Yuko Shimizu, an illustrator and teacher at School of Visual Arts in New York, believe or not started her career in public relations (PR). At 30 she decided to make a career change. Since then she has become a well known illustrator with clients like Playboy, Microsoft, Pepsi, MTV, and Target. Recently, we had a chance to shoot her some questions.

TheWallMag (TWM) Age and pronunciation of your name:
Age: No you are not asking women that.
Pronunciation: Read as it writes, almost like Spanish, but Y is pronounced as English Y, and U sound is a long sound. As for the last name, accent is on the first syllable and not like the second syllable like most of the English speakers pronounce, and the last u is almost silent.
So it is like Yûko Shímiz

TWM: How did you get started?
Yuko Shimizu: I can talk about this for the whole interview, because it is rather complicated. I have spoken the long version in so many different interviews, so let me just give the short version. I was wanting to be an illustrator, or some kind of artist, ever since I was a little kid, but my family is very much a traditional Japanese family and nobody in my extended family members was making living doing art, so it was not an option for me. I studied marketing and advertising in a university in Japan and got a position doing PR for a big trading firm. I was there for 11 years, and when I was around 30 I felt that if I want to take a chance and do what I want it was around the last chance. I packed up and left work left Japan and came to New York to study at School of Visual Arts. I got my MFA in 2003. With a lot of kind instructors and other illustrators’ help, I was able to show my work to some art directors personally, and that was how I got my first jobs. And I became an illustrator.

TWM: What/ Who are your influences?
Yuko: Everything and everyone I have ever experienced and met in my life, both good and bad. Artists create work based on who they are, therefore, everything is my influence.

TWM: When did you realize you wanted to be an illustrator?
Yuko: As in the first question, always. As long as I can remember I wanted to be an artist. I guess how I narrowed it down to illustration was that because I loved commercial art (I studied advertising, not the creative part of advertising but I studied the business side of advertising, and actually loved it. Still do.), I loved drawing, I didn’t like doing animation or comics (I tried them both) because I was more into one panel that tells the story. So, that pretty much was illustration.

TWM: How did you choose PR?
Yuko: Because I wanted to be creative, but practical at the same time, at least that moment. PR or Advertising is the most creative of the business field.
When I was in university I was in “school of commerce” which is pretty much a business and economic major, and I studied everything in the first two years and quickly realized I am not good with money. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely responsible and organized about personal finances. What I mean is that I knew by studying various field in business, like management, banking and financing, accounting, etc, and it didn’t take me long to realize I don’t have the personality to be in the business field that has to directly generate or deal with money. But I also realized I am really good with promotion. PR is like promote the right things to right people. It eventually generates money in the field I promote, but I don’t personally have to worry about how much money I generate. I do my promotions and other departments deal with the actual business part of generating money.
I also love people, meeting new people, learning things from them and exchange information, etc., Also, I love research, and research things, find the right things for the right match is so very important. So PR was a perfect career for me.
People often ask what would I be doing if I wasn’t illustrating, I jokingly say I would be a PR person, detective or an illustration agent. Well, I love drawing my own work at the moment, so that won’t happen anytime soon! (laugh!!)  

TWM: How has PR work helped you market yourself?
Yuko: Half of illustrators’ job is to work on your illustrations, another half is do all the business stuff; promoting, keeping track of invoices and other paperwork, communicating with clients smoothly. Definitely job in PR has helped me a lot, but more so is the whole experience of working in the corporate world itself. I hated every day of working for a big corporation, but at the same time, I would not be here working as an illustrator now. So in a way, I thank  every day of that 11 years I was there.

--what did you do exactly?
In PR? I did a lot... Because I was there for so long. I edited Annual Reports and investors news report, created newspaper ads and TV commercials; I was editor in chief of company magazine for a long time. It was a company with like 7000 employees all over the world, so to make the communication between the employees tight, their company magazine was a very important tool.
I had to come up with topics for each issue, have to find the right people to be featured, do interviews, write articles… Pretty much everything. To come up with ideas to fill the magazine every issue, I had to do a lot of research, and always have my radar on to try to find any interesting business going on in the company or what is happening at small subsidiaries abroad.
I even traveled out to Kobe right after the huge earthquake of 1995. Hotel room inn Osaka was shaking every 30 minutes, and all the access to Kobe was shut down, no running water, no trains... It was kind of crazy. But we at the Kobe office and the employees were at work, and my job as the editor was to report what was going on there and how the other employees can help them. And you have to experience everything they experience to write about it.
I don’t know if each of these experiences help me as an illustrator directly, but it was about the whole mindset I had learnt.

TWM: When did you figure out what you wanted to draw/paint (subject/genre)
Yuko: I haven’t. Now I draw figurative work mostly for jobs, I am more and more interested in abstract painting and graphic design, where composition and idea are everything. We change and we allow us to change, that is why we are artists.

TWM: What is your favorite medium?
Yuko: Black ink on watercolor paper. I cannot make mistakes. That is the most challenging. I love it.

TWM: Certain brand name medium you prefer?
Yuko: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star india ink, Boku-un-do calligraphy brush, T.H. Saunders watercolor paper. And of course, Adobe Photoshop and my MacBookPro.

TWM: How do you think you students feel being taught by Yuko Shimizu?
Yuko: Ha ha ha. I don’t think it even matters. To students, teachers are teachers. I get treated better when I travel to different schools as guest speaker than when I teach at my school.  I am just another teacher, you know.

--Vice Versa
Sometimes, people want me because they want to be me? It is funny to say this, but it is sometimes true. I am like, why do you want to be me? There is nothing special being me. You better off being yourself.
Despite what some people may think, I don’t like teaching students who do similar things I do or those who want to learn technique from me. I have taught long enough, I have been taught by amazing teachers, like Thomas Woodruff, Marshall Arisman, Mirko Ilic, David Sandlin and Marilyn Minter, long enough I can give any advice to any students who do work in any style. For me, it is more interesting to teach those who trust me as a teacher, and not because of what I do personally.

TWM: Any advice for sucsess in art?
Yuko: I am not successful. Please ask someone who is.

TWM:  Advice for student students persuing higher education in the arts?
Yuko: Don’t ever go to art school because you cannot think of things you want to do. If you don’t, then wait till you have better idea. You don’t have to go to college right out of high school.
Don’t ever think you only need to draw and paint and not need to study academics. Take the academics seriously, that will take you a long way years after you graduate, even if you don’t see it now.  
Art school is for those who are committed to art (although as everyone knows, it is not necessarily a fact). If you are committed, show it. Work your ass off for four years, because that is the only way you can make it in the field of art.
(Well, you can probably tell I am a tough teacher...)

TWM: Art school vs. Public University? (your views)
Yuko: I am sorry I cannot really comment on this. Although I did go to a university, I really haven’t experienced public university in the US education system.

www.yukoart.com

Thanks to Yuko for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us.