Austin Kleon

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  2. These words remind me of someone who passes out fudge brownies at a party but doesn’t tell his guests the main ingredient was chocolate Exlax. They may taste good now but in the long run they do harm.
    I’ve been a full-time fine artist for the past 25 years and I would AGREE with much of what is written here though I have a serious problem with the semantics. The use of the word “stealing” seems to me, very inappropriate. Stealing is defined as “taking without permission”. When you take your ideas from Nature, and Nature is a ‘gift’ to us all, how is this stealing? Many of my ideas come from visuals I see in such things as the nap of a carpet or in a coffee stain on my desk, just as many people visualize things in cloud formations. I’m unable to see how to interpret these as stealing.
    I do strongly believe “There’s only one rule I know of: goddamn it, you’ve got to be kind.” How can stealing, an inconsiderate act, be thought of as kindness?
    Stealing is a harsh word and for me, has tainted much of what is written here. I hope that people are able to discern the thought behind the actual word.

  6. Good post. Not sure what you mean by the 9-5 gig, though. Does that mean no one can ever become a pro “artist” (however the word is to be applied?) I especially like the part “write what you like”, it’s good advice. If you don’t like it, no one else will.

  7. oh…BRAVA!…..

    believe it or not, I am sharing this with my 10 year olds at my 8-3:30 have a boring life teaching art job that I do so I can have the time/space/ money to make my jewelry art….

    they will get it….and thank you for telling it like it is!

  8. Nancy, That’s what I was talking about.
    I figure using the word “steal” is for “shock” value to get the article read because a lot of people want to have the right or permission to steal; however, there’s other ideas about “mining” for content that take away from it “just” being about that.

    And if you blatantly copy from others, who else are you copying in that process? I’m thinking this is the way of the future. Not caring where you got something as long as you get successful and get undeserved kudos. *shrugs*

    But…
    Read up people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
    It’s illegal…
    and for good reason.

    Copying or stealing ideas from nature? Sure, absolutely a gift to us all so it’s NOT stealing. But there’s also something to be said about being inspired by something “uncommon” someone has said or done and giving that person some much needed, desired credit even if it only jump-started you on a massive “new work”.

    That, to me, is about #8 “be nice” and helping others be successful alongside your success. Then again, who wants to be called “nice”? In other words, “nice” tends to be meaningless and you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who has the mentality to “steal” being nice because “what’s it going to do for them”?

  9. Thanks for taking the time to share this great writing.
    I loved the idea of “be boring”—when my children were younger I joked that that last month of summer I tried to not schedule anything so they would become BORED….I swear it made them more creative than I can ever hope to be! Cheers, Kate

  10. Austin,

    My creative soul is singing like a tuning fork! Your encouraging words and gentle advice spoke directly to so many of my personal frustrations as a writer. In a world of negative self-centered down-putters, how refreshing to read your exhortations to create boldly and to be kind and generous to others…and to ourselves.

    Blessings,
    Micki

  11. Very good. Both an eye-opener and a reminder. Confirmation too.
    Along the lines of, “write what you like,” the favorite saying in a screenwriting group I was involved with was, “What does your character want?” The key however is, “What does your character need?”

  16. I’ve stolen from Martin F. Emond, Simon Bisley, Frank Frazetta, Frank Miller, Bill Watterson, Richard Thompson, Gary Larsen, Mike Peters, Jim Borgman just to name a few. If that ain’t name dropping I don’t know what is. My site is DirtyWhiteShirt.com You’ll see the result of study.. good or bad.

    Dude.. thanks for the article and inspiration. From the looks of it you’ve touched a lot of people including myself.

  17. This is probably the most important thing I’ve ever read. As an internal artist who finds it extremely difficult to push past the fear of making something that I don’t like or am not proud of, mostly because of a perceived lack of “skills” not for lack of ideas and “talent”, I want to thank you from the bottom of my soul for this helping hand you (possibly) didn’t even know you were giving. I will refer to this often and take (steal?) much from it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
    ~Shay~

  21. A great blog post and then today I heard about Hilary Austen’s new book, Artistry Unleashed about how business needs more creative people to disrupt and innovate. We’re good at answering YES NO questions but less good at creative business problem solving. Your blog helps bring these ideas into focus.

  23. “Step one, “do good work,” is incredibly hard. There are no shortcuts. Make stuff every day. Fail. Get better.”

    To this I would add, “It will take years.” Too many creatives I encounter don’t understand the concept of apprenticeship.

  24. Great stuff!My husband who is not an artist always tells me I look at other people’s work too much, so I will get him to read this and maybe he will ‘get it’!!LOL- Thanks for sharing all these down to earth , solid , brilliant ideas!

  26. Great post. Thank you. Found it from another who believed in your philosophy of sharing great things and attracting like minds on the Internet. Also enjoyed the fake-it-til-you-make it and impostor syndrome talk. So many hold themselves back because they are afraid of what others will say (usually those who are not active). Breaking free from the group talk and mindset feels uncomfortable, so it’s easier to stay safe than risk being ridiculed.

    Thanks again for sharing.

  29. Stealing is not good, it’ll bite you in the ass, I don’t appreciate people teaching others to “steal” anything.
    Isn’t that what we don’t want to encourage? You must not realize how many true unblocked creativists are taken advantage of because of this attitude toward stealing rather than respecting innovation and supporting it. The scars that leaves cause people to not want to show anyone what they are working on. People steal to get where they want to go without respect to the energy that gets them there: bad karma. Collaboration, respectfully borrowing (homage), inspiration, lateral transfer… I’d let go of the stealing thing, no fair. If your going to put your ideas out there at this level, you need to put in the extra time to understand the resonances of the words you are using and the larger impact of them.

    people should feel art, not look on it with greedy eyes.

    I think that you are using the term stealing as a crutch to grab attention like how the news uses “it bleeds it leads”. Meh.
    good attempt otherwise.

  31. Yes, steal — but it’s the way you go about it that makes you an artist. It’s all in the style you create for yourself and the way you decide to express yourself. For it to become worthwhile — for it to have any meaning outside your own solipsism — you will have to incorporate a TRADITION

  32. To the people who are being over critical (and those who have even tried to discredit Austin’s advice): you’re actually doing what he’s advising. You collect ideas (No.1 The artist is a collector) and keep what you find fit/dispose of what is not beneficial (No.10 Creativity is subtraction). It’s obvious to me that you just take what you can from this. Even if parts of the advice aren’t applicable, there is an important idea behind it that we should be contemplating. He wasn’t trying to pass this as the artist’s ten commandments and you will be cast into eternal failure if you don’t abide. If anything, his advice leaves room to tailor it to your needs.

    I had to laugh when I read the comments that refuted having a day job and even suggested making your art your day job. That just proves that advice IS autobiographical. That approach would never work for me. For a lot of people that would be extremely stressful. It can depend of kind of art you making but in my case I can’t imagine producing art as my livelihood. It would wring making art so so dry.

    Thank you for this, Austin. It couldn’t have come at a better time :) In fact, I’m glad you included not waiting to find yourself to make art. I struggled with that for years and it turns out that I can never “find” myself because I’m always evolving. If I would have been productive I would have a record of that evolution. But “woulds” are what kept me static (in regards to productivity) so I’m doing away with that. I’ll be revisiting this post as I work on my projects. Thanks again!

  34. I’m glad you posted this, it reminded me of what I already knew and have forgotten, and also taught me something new about myself.

    Thanks for sharing this, I’m sure not just from me, but everyone who passes by this.

  35. I’m not gonna go on about how great this and how this has touched me and how, oh my god this is totally what I needed to hear. Instead I’m gonna thank you for saying it and agreeing with your points. As an aspiring writer and artist, i’m sick of this elitist attitude that Artists have; this bullshit about the muse and inspiration and all that mystic crap. If you want to write (make music, paint, draw,whatever) you have to do it. Sometimes you have to force it out, and sometimes it won’t be “good”, but that’s not a bad thing; every single thing that Hemingway or Salinger wrote probably wasn’t “good” and their journals and notebooks are full of crap. But every sentence in a book you read isn’t gold. Sometimes it’s just words put together in a sentence to get to the next good one.
    -ERT

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  6. […] that concerns me about education these days is the place for creativity versus regurgitation. This artist, Austin Kleon, has some ideas that I think link not only to that idea, but also to Habits of Mind. In particular, I […]

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