s a grind for resident artists to cover their living costs, he added.
“Most of, if not all of, our residents [at the Pullman Artspace Lofts] are working in a certain 9-to-5 or service industry type of position, and doing their arts in addition to that,” Michaelson said. “Their economic contribution exceeds just your standard workforce, because they're also participating in that creative economy.”
There are newer affordable housing spaces for artists on the South and West sides, such as KLEO Art Residences in Washington Park, the Paseo Boricua Arts Building in Humboldt Park, and the Dorchester Art and Housing Collaborative in South Shore, but they only house a fraction of the city’s creative workforce.
An entrepreneurial approach
That persistent grind is familiar for both new and established creators alike working in the arts.
Jordan Campbell, a professional photographer and co-founder of the community arts nonprofit Alt Space Chicago (styled as “alt_”), worked at fast food places, scrubbed floors, cleaned toilets, moved furniture and drove for Uber early in his career.
Campbell and his creative and business partners worked in the service industry well into starting alt_. Now 34, he makes a living providing arts education, mentorship, job training, and community resources to other artists and his neighbors on the West Side.
“I think when we're talking about wages, we're talking about systemic oppression,” Campbell said. Because artwork isn’t always seen as wholly valuable on its own and deserving of a full salary, “artists are undervalued and overworked … and you’re seeing this very competitive and very minimal yield that’s coming out of our contribution as artists,” he said.
Campbell’s main advice to young artists is to make sure they are “incrementally, continually investing” in their arts practice, even if it’s not their main or only source of income.
“I think when it comes to entrepreneurship, there is no true road map. It's really about you recognizing who you are and what you're aiming to contribute to the world,” he said.
Englewood native and social justice artist Tonika Lewis Johnson knows how important adaptability is when pursuing an artistic, community-oriented lifestyle.
For many years, she pursued her photography and creative endeavors while working full-time as a grant writer and nonprofit leader. That started to change when the Folded Map Project, which illustrates urban segregation in Chicago, began generating local and national attention and facilitated a career revolving around her art.
[Editor’s note: Johnson began her work on the Folded Map Project as a City Bureau fellow in 2017.]
When advising young artists, Johnson, 45, emphasizes the many ways creative skills can be applied in the workforce.
“Your artistic skill set and your creative thinking is totally a totally transferable skill to other professions that you might succeed in,” she said.
Visitors at the Marwen resource fair learn about opportunities from a variety of organizations on site on April 19, 2025. (Max Herman/for City Bureau)
Refusing the ‘starving artist’ trope
Working as a teaching artist is a common way artists find reliable, paid work and share their craft with others. These types of jobs pay around $30 per hour on average in Illinois, compared to just above $26 per hour nationally, according to Indeed.
Marwen, an arts nonprofit based in the West Loop, offers programs and resources for young people, often inviting them back as adults to work as emerging teaching artists. Nakiya’h Longstreet spent much of his middle and high school years developing his portfolio at Marwen offices, preparing to apply to arts school, he said.
Maricela Ramirez, the organization’s senior manager of outreach and youth pathway programs, was one of Longstreet’s mentors. She sees Longstreet as one student who took her advice to heart: bringing a values-driven, entrepreneurial approach to his creative pursuits as a way to navigate the highs and lows of a career in the arts.
As a college art student, Longstreet recently returned to the organization to offer a workshop to the next wave of young artists.
Maricela Ramirez, the senior manager of outreach and youth pathway programs at Marwen, stands outside the building on April 19, 2025. (Max Herman/for City Bureau).
“I feel like it's a very crucial time to have the arts as a way of bringing people together, and also for folks [to] use art as a tool for social change,” Ramirez said. “In my programming, [I] really show young people that you have the agency and you have the power and the brilliance to make a difference in our communities.”
Reflecting on her work with young people, Ramirez said financial anxiety and the fear of being a “starving artist” comes up regularly.
“The most common trend that we see is young people just being scared of not making money because they feel like art is just like a hobby,” Ramirez said.
Arts + Public Life, an initiative of UChicago Arts, has also brought back alumni of its paid job training programs to join the staff or become instructors.
Julia Hinojosa, the associate director of education programs, told City Bureau earlier this year she sees perceptions shifting around having a viable career in the arts.
“[More people are] finding ways to marry [their] passions with the ability to receive compensation,” Hinojosa said.
>> Read more: Q&A: Creating a ‘Sustainable Cycle for Artists and Makers’ on the South Side
Graham, meanwhile, is continuing to figure out what it looks like to balance her love for art and making a stable living. Growing up financially insecure, she was originally determined to have a sustainable, full-time arts career. Any other reality would have felt like a personal failing, she said.
Her perspective has evolved. She’s open to having a 9-to-5 job and pursuing her artistic projects separately. A few months ago, she achieved one of her dreams: selling one of her original paintings. Although she only made $40 from the sale, the acknowledgement of her talent and monetary investment in her work has motivated her “to keep going,” she said.
Despite the obstacles, a dedicated, entrepreneurial spirit inspires young artists to continue pursuing their dreams.
“As artists, we're gift givers,” Campbell said. “I create something that is an offering that I'm extending to the culture, to the people.”
What artists want in return for their gifts is quite simple: a living wage.
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