Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast where we dive into relevant topics and issues
related to the world of business, technology, education and design.
I'm your host, Mr. Jason.
Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders, and inspirational stories
with an international flavor.
This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International
Community School of Bangkok.
In today's episode, we'll be talking about the industry of art.
For our earlier listeners, you may know that we have already covered the topic of art education.
However, today we would like to do a deep dive into the business side of art.
We would like to describe how art is sold, the makings of a gallery, and what job opportunities
can string from being an artist in 2023.
Our quote today comes from Neil Gaiman.
He says, the world is always brighter when you have created something that wasn't there
before.
Neil is an English writer slash artist.
He is most known for his book that turned into the popular Amazon Prime TV show Good
Omens, starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen.
Although starting as a simple writer and artist, he later transitioned into audio theater,
film, and making graphic novels, some of his most prominent works are Coraline, American
Gods, Stardust, and his most popular Good Omens.
Andy Warhol's masterpiece Blue Marilyn, featuring the iconic Marilyn Monroe, was sold
from the collection of Thomas and Doris Amman at Christie's in New York on May 9, 2022
for $195 million.
This is now the most expensive work of art created in the 20th century.
The painting is an exceptional example of Warhol's silkscreen technique.
This purchase shows how art is bought as a valuable investment.
Art is a very secure investment as its value is generally stable and does not fluctuate.
Archaeologists in Egypt have excavated a small statue of a Spinnach at the Dendera Temple
complex.
They believe it may have represented the Roman Emperor Claudius.
A limestone shrine was also discovered alongside it, and it dates back to the Roman era in
Egypt.
More excavation will be done near the Temple of Horus.
The Bay Lights, the famous art installation located on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco,
was switched off on March 5.
Reasons were cited as outages, cable issues, and harsh weather.
Serial bridge illuminator Leo Villarreal crafted it in 2013, and it consists of almost
2,500 small LED lights that stretch from San Francisco to Oakland.
$11 million will be raised to help illuminate the bridge.
This iconic bridge has been a landmark for nearly a decade.
Thank you for the quote in the headline news.
Let's jump into the first part of our episode with our special guest, Mr. Jonathan.
Lyon will start us off with our first question.
Welcome to our podcast, Mr. Jonathan.
Can you please introduce yourself and describe your role at the school?
Hi, I'm Jonathan Pregg.
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
I am a high school art and design teacher, and I mainly focus on the upper level and
AP art classes.
What is your favorite style of art and design either to create or to look at?
So I studied painting and drawing in college, so that's always been kind of my area of emphasis
or focus.
I've always been kind of drawn to painterly realism, which is capturing something true
about the world, but through a painterly perspective.
And so some of my favorite artists in that kind of sensibility are people like John Singer
Sargent, James Ebbock McNeil Whistler, and Anders Zorn are all really, really talented
painters.
What are some possible career paths for those interested in art and design?
So this is a super interesting question because the visual arts are so broad.
They kind of touch into every industry.
I think there's this assumption that if you're going into the arts, you're kind of destined
to this passionate career of starving and making work that's just for your joy or pleasure
or something like that.
But there's actually a ton of different career paths out there.
I looked up kind of the top five highest paying art careers of 2023, and it's a really interesting
like broad range of options.
So the top one that I found was to be an art director.
So that's somebody who kind of oversees the visual direction of a project.
And they're kind of any industry that has visual arts in it in some way as an art director.
So another one would be a user experience designer.
So that's somebody who designs software thinking about how the user is kind of interfacing
with it.
Another one would be a multimedia artist or an animator.
So this is any type of artist that you think of in kind of visual arts who's creating kind
of content in the way that is so prevalent on YouTube or other industries, any sort of
visual, especially video medium, they're kind of high demand.
And then other ones are like an architect or a fashion designer or industrial designer.
So these are all people who are kind of touching every aspect of your environment or the things
you're wearing or the objects in your hands.
Somebody has spent time, yeah, kind of carefully and meticulously planning out what that looks
like.
So lots of different ways that the visual arts can be applied.
Our next question is how are galleries curated?
How do they make money or what is their business model?
So you'll notice I didn't mention a gallery artist in that last list.
So the way a gallery makes money is they kind of have a catalog of artists and then they
are trying to sell that work and the artist takes usually like 40 to 50 percent of the
sale and the gallery takes the rest as a commission.
So obviously they're providing a service of exposure and the overhead of showing work.
That's not necessarily the best deal for kind of making it as an artist.
What are some popular art galleries and museums in the world?
What about Bangkok?
Out of the ones you have visited, do you have a favorite?
So there's lots of famous art museums and galleries in the world.
I mean, some of the big names I think everyone has heard of places like the Louvre in Paris
or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or there's national galleries in London and
DC and even in Bangkok.
In Thailand, still kind of exploring and finding museums and galleries.
One that I go to quite often is the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, which is downtown
off the BTS.
And yeah, they have rotating shows.
There's always something new and interesting to see.
And I go there every couple of months.
Thank you, Mr. Jonathan.
Here's our next question for you.
This question is about developments in technology.
What are your thoughts on art and design being produced by artificial intelligence?
Do people still consider this type of work to be legitimate?
Any new technology has the potential to disrupt and also any new technology has the potential
to create new opportunities.
So I think it's helpful to look back historically and think about the ways that new technology
have kind of disrupted industries in the past.
And so at one point in time, like oil painting was the height of technology.
That was the most advanced way that you could recreate an image in the world.
And then along comes photography and kind of replaces that the way that painting functionally
kind of served a purpose in society of kind of recording the natural world.
And the photograph could do that way faster, way easier and in some ways more accurately.
But painting didn't disappear.
It just kind of changed its roles and purposes.
And so a painting nowadays kind of freed up from that need to record reality for posterity.
And so we have all sorts of crazy painting genres that are kind of weird and cool and
interesting.
And so I think that's a really helpful lens when we're looking at AI art.
I think the technology is really interesting.
So using a text prompt to generate an image is this really kind of amazing piece of technology.
But then the question is, what do you do with that?
Or what is it being used for?
In some ways, it's being used to replace the role of making certain types of artwork.
And that's okay, because that always frees up artists to do different types of things.
Maybe it replaces some jobs for now, but it always creates more opportunity later.
I think it's helpful to remember that that model requires human created inputs, and then
it needs human curated prompts to get a meaningful output.
And so when you have human involvement at the beginning and at the end, then at what
point do you say that it's not a human generated artwork?
If it's serving as art, that's just kind of one small piece of that discussion.
And another huge piece is the question around the ethics of those models.
So how did the artwork that went into them get acquired?
Was it kind of ethically sourced?
And did artists have an opportunity to not be included if they didn't want to be?
And so I think there's this huge question that's even going through the US Supreme
Court right now.
To what extent should an artist be compensated for their inclusion?
And there's kind of something really, like we can all see the danger there of an artist
has spent their career building a style and a following.
And then if I could just type in, make me a painting in the style of James Gurney, what
does that do for his ability to get work in the future?
Moving on, what are your thoughts about modern versus traditional?
Do you have a preference?
Actually, art evolves over time.
So many of the ways that we talk about modern art now are a kind of a, there's an evolution
that's happened there, progressing through the centuries of how artists have thought
about design and the function of art in society.
The way a photograph has kind of changed the way art has to record or preserve realism
in some way frees art to be more than just a recording of the natural world.
Modern art can often seem disconnected from our everyday experience.
And so that just requires a new kind of literacy, visual literacy in order to engage with it.
So I think everybody should go visit an art museum and spend some time learning about
why that painting of splatters is important because there's technological and cultural
innovation that led to that point.
And it's really a beautiful and fascinating thing.
I think we all have different personal preferences that we bring to artwork.
And so every style isn't necessarily going to target your heartstrings in the same way
as the person next to you.
And that's okay.
Yeah, finding that type of art that connects to you and that you're following in that tradition.
In our modern day, we have plethora of artistic styles.
And so people find those sources of inspiration in the past and then they push that style
further forward in the future.
That's very interesting, Mr. Jonathan.
But here's the last question for you.
We would like to ask our guest for some advice.
So what advice would you give to anyone who loves art and design and wants to rake into
the industry and business side?
Talking earlier about different career paths, there are so many different directions you
could go.
It's hard to give good advice to any specific person without knowing the direction that
they're interested in.
And so that's kind of my advice.
It would be to find that specific career path that really kind of connects to you personally.
And then I would go like look at what the entry level job description for that field
says.
Usually there's some specific skills or knowledge that are necessary to be effective in that
industry.
And if you begin to kind of tailor your classes or personal study to lead you in that direction,
even now that could give you a really great foundation moving forward into whatever direction
you want to go.
And with that, we'll be right back after a short PSA announcement from our co-host.
There is a teacher gallery show coming soon.
So check your calendars where ICS art teachers will be showcasing their artworks.
The gallery show features 2D and 3D art, including pottery, sculptures, paintings, drawings,
and more.
Many of these artworks have been carefully crafted for months.
So be sure to show up and give your art teacher support.
Feel free to check out the community art show today while you wait for the teacher gallery.
We are back with part two.
We will now be interviewing two student artists from our school.
Lyon will start us off with the first question.
Welcome to our podcast.
We are very excited to interview you.
Introduce yourselves, please.
My name is Spa and I'm a senior this year.
I'm Anna and I'm also a senior this year.
Our follow up question for you is, how long have you been creating art?
I started making art since sixth grade.
I started when I was a kid.
I started my first painting when I was in fifth grade.
Where do you take inspiration from for your art?
Personally, for me, there are a variety of places that I get my inspiration from.
For example, other artists.
Another thing that really helped me brainstorm my new art ideas would be like just the mundane
things in life.
So like looking at different elements in nature or even problems that I'm interested in could
lead to like artworks inspired by activism.
I think I would take my inspiration from everyday things just like Spa said, but also as an
artist, I'm not going to lie, there's times when my inspiration runs out.
So like I run to Pinterest.
Thank you for your answers.
Last December, the ICS Art Club was able to go to the Banksy Art Exhibit.
Were you able to attend?
If not, what do you hear about it?
But if you were able to go, what did you observe?
I wasn't able to attend it, but Anna here is the president of the club that led the
field trip.
So I'll let her explain.
Yeah, our club, National Art Honor Society and Start with Art Club, was able to go to
the Banksy exhibit and there was like around 20 people who went and I'd say Banksy's art
style is kind of catered towards current world problems.
At the exhibit, you could see a bunch of artworks that had like an amusement park theme, but
then it were kind of like gruesome and showing the reality of the problems in this world.
And the viewer, they had to like interpret the art themselves, which I thought was a
super cool thing about his style.
How have you exercised your passion for art at school?
I take various different number of art classes.
So last year I took AP art, this year I'm also taking another AP art course and I've
taken the intermediate art classes as well.
But I feel like because there's so much range, at least in ICS, I'm able to practice both
my 3D and 2D skills.
I also took a bunch of art classes.
I actually took all of them that ICS had to offer.
And this year I'm taking three, including like AP art and advanced art.
And I think this school has a huge range of things that you can explore, which I really
appreciate because in a lot of other schools, artists are kind of minimized.
Are you a member of any clubs or have you participated in any of the art shows?
I'm a member of different clubs, but the one that is art related would be ANNIS Club.
I just started with art and NAHS.
And through those clubs, I've also been able to participate in various art shows.
So AP, there's an AP art show at the end during May, but for ANNIS clubs, there has been different
like art shows where we've gotten the opportunity to showcase our artworks.
There's also been an auction, right, that gave us a chance to like show our work while
also contributing to a good cost.
My club had different murals that you could paint downstairs.
In high school, you could see the Soaring Higher Eagles mural and also near Miss Debbie's
room, you could see a community mural.
And those are just two of them.
But we had a bunch of opportunities to display our art as well as like the art auction that
just happened two weeks ago.
And that was able to help families in need and feed them.
And as for art shows, we do one every semester for AP art.
So some of our things have been in there.
Our next question is, will you be pursuing a career in art or related field?
Yeah, so I will be pending SAIC or the School of Art Institute of Chicago this fall.
And through that, I'll be taking a fine arts degree where I'll be focusing on visual communications
and painting.
I'm also going to be doing an art major at Sandbox School of Art and Design in Washington
University in St. Louis.
And I don't know what career path I'm going to take with that, but I'm kind of wanting
to integrate art with social work or helping other people.
What advice would you give to aspiring artists?
For me, I'd say that it's important to not be so hard on yourself.
I feel like personally, I perform much worse under pressure.
And there was a time period where art became less enjoyable because I had so much pressure
on myself to create a certain type of artwork with certain expectations.
But I feel like when I just let my creativity flow and create the artworks that I truly
enjoy or am passionate about, then my artworks turn out much better.
Also, your art is no worse or better than other people's.
You shouldn't compare yourself to others because art is definitely subjective.
You can literally throw paint on a canvas and call it art, and people will buy that
for millions of dollars.
Art is subjective, and you shouldn't compare yourself because that only makes you feel
worse by yourself and in turn makes your art worse too.
And with that, we are running out of time, but we'd like to thank Mr. Jonathan and Anna
and Fah for joining us today.
It's been a pleasure to learn about the industry of art and some of your personal stories.
As we end this episode, we'd like to thank our guests and listeners for supporting us
as we release weekly episodes.
Make sure to listen to all our past shows as they are available on all major streaming
platforms.
The upcoming episode will be about the topic of user experience in education and business.
As always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work and support of our international
student production team.
All music and sound effects are courtesy of Pixabay.com, a vibrant community of creatives
sharing copyright free images, videos, and music.
And we are signing off until next time.
Your students, incorporate it because your voice matters.