The Importance of Art in the World

The Importance of Art in the World

There was a time when every American was very familiar with images like this. Illustrations were everywhere. This illustration was produced by my Father back in the 1950’s. A free-lance illustrator for all of the ad agencies in New York. The shift from people who could render things realistically with their hands, pencils, paintbrushes to a cheaper and easier medium, photography and computer generated images had both positive and negative consequences.

I believe there is a direct relationship between making things easier, faster and less expensive and the decline of imagination, skill/ability, and motivation. This covers all fields and industries. When people are no longer interested in taking the time to produce something that is hard to do, it leaves a mindset that it is not worthwhile.

After the great financial crisis of 2007-2008, there was a wonderful article written about what executives in the financial industries would look for in employees going forward. When it was time to hire again. An overwhelming response was that they would look for people who had a background in creative thinking or artistic people. They wanted people who could “think outside of the box” (an often over used term) and people that were well rounded. Not just schooled strictly in economics or finance. They wanted people who could maybe see some of the pitfalls and bad decisions happening in advance due to their minds being open to other things. Creative ideas come from creative people.