Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“These ideas apply to anyone who is trying to inject some creativity into their life and their work. (That should describe all of us.)”

Austin Kleon establishes the intended audience for his book. Someone’s initial idea of an artist might be confined to traditional visual arts or musical arts, but Kleon intends for his book to have a broad and inclusive appeal. He posits that anyone in any place with any profession can use creativity in their daily life.

“The writer Jonathan Letham has said that when people call something original, nine out of ten 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.”

Kleon regularly includes quotations from and allusions to famous artists throughout history. Here he mentions American author Jonathan Lethem, who published the New York Times bestseller The Fortress of Solitude in 2003. Kleon employs the very method he suggests to readers: He takes someone else’s quote and builds on it, establishing Art as a Genealogy of Ideas.

“You are, in fact, a mash up 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.’”

Kleon establishes the role of influence in our lives. Though his book gives creative advice, he begins by discussing how everyone is made up of all the influences in their lives. He addresses both “nature” and “nurture” through this paradigm: Something “nature” oriented like genes influences our make-up as well as things that are “nurture” oriented, like those we choose to be influenced by or the interests we surround ourselves with.