📕 Steal Like an Artist

A refreshing take on creativity and the artistic process. Through its concise and engaging style, the book demystifies the creative process, encouraging readers to embrace influence and remix ideas in their own work.

Kleon promotes the idea that all art is derivative and that acknowledging and incorporating influences is a critical step in the creative process. While some readers may find certain perspectives, like the diminished role of technology in creativity, debatable, the book overall serves as an empowering guide for navigating the complexities of creating original work.

Highlighting the importance of side projects, embracing obscurity, and the power of subtraction, Kleon offers practical advice for anyone looking to inject creativity into their life and work. Whether you’re an artist, writer, or creative in any field, “Steal Like an Artist” provides valuable insights into making the most of your creative potential.

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About the book

Author:	Austin Kleon
Year of release:	2012
Genre:	Nonfiction, Art, Self-Help, Writing, Design, Business, Personal Development, Psychology, Productivity
Pages:	160
Average WPM:	262
Date Started/Finished:	20 to 22-December-2022
Time took:	0.78 Hours

Impressions

The book is written in a clear and concise style, making it easy to understand and follow.

It may not offer enough depth/detail for readers looking for in-depth guidance on creativity and some may find the tone of the book to be overly simplistic or preachy but none of these bothered my reading experience.

I didn’t agree with a few chapters such as the 4th one, mainly because of this very quote “We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.” like come on… I think this would be true years back when devices didn’t help that much in the whole creative process.

Overall, it’s a helpful and inspiring resource if you’re looking to tap into your creative potential and find inspiration to work. However, it may not be the right fit for everyone, I don’t think everyone would agree with whats written in the book.

How I Discovered It

Shikha told me about it. Saw the book suggested by Ankur Warikoo as well.

Actionable Takeaways

1. Embrace your influences: It’s okay to be inspired by and borrow ideas from other artists and sources. In fact, it’s an important part of the creative process. Don’t be afraid to draw from your influences and incorporate them into your own work.
2. Don’t worry about perfection
3. Make time for creativity
4. Don’t be afraid to share your work
5. Keep learning and growing

Summary + Notes

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All Advice is Autobiographical

“Art is theft.” - Pablo Picasso

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.” - T. S. Eliot

It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past. This book is me talking to a previous version of myself.

Chapter 1. Steal Like An Artist

How To Look At the World (Like an Artist)

• When you look at the world this way, you stop worrying about what’s “good” and what’s “bad”—there’s only stuff worth stealing, and stuff that’s not worth stealing.

• Everything is up for grabs. If you don’t find something worth stealing today, you might find it worth stealing tomorrow or a month or a year from now.

“The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from.” - David Bowie

Nothing is Original

• The writer Jonathan Lethem has said that when people call something “original,” 9 out of 10 times they just don’t know the references or the original sources involved.

• What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.

• Some people find this idea depressing, but it fills me with hope. As the French writer André Gide put it, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

“What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.” - William Ralph Inge

Genealogy of Ideas

You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

• The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there’s a difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.

• There’s an economic theory out there that if you take the incomes of your five closest friends and average them, the resulting number will be pretty close to your own income.

• I think the same thing is true of our idea incomes. You’re only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with.

School yourself

• School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. Whether you’re in school or not, it’s always your job to get yourself an education. You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up.

• Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else—that’s how you’ll get ahead.

• Google everything. I mean everything. Google your dreams, Google your problems. Don’t ask a question before you Google it. You’ll either find the answer or you’ll come up with a better question.

• Always be reading. Go to the library. There’s magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. It’s not the book you start with, it’s the book that book leads you to.

Chapter 2. Don’t Wait Until You Know Who You Are To Get Started

Make Things, Know Thyself

You might be scared to start. That’s natural. There’s this very real thing that runs rampant in educated people. It’s called “impostor syndrome.”The clinical definition is a “psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments.”

Fake It ‘til you make it

William Shakespeare spelled out in his play

As You Like It about 400 years ago:
All the world’s a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances; 
And one man in his time plays many parts. 
Another way to say this? Fake it ’til you make it. 

I love this phrase. There are two ways to read it:

1. Pretend to be something you’re not until you are—fake it until you’re successful, until everybody sees you the way you want them to; or
2. Pretend to be making something until you actually make something.

I love both readings—you have to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, and you have to start doing the work you want to be doing.

Start Copying

• The writer Wilson Mizner said if you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research.

• What to copy is a little bit trickier. Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.

Imitation is Not Flattery

• At some point, you’ll have to move from imitating your heroes to emulating them. Imitation is about copying. Emulation is when imitation goes one step further, breaking through into your own thing.

• Conan O’Brien. In O’Brien’s words, “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.” Thank goodness.

Chapter 5. Side Projects & Hobbies are Important

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” - Jessica Hische

Practise Productive Procrastination

I think it’s good to have a lot of projects going at once so you can bounce between them. When you get sick of one project, move over to another, and when you’re sick of that one, move back to the project you left. Practice productive procrastination.

In the Beginning, Obscurity is Good

As the writer Steven Pressfield says, “It’s not that people are mean or cruel, they’re just busy.” This is actually a good thing, because you want attention only after you’re doing really good work. There’s no pressure when you’re unknown. You can do what you want. Experiment. Do things just for the fun of it.

The Not-So-Secret Formula

• The more open you are about sharing your passions, the closer people will feel to your work. Artists aren’t magicians. There’s no penalty for revealing your secrets.

Chapter 8. Be Nice (The World is a Small Town)

Stand Next to the Talent

• If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.

Chapter 9. Be Boring (It’s the Only Way to Get Work Done)

Stay Out of Deft

• Most people I know hate to think about money. Do yourself a favor: Learn about money as soon as you can. My grandpa used to tell my dad, “Son, it’s not the money you make, it’s the money you hold on to.”

Keep Your Day Job

• A lot of times it will feel as if you’re living a double life. The poet Philip Larkin said the best thing to do is “try to be utterly schizoid about it all—using each personality as a refuge from the other.”

Chapter 10. Creativity is Subtraction

Choose What to Leave Out

The right constraints can lead to your very best work. My favorite example?

• Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 different words, so his editor bet him he couldn’t write a book with only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss came back and won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham, one of the bestselling children’s books of all time.

“Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want—that just kills creativity.” - Jack White

• What isn’t shown versus what is. It’s the same for people: What makes us interesting isn’t just what we’ve experienced, but also what we haven’t experienced. The same is true when you do your work: You must embrace your limitations and keep moving.

• In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out.