Steal Like an Artist

Kelon, Austin. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. 2012, 140p. ISBN 0761169253. 153.3 KLE on the library shelves.

This is a brilliant little book that encourages you to start being whom you want to be right now, instead of waiting. Kelon provides you with ten things no one told you about how you can be creative. Some of them are common sense, such as “use your hands” and “do good work and share it with people.” Other advice, however, might sound crazy at first until you read what Kelon has to say. For example, he advocates “don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.” Most of us feel like frauds when we do things. We don’t feel qualified and we don’t feel like we know what we’re doing. But all life’s a stage, so as long as you act the part, people will believe you. So be who you want to be, and not who you are right now.

Other great advice: “Write the book you want to read.” This applies to so much more than writing books. You don’t like how long the traffic light takes before it changes? Do something about it. You hate the computer software? Learn to write a better one. Do things because you want to do them for you, and not simply because they would please someone else. But the most important advice? Steal like an artist. If you think that there’s anything new and refreshing in the world, think again! Everything has already been done by someone else. Your job is to take information from other people and recraft it in your own image. The guy who painted the big red square on the canvas and got a million dollars for it? You could have done that. But you didn’t. So do! Do what you like, do what you want. But always do, and never be uncreative.