I have always wanted to know how artists come up with mind-blowing ideas. I have been in this quest for quite some time now, and no book has blown my mind regarding this topic like 'Steal like an Artist' has. In this book, Austin Kleon offers ways to increase creativity and general advice for creative people.
So how do artists come up with ideas?
Austin Kleon says :
Every artist gets asked the question
"Where do you get your ideas?"
The honest artist answers
" I steal them".
All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.
" What is originality? Undetected Plagiarism" -
William Ralph Inge.
Here are eight ways on how to come up with ideas from Austin Kleon's "Steal Like an Artist".
- Look at the world(Like an Artist)
- New Ideas
Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.
Studying subjects completely different from each other helps in making new connections/ideas. This can even lead to a deeper understanding of the subjects.
For example, Leonardo Da Vinci was a polymath. This made his paintings unique. Ryan
Holiday has said that when he's researching a new book, he would read books off-topic,
to try and make new connections.
Garbage in, Garbage out
Don't be a hoarder, when it comes to collecting ideas.
Collect good or useful ideas. The more ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.Study people you admire
When studying art, don't try to devour the history of your discipline all at once, you'll choke.
Instead, chew on one thinker—writer, artist, activist, role model—you love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker.
Then find three people that the thinker loved, and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can. Climb up the tree as far as you can go.School Yourself
School is one thing. education is another.
Google Everything. Always be reading. Read bibliographies.
It’s not the book you start with, it’s the book that the book leads you to. Collect books, even if you don’t plan on reading them right away.
In his book, Black Swan Nassim Nicholas Taleb described the importance of an Antilibrary. An antilibrary is the number of unread books you have in your library. The goal of an antilibrary is not to collect books you have read so you can proudly display them on your shelf; instead, it is to curate a highly personal collection of resources around themes you are curious about. Instead of a celebration of everything you know, an antilibrary is an ode to everything you want to explore.Save your thefts for later.
Austin suggests keeping a swipe file( a file to keep track of the stuff you have swiped from others). It can be digital or physical. Whenever you need inspiration, open the swipe file.
My thefts usually consist of tweets, articles and youtube videos. I save these in an app called Notion.Start Copying
“Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find yourself.” —Yohji Yamamoto
We learn by copying. We’re talking about practice here, not plagiarism—plagiarism is trying to pass someone else’s work off as your own.
Good theft happens when you give due credit to the person you copy from. Even the Beatles started as a cover band.
- Curate your feed
Follow the best people online.
The people who are way smarter and better than you, the people who are doing really interesting work.
Pay Attention to what they are talking about, what they are doing and what they are linking to.
Conclusion
Store good ideas.
When you find a very interesting idea, research the hell out of it.
Research by googling, reading books about it, read the bibliography of books to find more books.
Share the whole process on the internet. If you want to know how to share your work on the internet, or if you are confused about it, I would highly recommend reading Austin Kleon’s second book "Show your work".
Please do like, follow me and share my work.