State of the Art

Policy and law

Colorado created a new business entity built for artists.

Senate Bill 26-133, the Artist Company Act, was signed June 2, 2026. It creates an LLC variant where artists must hold at least 51% of voting shares, intellectual property cannot be transferred to outside entities, and IP reverts to the artist if the company dissolves. Economic rights and governance are separated, so an outside buyer has to invest rather than buy the work outright. Creative labor can be counted as a capital contribution. Anyone in any state can form one. Two caveats: filings are not expected to open until early 2027, and there is no special federal tax treatment. It is taxed like any other LLC.

The big artist AI lawsuit is still years from a verdict, but the rulings so far matter.

Andersen v. Stability AI, brought by Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz against Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway, is still in discovery. The schedule slipped again this year, with summary judgment now set for February 2027 and trial after that. What has already been decided is the useful part: claims for direct and induced infringement survived dismissal, claims under the DMCA did not, and no US court has held that artistic style is itself protected by copyright. In the UK, Getty lost a related case last November when the court rejected its argument that a trained model is itself an infringing copy of the images it learned from. Anyone counting on style protection as a defense against imitation does not currently have one.

Buying supplies from overseas now costs more, permanently.

Packages worth under $800 used to enter the US duty free. That ended in 2025, and on August 13, 2026 a federal trade court upheld it. Every package coming into the country now owes import duties and has to clear customs, whatever it is worth and whatever is in it. If you buy materials or equipment from abroad, the landed cost went up and is staying up. If you ship work to US buyers from outside the country, your buyers are the ones getting the bill unless you handle it at your end.

If you make anything for children, federal safety rules probably apply to you.

Any consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 and under is a children's product, and assembling one makes you a manufacturer under federal law. Where a children's product safety rule applies, the item has to be tested at a CPSC-accepted laboratory and covered by a Children's Product Certificate. You issue that certificate yourself, not the lab. It has to accompany the product to any retailer or distributor, be available to CPSC on request, and be kept with your test records for five years. Selling direct to a customer does not require handing it over. Handmade is not exempt, and neither is selling a single item at a market. This has been the law since 2008.

There is limited testing relief for low-volume producers, but you have to register with CPSC, recertify every year, and stay under two thresholds: a prior-year revenue cap across all consumer products, currently under $1.5M and adjusted annually, and 7,500 units of the item in question. Even then it never covers lead in paint and similar surface coatings, lead in children's metal jewelry, or the small parts rule where it applies. Included here because on June 24, 2026 the CPSC reviewed the lead limits and kept them at 100 ppm total content and 90 ppm in surface coatings, so the testing obligations tied to lead are unchanged going into next year. Which rules attach to a specific product depends on age grading, materials, coatings, components, and foreseeable use, so start with CPSC's Regulatory Robot or its Small Business Ombudsman rather than guessing.

Platforms

Etsy left the 6.5% fee alone and changed everything around it.

Four changes landed in 2026. Sellers outside the US shipping to US buyers must now pay import duties up front and build them into the listing price, effective July 9. Regulatory operating fees rose in several countries on June 22, with France going from 0.47% to 1.14% and Hungary added at 1.97%. Real fur was banned with no exemption for vintage pieces, effective August 11. The Seller Policy was rewritten on July 9. The headline transaction fee did not move. Margins did.

Etsy did not ban print on demand in August.

A rumor circulated that an August 11 policy change made items produced from purchased templates or licensed clipart unacceptable. The August 11 change was the fur ban. The originality rule people were reacting to is a different policy, applies to items made with computerized tools like laser cutters and Cricut machines, and has not changed since June 2025. Worth knowing before repricing or delisting anything.

Etsy's sales are up, but not because more people are shopping.

Etsy reported a third straight quarter of marketplace growth in August. The growth came mainly from higher order values rather than from more buyers arriving, with trailing twelve month buyer counts close to flat year over year. Platform-wide growth does not necessarily mean more people finding your shop. Etsy also announced a restructuring in the same report, cutting roughly 220 jobs, about 12% of staff, concentrated in product and engineering. With Reverb and Depop both sold, the Etsy marketplace is now the entire company.

Two handmade marketplaces closed this year.

goimagine shut down on March 23 after five years, with seller dashboards disabled April 6. It was US-only, donated its profits to children's charities, enforced handmade standards, and did not allow AI work. Its closing note thanked sellers for believing in "a more caring economy." Latchet closed a couple of months before that. Sellers on both had to export listings, move customers, and in some cases transfer domains on a few weeks' notice, which is a fair argument for keeping your own customer list wherever you sell.

Money and costs

Silver is up roughly 52% from a year ago.

Silver traded near $64 an ounce in mid-September, gold near $4,385. Both are below the records set in late January but far above where they were in 2025. If you set your prices on silver work last year and have not revisited them, you are likely selling below what it now costs you to replace the metal.

Holiday spending is forecast to grow, and online is growing faster.

Deloitte projects total US retail sales of $1.70 to $1.71 trillion between November and January, up 4.0% to 4.8% over last year. This covers all retail, not handmade specifically, so treat it as weather rather than a forecast for your shop. Two things in it are useful: online sales are expected to grow 7.5% to 8.4%, roughly double the overall rate, and Deloitte reports that shoppers across all income levels are still comparison shopping and hunting for value, including people who do not need to.

Joann's collapse is still reshaping where materials come from.

Joann liquidated all of its roughly 800 stores in 2025. Michaels bought the private label brands and has been adding fabric and sewing sections to more than 1,000 stores. If Joann was your supplier, the replacements are Michaels, online wholesalers, and independent shops, each with different pricing and minimums than what you were used to.

Dates worth knowing

CERF+ emergency grants are paused until October 1.

The Craft Emergency Relief Fund suspended its grantmaking after reviewing its finances, and its program page gives October 1 as the return date. Several grant listing sites still show it as open and accepting applications on a rolling basis. It is not. The grant is $3,000 for craft artists hit by a disruptive emergency, so it is worth knowing it exists before you need it.

Closing in the next two weeks

• South Arts Emerging Traditional Artists, up to $5,000, nine southern states, September 30
• One of a Kind Show Toronto, Spring 2027 application round, September 30

Opening or closing this fall

• One of a Kind Show Chicago, Spring 2027, applications through ZAPP, deadline expected early to mid November
• NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, $8,000 with no strings attached, 2027 disciplines include folk and traditional arts, opens this fall
• NY NOW Winter 2027 adds a new juried Handmade division, January 31 to February 2 at the Javits Center in New York, application deadline not yet announced

One that is not what it looks like

Etsy announced a $10M Craft Catalyst Initiative in July with the Center for Craft. The money goes to nonprofit organizations, not to individual artists. The first round was $2M split among 20 nonprofits. Artists benefit only if one of those organizations runs something you can participate in.

The NEA does not fund individual artists. State arts agencies do.

The National Endowment for the Arts is the name most associated with arts funding in the US, but its grants go to nonprofit organizations rather than to individuals, and both of this year's cycles have already closed.

State arts agencies do fund individuals, and collectively they hold about $646M this year against the NEA's $207M. That is roughly three times the money, and it is the pot you can actually apply to. Every state has one. Most run fellowships, project grants, or professional development funds, and most are far less competitive than the national programs because the applicant pool is limited to one state.

Worth knowing as you plan: the NEA is fully funded through this fiscal year, but the current federal budget request proposes winding it down, and a House committee has approved cutting it to $135M. Because state agencies receive a share of NEA money, that would eventually reach state programs too. This is a good year to apply rather than a good year to wait.

Corrections and content suggestions are welcome.