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

“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.

“School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. Whether you’re in school or not, it’s always your job to get yourself an education. You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else—that’s how you’ll get ahead. Google everything. I mean everything.”

Kleon begins to discuss Creativity in the Digital Age by advising his readers on how to be life-long learners by using Google to be curious. He differentiates differences in learning between being curious about the world and formal education. Since formal education is not equally accessible to everyone, his approach democratizes learning.

“If I’d waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started ‘being creative,’ well, I’d still be sitting around, trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it’s the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are.

You’re ready. Start making stuff. You might be scared to start. That’s natural.”

Kleon addresses a common self-doubt artists approach him about: the idea that they need to learn more or find their voice before engaging in their creative pursuits. Similar to how Kleon thinks that we learn about the world around us from Googling and being curious, he thinks that we figure out what kind of artist we are through practical trial and error.

“Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don’t come out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. 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. Copying is about reverse engineering. It’s like a mechanic taking apart a car to see how it works.”

Kleon makes an important differentiation between his ideas of stealing and copying, and the act of plagiarism. When Kleon advises his readers to copy or to steal, he is promoting a new mode of working, a new way of thinking, or a new point of view. This is different than passing someone else’s work off as one’s own, which is plagiarism.

“Even the Beatles started as a cover band. Paul McCartney has said, ‘I emulated Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis. We all did.’ McCartney and his partner John Lennon became one of the greatest songwriting teams in history, but as McCartney recalls, they only started writing their own songs ‘as a way to avoid other bands being able to play our set.’ As Salvador Dali said, ‘Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.’”

Kleon uses several references to famous artists to describe how even those that society largely perceives as being original and creative artistic geniuses began by copying their own heroes. Dalí or The Beatles, who have come to define their particular genres and artistic fields, found their original voice by first copying others.

“In the end, merely imitating your heroes is not flattering them. Transforming their work into something of your own is how you flatter them. Adding something to the world that only you can add.”

By entering a creative genealogy, artists are not pledging to perfectly recreate their heroes’ work, but to use their work as a jumping off point and continue past them. Like the genealogy of man evolved into our current species homo sapiens as time went on, so should creative ideas evolve; the best way to contribute to a creating genealogy is taking what inspires you and adding to it.

“The question every young writer at some point asks is: ‘What should I write?’ And the answer is, ‘Write what you know.’ This advice always leads to terrible stories in which nothing interesting happens.

We make art because we like art. We’re drawn to certain kinds of work because we’re inspired by others doing that work. All fiction, in fact, is fan fiction.”

In Kleon’s framing, the common writing advice to write what you know can only turn out stories that are rote and dull. There is a wide swath of human experience in the world, and one person’s life represents only a small fraction of that. Instead of simply repeating what one already knows, he encourages his readers to cast their net of influence wide and let a diverse body of things inspire creation.

“The manifesto is this: draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use—do the work you want to see done.”

Kleon alludes to a genre of writing called a manifesto. A manifesto is a public declaration of a certain policy or idea, usually pertaining to a contemporary political or social matter. Because Kleon calls this his manifesto, the reader can assume this is one of his strongest beliefs. His strongest belief is that everyone should pursue the creative endeavor they find interesting, without letting external forces hold them back.

“Your hands are the original digital devices. Use them. While I love my computer, I think computers have robbed us of the feeling that we’re actually making things. Instead, we are just typing keys and clicking mouse buttons.”

Kleon addresses both Creativity in the Digital Age and The Difference Between Work and Play. While digital technology has an unavoidable and important place in the life of the 21st-century creative, Kleon also shows that it abstracts the creative process and makes it seem like humans are creating less than they actually are. He argues that using hands and analog tools can make creativity more tangible, and more like play than work.

“Try it: If you have the space, set up two workstations, one analog and one digital. For your analog station, keep out anything electronic. Take $10, go to the school supply aisle of your local store, and pick up some paper, pens, and sticky notes. When you get back to your analog station, pretend it’s craft time. Scribble on paper, cut it up, and tape the pieces back together. Stand up while you’re working. Pin things on the walls and look for patterns. Spread things around your space and sort through them.”

Kleon proposes one practical strategy that deals with both creativity in the digital age and The Difference Between Work and Play. He offers a relatively accessible option to make creative work feel more like play: channeling the type of craft time children have in elementary school. Creating distinct areas for analog and digital work is one of Kleon’s foremost strategies for navigating creativity in the age of computers.

“One thing I’ve learned in my brief career: It’s the side projects that really take off. By side projects I mean the stuff that you thought was just messing around. Stuff that’s just play. That’s actually the good stuff. That’s when the magic happens.”

Kleon argues that when creatives are conceptualizing of something as their side project, that usually means they aren’t putting the same type of pressure on it as they are putting on their main project. This advice is both fitting and ironic, as Steal Like An Artist was never intended to be a book, but started out as a side project. It was a community college talk turned blog post that went viral.

“Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t worry about unity—what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you’ll look back and it will all make sense.”

Throughout the book, Kleon tries to reduce external stressors to creativity. Here, he advises his reader not to focus on one creative pursuit at the expense of others. When someone is an artist, there is often accompanying messaging about them having a unified “brand.” Kleon encourages his reader not to worry about creating a cogent brand, but trusting the creative process and just focusing on making the types of things that bring joy to them.

“There’s no pressure when you’re unknown. You can do what you want. Experiment. Do things just for the fun of it. When you’re unknown, there’s nothing to distract you from getting better. No public image to manage. No huge paycheck on the line. No stockholders. No emails from your agent. No hangers-on.”

When someone begins to pursue creative professions, they usually want to get their creative work in front of wide audiences. Having a widely published book, or a piece in an art show, or a film at a movie festival is usually the way that artists can gain continued funding and make a living off their art. However, Kleon suggests that renown comes with stressors that detract from unfettered creativity. A certain level of fame can create pressure to produce, or expectations that a person’s art will look or sound a certain way. This pressure can dampen the creative process.

“Do good work and share it with people. It’s a two-step process. Step one, ‘do good work,’ is incredibly hard. There are no shortcuts. Make stuff every day. Know you’re going to suck for a while. Fail. Get better. Step two, ‘share it with people,’ was really hard up until about ten years ago or so. Now it’s very simple: ‘Put your stuff on the Internet.’”

Kleon discusses one of the ways that creativity has changed in the digital age. While creatives still need to put the same effort into making their art, the instant connectivity of the internet has made it much easier to share art without having the geographical, financial, or personal resources traditionally needed to reach an audience. In this way, the internet has democratized art and creativity.

“You don’t put yourself online only because you have something to say—you can put yourself online to find something to say. The Internet can be more than just a resting place to publish your finished ideas—it can also be an incubator for ideas that aren’t fully formed, a birthing center for developing work that you haven’t started yet.”

Kleon coaches his reader on how to use the internet in all steps of the creative process. In addition to simply posting finished products on the internet to gain an audience, artists can use the internet to connect with communities of other artists in distant places. This type of collaboration can be useful for the development of ideas.

“You don’t have to live anywhere other than the place you are to start connecting with the world you want to be in. If you feel stuck somewhere, if you’re too young, or too old, or too broke, or if you’re somehow tied down to a place, take heart. There’s a community of people out there you can connect with. In the meantime, if you’re not into the world you live in, you can build your own world around you.”

Kleon discusses another way in which the internet and the digital age have democratized being an artist. Previously, artists needed to move to a geographical hub that specialized in their type of art: usually large cosmopolitan centers. This relocation is not equally available to everyone and is discouraged by Kleon’s messages on the importance of stability and finding space for creative pursuits alongside other career and family responsibilities. A solution he identifies is that, for an increasing number of creative and artistic pursuits, the internet provides a location where people can engage in their chosen profession from anywhere in the world.

“To say that geography is no longer our master isn’t to say that place isn’t important. Where we choose to live still has a huge impact on the work we do. At some point, when you can do it, you have to leave home. You can always come back, but you have to leave at least once. Your brain gets too comfortable in your everyday surroundings. You need to make it uncomfortable. You need to spend some time in another land, among people that do things differently than you.”

Kleon clarifies one of his earlier points: Though the internet allows for connectivity between artistic communities, he still believes physical place is important, especially as it relates to diversifying experiences in ways that enrich creative pursuits. Previously, Kleon gave the advice to write about what interests you rather than just writing about what you know. He advises this because a single person’s experience and background is limited. By expanding into interests, Kleon argues that the creative can take up an individual and expressive space.

“The golden rule is even more golden in our hyperconnected world. An important lesson to learn: If you talk about someone on the Internet, they will find out. Everybody has a Google alert on their name. The best way to vanquish your enemies on the Internet? Ignore them. The best way to make friends on the Internet? Say nice things about them.”

Kleon alludes to the common ethical idea of the golden rule: the idea that people should treat others as they would like to be treated. While the internet allows for greater connectivity across geographies, it also allows for greater visibility for better and for worse. Nothing anyone puts out onto the internet will ever truly vanish. Because of that, it is better to engage positively in online spaces where possible.

“I recommend public fan letters. The Internet is really good for this. Write a blog post about someone’s work that you admire and link to their site. Make something and dedicate it to your hero. Answer a question they’ve asked, solve a problem for them, or improve on their work, and share it online.”

Kleon provides practical, professionalizing advice for how to put out positive energy on the internet. By writing a fan letter and posting it on the internet, an artist can publicly establish what kind of work they want to do, what kind of online engagements they want to have, and who they see themselves in creative lineage with.

“The trouble with creative work: sometimes by the time people catch onto what’s valuable about what you do, you’re either a) bored to death with it or b) dead. You can’t go looking for validation from external sources. Once you put your work into the world, you have no control over the way people will react to it.”

While Kleon encourages creatives to actively put out good energy into online spaces and publicly support the figures they look up to, he also warns his reader not to expect the same for themselves. The internet is a huge space with many creatives, and Kleon warns against pursuing certain types of art or creative goals for validation or public acknowledgment, as this can often lead to disappointment. Here he alludes to a 1967 theory by Roland Barthes called The Death of the Author, which states that “once a text is published, it takes on a life of its own and becomes open to interpretation by readers” (“The Death of the Author.” Oxford Home Schooling).

“I’m a boring guy with a nine-to-five job who lives in a quiet neighborhood with his wife and his dog. That whole romantic image of the creative genius doing drugs and running around and sleeping with everyone is played out. It’s for the superhuman and the people who want to die young. The thing is: It takes a lot of energy to be creative. You don’t have the energy if you waste it on other stuff. It’s best to assume that you’ll be alive for a while.”

Kleon debunks a persistent myth that artists can or should be mentally or physically tormented to make good art. He thinks that the exact opposite is true: Overall wellness, stability, and happiness reinvigorate and energize. This positivity supports creative pursuits. This, he argues, also provides a steady base on which to build a creative practice that has longevity.

“A day job puts you in the path of other human beings. Learn from them, steal from them. I’ve tried to take jobs where I can learn things that I can use in my work later—my library job taught me how to do research, my Web design job taught me how to build websites, and my copywriting job taught me how to sell things with words.”

Kleon gives a lot of practical advice for how the reader can maintain a creative practice amid the demands of life in the 21st century. One of the benefits of keeping a day job is being more financially secure while pursuing their creative hobbies. Day jobs can also instill skills that can help enrich a creative practice.