Now here in Houston, what do you think we need here in our community to keep these art ecosystems strong and vibrant?

Yeah, it's a great question, Tessa.

Thank you.

I think that what we see in the data is that there's a really remarkable level of participation in the arts and culture sector broadly.

There's more than 154,000 people in the Greater Houston area employed in the arts, a huge footprint of people, another 30,000 who are volunteering at nonprofit arts and culture organizations in this community.

and a really vibrant sector of independent artists who are at the core of all of that work.

When we looked with the Houston Endowment to see where there might be opportunity to continue to grow and to align Houston with its peers, One of the places we see Houston fall a little bit behind others is in the number of independent artists per capita within the city.

How do we compare to other Texas cities?

Now here in Houston, what do you think we need here in our community to keep these art ecosystems strong and vibrant?

yeah it's a great question tessa thank you i think that what we see in the data is that there's a really remarkable level of participation in the arts and culture sector broadly there's more than 154 000 people in the greater houston area employed in the arts a huge footprint of people another 30 000 who are volunteering at non-profit arts and culture organizations in this community and a really vibrant sector of independent artists who are at the core of all of that work.

When we looked with the Houston Endowment to see where there might be opportunity to continue to grow and to align Houston with its peers, One of the places we see Houston fall a little bit behind others is in the number of independent artists per capita within the city.

And so even though we see this huge arts and culture workforce, when we really drill down to artists themselves, sustaining a creative practice in Houston is hard.

It's expensive.

And so what we're thinking about really strategically, I think, is how do we support artists in this space to make careers sustainable, to make sure they stay here after they graduate or begin their careers.

Mel, I see you nodding your head.

yeah i'm curious jen you know talking about your your little run through of your resume how does houston compare to other texas cities in terms of our independent artists per capita i thought that was an interesting side that you mentioned there how does how do we compare to other texas cities