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!

Influence and Inspiration

"Chair and Table with Peonies"
Acrylic on Canvas (12" x 12")
          (My original, inspired by a chair photo by Laura Wasilowski
and a painting of peonies by an unknown artist.)

In recent posts I shared my experiences of deliberately copying the works of artists I admire as a way of developing my skills.  I really enjoyed that practice.  It helped teach me everything from painting composition, to body and facial proportions, to how to duplicate colors.  More than anything, it helped me develop more patience:  in starting with an original work I loved, I felt a great desire to "get it right" or at least get the painting to my liking, no matter how long it took.  

My painting at the top of this post, as well as the "in process" versions posted here and below,  are my combination of a chair photo I found on the Internet and a painting of peonies by an unknown artist.

The notion of one artist learning by copying another artist is not new, and there is no lack of  critical opinion about the value, inevitability -- or, for that matter, impropriety -- of imitating someone else's work.  A book that deals with this issue in an engaging and playful manner is Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist.  Kleon not only normalizes copying others, he endorses it wholeheartedly, with supportive quotes to boot.  I recommend the book for any new  or would-be artists who feel a bit shaky about their skills. Heck, I recommend it  for anyone!

            "You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life."

                                                                                      - Austin Kleon in

                                                                                   Steal Like an Artist

                 "Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing."

                                                                                      - Austin Kleon in

                                                                                    Steal Like an Artist

"Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy.  At the end of the copy you will find yourself."       

                                                                                    - Yohji Yamamoto

                                                                                     Fashion Designer

Close to being done...

The final version.