From Portfolio to Platform Career

Navigating the Promise and Pitfalls of a Sustainable and Meaningful Life in the Performing Arts

Abstract

Written as a concise guide for students and working professionals, this article examines and critiques the “portfolio career” in arts professional development to offer an alternative conceptual strategy to forge a sustainable life. Eight modes of arts work are explored (performing, teaching, creating, writing, healing, manufacturing, distributing, and administering). The “Platform Career” is proposed as an extension of and possible solution to the shortcomings of the portfolio career. In the platform model, one professional activity serves as a financial base for the artist’s panoply of creative work, providing health insurance and other employment benefits plus additional financial stability to reduce financial and emotional precarity.