Still Stealing After All These Years...

With Austin Kleon, author of "Steal Like an Artist" and  "Show Your Work!"
at BookPeople, Austin

Last Thursday night I attended a book reading at BookPeople with Manjula Martin, author of Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living.  Manjula's book is a compilation of interviews and essays from a number of successful contemporary writers who speak about the challenge of making it financially as a creative person.  Among those featured in the book and present at the evening event was Austin Kleon.  Austin and his books have been pivotal in my efforts as an artist, so it was a treat to get to meet him and hear him talk about his path to creative and financial success.  In particular, I found his book Steal Like an Artist an exciting springboard to creativity.  Highly readable, it is filled with permission to copy or steal from other artists in order to learn one's craft.

"Austin Kleon" - Post-It Note Portrait in Ink and Color Pencils

Kleon makes a distinction between what he calls stealing or copying vs. plagiarism -- trying to pass someone else's work off as your own.

As he describes it, copying is intended to be a learning process: 

"Nobody is born with a style or a voice.  We don't come out of the womb knowing who we are.  In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes."

In my own experience, that has certainly been true.  When I encounter a painting or collage that takes my breath away, I often have an immediate, almost visceral reaction of "I want to do that!"  And so I try to paint like all my heroes.  It's actually a fun process that can lead to a sense of accomplishment and even connection with the artist I'm trying to emulate.  For me the list of my art heroes is endless -- Jane Davies, Chuck Close, Henri Matisse, Eric Fischl, Danny Gregory, Koosje Koene, Laurie Breen, Georgia O'Keeffe, Sabine Wisman, R. Crumb, and Tommy Kane -- to name just a few.  Sometimes I attempt to copy them, other times I just look in awe and delight.

I couldn't find my copy of Show Your Work!  I must have lent it to someone.  Anyway, you can find out more about it if you click on the link.  It's well worth reading!