TLDR; I would appreciate any ideas or resources on how someone (me) could utilize a career in the arts, particularly visual arts, to support EA causes.

My preliminary thoughts on ways for artists to support EA causes:

1. Earning to give. Arts/entertainment follows a power law where a small percentage of artists earn disproportionately high incomes, but most earn modest incomes.
2. Promoting EA in the art community. Artists are generally charitable and open-minded people who would be receptive to EA concepts like giving pledges and impact maximization. But beyond that I'm not sure what their value would be (and that's part of the reason for this post).
3. Charity events & "ambassadorship". Artists could help attract potential donors to EA by participating in events alongside EA orgs, or by promoting EA to their customers who (in the case of fine arts) have relatively high disposable income.
4. Design support of EA projects. Good design can improve UX on websites, increase book sales, or support organic marketing for community building. But, graphic design is a pretty different skillset than fine arts like painting, and there are already many excellent designers available for hire.
5. Social influence campaigns. Also following a power law, a small percentage of artists become socially influential, though it can take a very long time. Social media can speed this up and does yield microinfluencers. Artists can also help make propaganda which historically is effective at shaping perspectives.
6. EA-themed art. I don't see this as especially impactful, but maybe depictions of EA concepts like the lightcone, viatopia, basilisk, etc could be motivating or inspiring for people in EA. There is a lot of EA-adjacent speculative fiction which promote solarpunk futures and may have parallels here. Art workshops could also promote creativity in the EA community.

On opportunity costs: Why visual arts? Shouldn't I focus on a higher-impact field like finance or AI?

1. Personal fit. I'm not sure if I should pursue art full-time yet. I've worked at an impact investment VC and at an EA-affiliated NGO, but visual arts is where I feel the strongest personal fit. It makes me happy and it feels like my best shot at being great at something (highest upside). There are probably others who feel similarly.
2. Neglectedness. There appear to be relatively few professional artists in the community. The "Effective altruism art and fiction" tag is pretty inactive. I found a forum post about an Artists for Impact fundraising organization, but it appears to be defunct. This dearth may be for good reason, but maybe some artists could bring higher marginal utility than additional analysts or engineers.
3. Optionality. With rapid social and technological change, arts and culture seem like a safe haven with timeless importance.

Thank you for reading and sharing your insights! I value this wonderful community of thinkers and activists. 

In case you're interested, my art website is natecrosser.com. I'd love to collaborate and can be reached here, at my website, or Instagram (natecrosser). The cover image is a piece of art I made using block printing techniques.