How To Steal Like an Artist-Austin Kleon

Stolen Slide from Austin Kleon's "How to Steal Like an Artist"

Go here now. It's okay, I'll wait. The above slide alone should make you hungry for more. 


My favorite quote in the comment section of that blog post:

"Oh geez. Thanks for reminding me why I hate “artists” in general. There are exceptions: people who do not have the intellectual poverty, lack of self knowledge, needy desire to be noticed, nor the histrionic, self-important need to document every inane moment of their day exhibited by the author of this piece and (presumably) those giving masturbatory back-pats to him for his “inspiring” words. Please, before you waste your youth away, put your family to shame, and bankrupt yourself monetarily and emotionally, admit to yourselves that you ARE fakes, move on/grow up, and actually contribute to society rather than sit around and try to figure out “who you are” and how you can attract attention of the public(if these are dilemmas of yours and you are an adult, you might want to do some research on Borderline Personality Disorder or Histrionic PD)."

Someone out there really doesn't like artists. How novel.  

So for my " histrionic, self-important need to document every inane moment of [my] day", here's the studio report this week: I spent portions of Friday and Saturday in the studio. Maybe only 10 hours...not too much, but a good solid chunk of time. On Sunday I felt the pull and squashed it, somewhat ruthlessly to eat brunch and enjoy the sun with my gentleman friend, but spent much of the day reading Art in America. I was looking for Art/Work, which my library only has on reserve, but ended up with The Artist's Guide instead. Review to follow.

On Friday I did some only partially statisfying sketches. I'm still trapped in a lot of questions about how I move from idea to execution for several parts of the pieces I'm working on for the disaster series and that's coming through on paper in the form of less satisfying work. On Saturday I just grabbed the x-acto and went for something abstract; mind numbing, straight-up cutwork without a purpose, just for the sake of working. It felt marvelous to walk away with shaking cramped muscles and eyes, the intense physical satisfaction of hard work. There are probably about 5-6 more hours in that piece and then, it just will be done, and mean nothing. Easy peasey.