What Becomes of Arts Alumni?

By CAROLYN MOONEY

What makes or breaks an artist? And is there a typical career path?

An ambitious national survey of arts-school graduates, which kicks off this year, seeks to answer those and other questions by providing a statistical portrait of the lives and careers of dancers, musicians, Web artists, painters, writers, and other members of the nation's creative class.

The online survey, called the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, or SNAAP, will collect, analyze, and disseminate