Austin Kleon

3 reasons why you should show your work

A few weeks ago I gave my friend Chase Jarvis 3 reasons why all workers — not just “creatives”! — should be showing their work:

  1. Documenting your process helps your progress.
    Keeping track of what you’ve done helps you better see where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re headed. It’s also a great way to hold yourself accountable — if you dedicate yourself to sharing a tiny bit of your process every day, you’re forced to actually do the work you should be doing.
     
  2. Sharing your process reaps the benefits of self-promotion without the icky feelings.
    People are often just as interested in how you work as much as the work itself. By sharing your process, you invite people to not only get to know your work, but get to know you — and that can lead to new clients, new projects, and all sorts of other opportunities.
     
  3. Building an audience for what you do creates a valuable feedback loop.
    Christopher Hitchens said the best thing about putting out a book is that it’s a “free education that goes on for a lifetime.” As you gain fans and followers by sharing your work, they will, in turn, share with you. Even when the feedback is bad, it can lead you down new paths.
     

That’s a short version of the why. The book will teach you how.

The benefits of boredom

having become bored out of her gourd the artist started working

Leslie Barker, a writer at the Dallas Morning News, got in touch with me way back in October and asked me about a subject I consider myself an expert on: the benefits of boredom.

Here’s what I wrote in Steal Like An Artist:

the benefits of boredom

By the way, “Stare at a spot on the wall” was something I stole from psychologist William James of all people. I later turned it into an exercise in The Steal Like An Artist Journal:

stare at this dot until you get an idea

When it comes to the benefits of boredom, I’m certainly not the first to write about the subject…

[Read more…]

Innovation Hub interview

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Kara Miller at Innovation Hub about being an artist in the digital age:

“I get impatient with artists today who still want to pretend like they’re living in the 19th century,” Kleon says. “This isn’t the 19th century and you’re not some French painter. A big part of being an artist is understanding what context you were born into, what the surrounding culture is like, and how you can add to it.”

Read more from the interview here.

The work of art

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Ted Weinstein interviewed me for his new podcast, The Work Of Art.

In part one, we talked about limitations as a source of creativity, how to take more artistic risks, the value of old fashioned tools as well as social media to build community, and how to keep one’s art fresh:

 

In part two, we talked about why women artists are better role models for maintaining work-family balance, how to raise creative children, the value of sales and other business skills for artists, etc.:

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