For 8 years now I have adopted a model called "Have a full-time teacher salary plus studio lessons to form my base, then use professional performing contracts as supplemental income and for personal fulfillment." It works and it works well. It is one reason I am so blunt and outspoken and have zero tolerance for disrespect, gatekeeping, dishonesty, and pettiness. It comes with a price sometimes, but it's a price I pay happily. And I can do it because I have less to lose. I am happy as a professional artist who is a teacher first. This is not the case for everyone. I recommend using teaching as an anchor, but this isn't for everyone. Looking at folks who have been burned out, I think it all comes down to the hard cold truth that artists have not been paid a living wage in decades, despite the rising cost of living. Their compensation has stayed stagnant. What looks like a luxurious and glamorous profession really only is that way for the top 1%. This in large part is because of mismanagement of both funds and talent. Artists are often treated as expendable. Finances are part of this, but the larger part, I believe, is that Arts Admin need to value performers as human beings and see beyond their skills, which seem to be interchangeable and replaceable at the drop of a hat. Full-time working artists should not have to watch their kids grow up through a screen in the wings between Acts on a long tour. If they bring their families with them on tour or to a regional run, the cost of living for that family should be manageable. I am meeting fewer and fewer artists who do this "full-time", because in both opera and musical theatre, you often have to SPEND money to make money. In my case, I commute to Phoenix half of my time, and I can write that off when I do taxes, but the fact remains that I am expending resources to do so. For me it's worth it, but only because I can AFFORD to. This is not my only source of income. We need to treat artists with the basic respect and decency they deserve, as highly qualified individuals, yes, but also as human beings with feelings. And pay them a living wage. At BYU we were told we are "more than our voice." That stuck with me. Everyone should be treated that way in the Arts.

-Zach