Hi, I'm South African Fine Artist Lillian Gray and the owner of the Lillian Gray Fine Arts school.
Today's video is about choosing art as a subject at school and why is it even important?
First of all "What is art?" Art is about having something to say and having the means to say it.
It's about being able to reason about the state of the world and commenting on it, as
well. It's about the craftsmanship, and skill used to communicate that message. The message is
all about looking at the world around us and interpreting it,
commenting on it, adding some critical analysis to it.
If we look at art through the ages and art history, we see a lot of artists standing on the fringes,
commenting on society and imagining a different world, helping us create a better society. Artists
that stood on the fringes and captured the spirit of their time still reverberates with us today.
Then there's the skill of art. There's a lot you need to learn. You need to understand
lightness, darkness, value, shadow, texture, form, shape, 3D, vanishing points, perspective,
and how to draw in proportion. And there's actually a lot of skills, understanding the human anatomy,
how the body works, muscle. So those skills help you to convey the message. Then there's planning.
So you've got the message. You have the means to say it, but you actually need to get that out, and
structured and presented to the world. Art will teach you guys a lot of project management skills,
and how to put yourself out there. How to have the right marketing channels,
how to get people to notice and understand your message. Art is not just disorganized chaos.
If you're a genius and you're sitting in an attic, and nobody knows about you, there's no point.
That's really great Lillian "But how do I actually make a career out of art? How do I take all of
those things and make some moolah?" Art is a great supplement for anything else that you do.
Even if you become an engineer, art will complement that well. In so many ways
artificial intelligence is replacing the mundane, repetitive, predictable aspects of every field.
Creativity and critical thinking is what keeps us as humans relevant. Or you can make a career
out of art. There's certainly room for people to specialize and you can become a deep specialist
in a certain aspect of art. You will see a list of career choices later on in this video.
Others like me become multi-disciplinary artists. Art is not a tight rope, it's more like a dance
floor, and that's kind of how I have approached my career. I always say "Jack of all trades fear
of none". Over the years my art career has been very diverse. I started a design agency when I
was quite young and this allowed me to have a lot of different clients and get involved
with a lot of different projects. I've been on food styling shoots as a creative director or
director of photography, I've worked on film sets, I've done even interior design for film sets,
I've done stage setup and production, I've worked in animation and a texture artist
for 3D modeling, I've done a lot of illustration work, web development, and a lot of app development and
UX design. Art has opened up this entire world to me and has allowed me to delve into all
these great different creative disciplines. That's why I say it's more like a dance floor,
and I love imagining you could cha-cha a little bit here, waltz here,
do some hip-hop in that corner. So here's that list of career options that I promised you.
These are the main sections for the career choices you can consider when you've had art as a subject.
I would like to just end off by saying. it's so important to actually have
art as a subject if you are considering any of these career options, because once
you get to study these things, you kind of have to hit the ground running, and they just assume
you can already draw, and you already know the elements of art and how to apply them.
Studying art is really tough and it's a hectic degree that needs a lot of commitment.
It's not easy to do. Do not choose the subject if you think you're just going to be loafing in
the back of the class, because that is not the reality. So let me leave you with this:
Art's an awesome subject and it's so empowering and it opens up an entire world. It is a great
preparation for any career that requires an eye for aesthetics and creative thinking.
I'm artist Lillian Gray and I'd love to hear in the comments what you have to say. Please give
this video a like if you enjoyed it and tell me "Why you are choosing art as a subject at school."