Visual arts participation spans museum visits, festivals, personal making, digital activity, and paid creative work. In the United States, 17.7% of adults visited an art museum or gallery during the 12 months ending in July 2022, while 10.7% created visual art such as paintings, sculpture, graphic designs, or digital art in 2022. The measures below show how audiences, makers, and workers fit together across different periods and definitions.
Contents
- U.S. visual arts attendance
- State participation patterns
- Making visual art
- Digital engagement with art
- Artists in the labor market
- Employment and wages by occupation
U.S. visual arts attendance
The National Endowment for the Arts’ SPPA Comprehensive Report 2022 measures self-reported activities by U.S. adults during the 12-month period ending in July 2022. It is a participation snapshot for that period, not a 2026 estimate.
The most common activity in this group was visiting a park, building, monument, or neighborhood for historic or design purposes: 26.0% of U.S. adults did so. Art museums and galleries reached 17.7%, and 17.1% attended a craft fair or visual arts festival. Attendance at an art exhibit was 14.1%.
These categories describe different forms of contact with visual culture. A museum or gallery visit captures an institutional setting, while a craft fair or visual arts festival includes a more event-based experience. The historic or design-purpose measure is broader still, covering places whose visual and built environments are part of the visit.
The same report recorded differences by sex for two measures. During the July 2021–July 2022 period, 15.7% of male adults and 19.5% of female adults visited an art museum or gallery. For art-exhibit attendance, the figures were 12.4% for male adults and 15.7% for female adults. These are descriptive participation rates for the stated period and categories.
Source: SPPA Comprehensive Report 2022, National Endowment for the Arts. The figures are self-reported U.S. adult activities during the 12-month period ending in July 2022.
State participation patterns
The NEA’s 50 States of Arts Participation: 2022 provides state-level results for the same 12-month period ending in July 2022. The selected art-museum and gallery figures vary substantially by geography.
| Place | Adults visiting an art museum or gallery |
|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 41% |
| Vermont | 32% |
| Massachusetts | 27% |
| Tennessee | 11% |
| Iowa | 11% |
| Idaho | 10% |
| New Jersey | 9% |
| Mississippi | 8% |
The District of Columbia figure was 41%, followed by Vermont at 32% and Massachusetts at 27%. At the lower end of this selected set, Mississippi was 8%, New Jersey 9%, Idaho 10%, and both Iowa and Tennessee 11%.
Craft-fair participation shows a different part of the visual-arts landscape. North Dakota recorded 40% of adults attending a craft fair, while Utah recorded 31%, during the same July 2021–July 2022 period. These craft-fair measures should not be treated as interchangeable with museum or gallery attendance: they describe a separate activity and may reflect different local cultural patterns.
The state results are participation percentages, not counts of visits or measures of the quality, size, or funding of a state’s arts sector. They also should not be read as current estimates beyond the stated measurement period.
Source: 50 States of Arts Participation: 2022, a geographical analysis of results from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.
Making visual art
Visual arts statistics also capture what people create themselves. In 2022, 13.3% of U.S. adults took photographs as an artistic activity. Photography was therefore a more commonly reported artistic activity than several hands-on and screen-based categories in the same survey.
Other visual art—including paintings, sculpture, graphic designs, or digital art—was created by 10.7% of U.S. adults. Leatherwork, metalwork, or woodwork reached 9.0%. The figures describe participation in an activity during 2022; they do not indicate whether the work was sold, exhibited, shared publicly, or made professionally.
Textile and decorative practices were also part of the reported activity mix. In 2022, 11.7% of adults did weaving, crocheting, quilting, needlepoint, knitting, or sewing. Pottery, ceramics, or jewelry were created by 3.6%.
Films or videos as an artistic activity were reported by 4.0% of adults. A separate measure found that 4.5% created a performance or work of visual art using a computer or mobile device. Because the categories are distinct survey measures, their percentages should be read individually rather than added together.
Source: SPPA Comprehensive Report 2022, National Endowment for the Arts.
Digital engagement with art
The 2022 activity measures show that visual-arts participation includes both making and communicating. In addition to the 4.5% who created a performance or visual-art work using a computer or mobile device, 19.7% of U.S. adults shared or posted about art on social media.
That 19.7% measure is broader than creating a digital artwork. It describes social-media sharing or posting about art, which can include engagement with other people’s work as well as communication about one’s own activity. The 10.7% measure for creating paintings, sculpture, graphic designs, or digital art likewise covers a broad group of practices.
Taken together, the figures distinguish at least three kinds of activity: producing visual work, producing work with a computer or mobile device, and participating in online discussion or sharing. They should not be combined into a single audience or creator total, because the categories may overlap and have different definitions.
The source’s scope matters here. These are self-reported U.S. adult activities measured in 2022, while the attendance figures above cover the 12 months ending in July 2022. Neither set is a forecast for later years.
Artists in the labor market
The NEA’s labor-market analysis uses CPS/ACS definitions and includes employed and unemployed people seeking work in an artist occupation. On that basis, the number of U.S. artists in the labor force rose 14%, from 2.3 million in 2015 to 2.7 million in 2023. Artists accounted for 1.6% of the U.S. labor force in 2023, up from 1.5% in 2015.
The fine-artist group—which includes painters, sculptors, illustrators, art directors, and animators—grew 51%, from 230,000 in 2015 to 347,000 in 2023. The category is therefore broader than the everyday meaning of “fine artist,” and its figures should be interpreted using the report’s definition. Other cultural workers numbered 1.1 million in 2023, compared with 982,000 in 2019.
Work schedules show a different pattern from the total labor force. In 2023, 74% of U.S. artists worked full time, compared with 81% of the total labor force. Twelve percent of artists worked 20–34 hours per week, versus 10% of the total labor force. Four percent worked 10–19 hours, compared with 3%; 3% worked 1–9 hours, compared with 1%; and 3% reported that their weekly hours varied, compared with 1% of the total labor force.
The unemployment rate was 3% for U.S. artists in 2023, versus 4% for the total labor force. The NEA found that this difference was not measurable. These labor-market figures are not direct measures of artistic output, income stability, or the number of self-employed artists.
Source: Measuring the Arts: Indicator A.5, “What is the Labor Market Status of Artists and Other Cultural Workers?”
Employment and wages by occupation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics estimates provide a separate view of selected visual-arts occupations. They are national employer-survey estimates and exclude self-employed workers. The table reports jobs, mean annual wage, and median hourly wage for each occupation.
| Occupation | Jobs | Mean annual wage | Median hourly wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art directors | 53,070 | $129,440 | $55.22 |
| Special effects artists and animators | 19,970 | $112,870 | $49.06 |
| Interior designers | 71,500 | $74,540 | $32.31 |
| Fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators | 11,220 | $73,150 | $26.68 |
| Graphic designers | 197,830 | $70,560 | $30.27 |
| Craft artists | 4,580 | $49,740 | $22.15 |
Graphic designers had the largest employment count among these selected occupations, with 197,830 jobs. Interior designers had 71,500 jobs, and art directors had 53,070. The selected fine-artist occupation had 11,220 jobs, while special effects artists and animators had 19,970 and craft artists had 4,580.
Mean annual wages ranged from $49,740 for craft artists to $129,440 for art directors. Special effects artists and animators had a mean annual wage of $112,870. Interior designers recorded $74,540, fine artists $73,150, and graphic designers $70,560.
Median hourly wages followed the same broad ordering but are a different measure from mean annual wages. Art directors had a median hourly wage of $55.22; special effects artists and animators, $49.06; interior designers, $32.31; graphic designers, $30.27; fine artists, $26.68; and craft artists, $22.15.
These occupation estimates should not be merged with the NEA artist-labor-force totals. The NEA uses artist and cultural-worker definitions based on CPS/ACS data, while BLS May 2025 OEWS figures come from an employer survey and exclude self-employed workers.
Source: BLS Table 1: National employment and wage data by occupation, May 2025.