Right on the heels of my blog entry on obstacles to Living a Halcyon Life, the New York Times publishes a great overview of the financial difficulties artists face . Excerpt:

“Rent for a studio or a one-bedroom in the East Village, for example, has more than doubled in 10 years, said Douglas Hochlerin, a broker with Bond New York, a firm specializing in Manhattan rentals. Last year, when the rent on Ms. Berman’s Mott Street one-bedroom, where she had lived for three years, rose to $1,550 from $1,350, she gave up her lease, beginning another bout of itinerancy, as she described it.

“‘It’s all about money,’ Ms. Berman said cheerfully. ‘It’s not like I have a penchant for the transient life.’

“According to Emily Morse, the director of artistic development at New Dramatists, ‘two major things have changed as far as this city is concerned: the real estate market and the fact that very little money is going directly to artists.’

“She continued: ‘You used to be able to work a 20-hour week, pay the rent on your tiny studio, and still write your plays. That’s no longer possible.'”