Yesterday I finally got my hands on a real live copy of Steal Like An Artist. I know I’m biased and all, but man, this thing is cool. Workman did an incredible job—French flaps, heavy paper…I’m really proud. I can’t wait for February 28th to roll around so y’all can hold it, too. Available for pre-order now!
5by5 | The Cocktail Napkin #53: Copying Garfield on the Kitchen Floor
To close out 2011, writer and artist Austin Kleon discusses the myriad of ways he works to end the messy divorce between words and pictures.
Here’s a 30-minute interview I did with Jeremy Fuksa of The Cocktail Napkin, talking about Newspaper Blackout, Steal Like An Artist, and doing stuff online. (You can get it as an audio podcast—thank God—so you don’t have to look at my ugly face the whole time…)
I am very happy to (finally!) announce that Workman Publishing will be publishing my new book Steal Like An Artist in March 2012!
(This will be just in time for my recently-accepted SXSW panel with Kirby Ferguson, “Everything Is A Remix, So Steal Like An Artist.”)
Big thanks to my shark of an agent, Ted Weinstein; my rad editor, Bruce Tracy; and all the folks at Workman, who have been impressing the hell out of me—it’s a great house, and I’m so excited by the level of attention and care the book has received so far.
Thanks so much to everyone for your support. More very soon—in the meantime, there’s a new book page with pictures of the work-in-progress, and I’m posting deleted scenes and research on my Tumblr.
Now back to work!
A few weeks ago I gave a talk on Newspaper Blackout and Steal Like An Artist at The Economist’s Human Potential summit in New York City. They had an awesome tech staff, so we even managed to weave some of my live drawings from the conference into the talk. Enjoy!
On my two-desk setup with from the desk of…
I have two desks in my office — one’s “analog” and one’s “digital.” The analog desk has nothing but markers, pens, pencils, paper, and newspaper. Nothing electronic is allowed on the desk — this is how I keep myself off Twitter, etc. This is where most of my work is born. The digital desk has my laptop, my monitor, my scanner, my Wacom tablet, and a MIDI keyboard controller for if I want to record any music. (Like a lot of writers, I’m a wannabe musician.) This is where I edit, publish, etc.
On “How To Steal Like An Artist” going viral in an epic, 1 1/2 hour-long interview my friend John Unger on his radio show, Art Heroes:
It’s been a really big happy mess….People keep saying, “Oh, nice problem to have,” and yes, it is a nice problem to have, but problems still require time, effort, and sometimes money to solve.
On stealing from the avant-garde with Fringe Magazine:
What’s fun for me is taking this avant-garde technique and trying to make something fairly traditional out of it. Something you can send your grandma. Or your mom, maybe. Maybe not your grandma.
On “my vision” for Newspaper Blackout with E-Junkie:
It’s less of a vision, and more of a smell. The smell of marker fumes.
On art as a career with The Daily Brink:
My mom always bought me tons of art supplies, and we had scheduled time for making stuff every day when I was really little. She also let me bang on pots and pans with her wooden spoons. I spent most of my afternoons in high school hiding in the art room, but I never considered being an artist a serious thing to do as a career — I thought I’d go off to college and become a professor. A professor of what, I didn’t know, but I figured I’d teach and write books. Sometime in middle school I think I stumbled across the term “Renaissance man.” That’s what I wanted to be — somebody who does a lot of different things.
On my favorite books with Austin Eavesdropper:
I love everything Kurt Vonnegut and Lynda Barry and Saul Steinberg ever put out. I love Joe Brainard’s I Remember, which is a memoir made up of a bunch of sentences that begin with “I Remember…” I love Carl Jung’s memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I love Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems. I love William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow. I love David Hockney’s book, Secret Knowledge. So many books! Since 2005, I’ve kept lists of the best things I read every year.
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