Austin Kleon

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  1. Excellent subject.
    I disagree with you 70%.
    The rest I will keep (steal) it for myself.
    Thank you for sharing and keep up the good work.

  7. WOW!! I am BFA student–graduating May 2011. My instructor passed this link on to me (she is also a wonderful mentor). Your Blog is right on–I felt like you were talking to me personally!!! Thank you!!

    PS–Can we be friends? :D

  8. I especially liked the section on Be Nice. I’d add “Be Nice or Go Away” and one my mother always said, “Be pretty if you must; be pleasant if it kills you.” I’ll certainly use the Kurt Vonnegut comment in my writings. June

  10. Utterly brilliant. I go by “Fear of failure is the death of creativity”. Not my saying but my life challenge. Thanks for sharing this.

  11. THERE IS A FOURTH LINE!

    It’s black and fat/wide and not too long and it has square corners and the other three lines are inside it.

  15. Great article – Thanks.

    I don’t agree with the day job part, unless the job aligns with your creative field. I’m an artist with a boring day job in a grey office – it sucks me dry. Sure I’m financially steady, but I’ve never been so uninspired. When I worked as a studio assistant, the money sucked, but I was more inspired than ever and it showed in my work.

  19. Great read!
    Re: point 2
    I understood that differently.
    Create with conviction – believe it, even though what you believe in today, may change.
    I always thought of that as meaning of ‘be authentic’.

  24. Absolutely great article! Thank you so much. As an artist myself I always find it refreshing to hear other people’s perspectives and thoughts from their journey through life in being an artist.
    I feel your points on being grounded and having some form of structure in the real world was brilliant (a day job, supporting yourself financially, keeping a diary and a log). I find in doing these things, whilst at times can make me physically drained can also provide some great inspiration and motivation for producing beauty in my own art. The point of having external hobbies and interests, staying healthy all gold.
    The other thing I loved (of many) was your views and thoughts in sharing your art, fact is, all of us as artists can be our worst critics and if we are not careful can feel that none of our work is “good enough” to share. Getting it out there in this day and age and promoting what you are doing through the internet is so important. Learning how to do basic coding for websites, using twitter and facebook. Any way to share what you are doing and learn from others is definitely a good thing. Also the point on remembering that whatever you say on the internet will get back to the person – definite biggy. Be encouraging and uplifting and inspiring always!
    Thank you this article has done that for me today and I will refer back to it at different times.
    I love finding like minded people!

    Monty

  27. To someone who’s starving, living surrounded in crops in southern Ohio sounds pretty good. Don’t take luxuries for granted. Not everyone has regular internet access. Some of us only get a couple hours a week at the local library. Some of us would love a fresh ear of corn or the opportunity to buy a new guitar. Or even the ability to write by hand, but our arthritis is too bad.
    There’s a quotation you’re missing here: “Poetry comes with anger, hunger and dismay; it does not often visit groups of citizens sitting down to be literary together, and would appall them if it did.” -Christopher Morley
    And another Morley quotation:
    “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.”
    You say as much when you say this: You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about. If everybody’s wondering about apples, go wonder about oranges.
    It gets drowned out by the bit about stealing, though. You went for shock value.
    Now, back to the unanimous opinions that you are perfect. Dude.

  28. Austin,
    found this article via a friend on facebook.
    I’ve re-posted it to facebook with a link to my Digital Media Arts classmates there so they can read this article.
    I also put a posting on my web log…

    Thank you for putting clearly and concisely in one place so many things that I have concluded, learned, or realized over the years as a creative person.

    I guess there isn’t much more I could add in the way of praise that hasn’t been covered above, but I just wanted to state simply: thanks.

    peace,

    bud

  29. I wouldn’t say you should write a book about this,just because I think you said what was necessary to be said. You inspired me to do something that makes me happy for today. Thanks and congrats!

  30. Wow!!!

    This article was a direct answer to a prayer of desperation i made today! I said, “God, you have got to let me know if I should continue writing music or if I am wasting my time and should bag the whole thing (and concentrate on my day job). I can not decide what to do. I need to know!”

    Tonight, just before going to bed, I checked facebook and my friend sent me this and there’s point #5 “Side Projects Are Important”. And there YOU are playing a Les Paul in Guitar Center. That blew me away and answered my prayer. Thank you, Austin from Austin. I will check out your website too! I will pass this article around for sure!

    -Brian from Bethesda

  31. 479 comments WOW, can i said something that hasn’t already been said?
    awesome, excellent, fabulous… love the post. great points. i am currently in the faking it till you make it phase.
    will have to subscribe ;)

Trackbacks

  13. […] Austin Kleon published an article called “How to Steal Like an Artist” and I kind of digged it. In classic theft fashion, I’d like to copy the ideas down here that stuck out to me. I’m gonna have to sit on some of these tips before I decide if there’s some truth in them or if their just polished “Confuscious-esk” tips for writers looking for something that doesn’t actually exist. Either way, I want to copy them down here in case I decide their important in the future. I don’t want to just link to the article because I want to edit out what I don’t like. […]

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