Steal Like An Artist

The article Steal Like An Artist By Austin Kleon is about using others ideas or creations and making the idea your own, but not just imitating it. Kleon states that nothing is original; he states that "All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original." He is saying that you can't get something from nothing. You have to get it from somewhere, so take others ideas and expand. Don't just simply copy an artist, steal what they have made and make it better, or different. Kleon quotes several artists in his book, but one that really stands out is by T. S. Eliot "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." This means that when an artist "copies" another  artist, it is instantly apparent, this shows that since they are lacking in their own creativity, they have to copy someone else. No matter how good the copier is every time we see that work, we first see the artist from whom it was derived - and  we cannot help but do so, because that artist was the real creative source of the art - whatever the powerful piece of the art that moves us is. This book is really meaningful in giving a new light to creativity. Good artists understand that you can't get something out of nothing and in that case you elaborate on others work. You "steal" their idea, and you make it your own. 


Citation:
Kleon, Austin. Steal like and Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative. New York: Workman Pub., 2012. Web.