Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon (born June 16, 1983) is the New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going.

Quotes

Steal Like an Artist (2012)

The great thing about dead or remote masters is that they can't refuse you as an apprentice. You can learn whatever you want from them. They left their lesson plans in their work.

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.

A wonderful flaw about human beings is that we're incapable of making perfect copies. Our failure to copy our heroes is where we discover where our own thing lives. That is how we evolve.

The best advice is not to write what you know, it's to write what you like. Write the kind of story you like best— write the story you want to read. The same principle applies to your life and your career. Whenever you're at a loss for what move to make next, just ask yourself, "What would make a better story?"

Don't worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. [...] What unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you'll look back and it will all make sense.

If there was a secret formula for becoming known, I would give it to you. But there's only one not-so-secret formula that I know: Do good work and share it with people.

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

Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time. Inertia is the death of creativity. You have to stay in the groove.

In this age of information abundance and overload, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can concentrate on what's really important to them. Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities.

The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself. It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom.

Show Your Work! (2014)

All it takes to uncover hidden gems is a clear eye, an open mind, and a willingness to search for inspiration in places other people aren't willing or able to go.

The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others. [...] Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.

Be open, share imperfect and unfinished work that you want feedback on, but don't share absolutely everything. [...] The act of sharing is one of generosity— you're putting something out there because you think it might be helpful or entertaining to someone on the other side of the screen.

If you get one thing out of this book make it this: Go register a domain name. Buy www.[insert your name here].com. [...] Your website doesn't have to look pretty; it just has to exist.

Don't think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine. Online, you can become the person you really want to be. Fill your website with your work and your ideas and the stuff you care about. [...] Stick with it, maintain it, and let it change with you over time.

"Dumpster diving" is one of the jobs of the artist— finding the treasure in other people's trash, sifting through the debris of our culture, paying attention to the stuff that everyone else is ignoring, and taking inspiration from the stuff that people have tossed aside for whatever reasons. [...] All it takes to uncover hidden gems is a clear eye, an open mind, and a willingness to search for inspiration in places other people aren't willing or able to go.

Human beings want to know where things come from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work effects how they value it.

The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others. Share your reading list. Point to helpful reference materials. [...] Take people step-by-step through part of your process.

If you're only pointing to your own stuff online, you're doing it wrong. [...] If you want to get, you have to give. If you want to be noticed, you have to notice. Shut up and listen once in a while.

It is actually true that life is all about "who you know". But who you know is largely dependent on who you are and what you do, and the people you know can't do anything for you if you're not doing good work.

When you feel like you've learned whatever there is to learn from what you're doing, it's time to change course and find something new to learn so that you can move forward. You can't be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again.

Keep Going (2019)

Part of the artist's job is to help tidy up the place, to make order out of chaos, to turn trash into treasure, to show us beauty where we can't see it.

The only thing we can really control is what we spend our days on. What we work on and how hard we work on it. It might seem like a stretch, but I really think the best thing you can do if you want to make art is to pretend you're starring in your own remake of Groundhog Day: Yesterday's over, tomorrow may never come, there's just today and what you can do with it.

Creativity is about connection — you must be connected to others in order to be inspired and share your own work — but it is also about disconnection. You must retreat from the world long enough to think, practice your art, and bring forth something worth sharing with others. You must play a little hide-and-seek in order to produce something worth being found.

Let go of the thing that you're trying to be (the noun), and focus on the actual work you need to be doing (the verb). Doing the verb will take you someplace further and far more interesting.

Everyone who's turned their passion into their breadwinning knows this is dangerous territory. One of the easiest ways to hate something you love is to turn it into your job: taking the thing that keeps you alive spiritually and turning it into the thing that keeps you alive literally.

We all go through cycles of disenchantment and re-enchantment with our work. When you feel as though you've lost or you're losing your gift, the quickest way to recover is to step outside the marketplace and make gifts. There's nothing as pure as making something specifically for someone special.

Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess, which is why everyone wants to steal it from you. First you must protect it, and then you must point it in the right direction. [...] What you choose to pay attention to is the stuff your life and work will be made of.

Art is supposed to make our lives better. This is as true for the making of the art as it is for the art itself. If making your art is ruining anyone's life, including your own, it is not worth making.

It's always a mistake to equate productivity and creativity. They are not the same. In fact, they're frequently at odds with each other: You're often most creative when you're the least productive.

Art is not only made from things that "spark joy." Art is also made out of what is ugly or repulsive to us. Part of the artist's job is to help tidy up the place, to make order out of chaos, to turn trash into treasure, to show us beauty where we can't see it.

Our culture mostly celebrates early successes, the people who bloom fast. But those people often wither as quickly as they bloom. [...] I don't want to know how a thirty-year-old became rich and famous; I want to hear how an eighty-year-old spent her life in obscurity, kept making art, and lived a happy life.

Quotes about Kleon

Austin Kleon is one of the brightest new minds on the creative landscape. [...] With simple yet profound insights, and an array of his amazing images, he casts aside old stereotypes of the creative life and tells what it's really like.
- Daniel H. Pink, Show Your Work! (2014)