Austin Kleon
Show your work
Austin Kleon
I’ve always shown my art projects on the internet, art shows and to anyone who wandered into my life. This book puts a different spin on it by encouraging you to also show the journey you took to get to the finished art work. I never thought of doing that before. I also thit ought that maybe artist need to c arefully guard their secrets so as not to be copied by others. Austin’s first book “Steal like an artist” made me realize that nothing is original, it’s all a remix. And now he is saying to make it even easier for people to steal from you. You steal from them, they steal from you. A great big remix of ideas. I like it!
The book tells you to document your whole process. It doesn’t mean you have to share everything.
“Ask yourself, “Is this helpful? Is it entertaining? Is it something I’d be comfortable with my boss or my mother seeing?”
Austin Kleon
It doesn’t have to be a big thing, take good notes as you work, then after the days over grab a tiny piece of it and post it. Film, write, post everything. Keep detailed notes. ThEn put it all out there for others.
Become a documentarian of what you do. Start a work journal: Write your thoughts down in a notebook, or speak them into an audio recorder. Keep a scrapbook. Take a lot of photographs of your work at different stages in your process. Shoot video of you working. This isn’t about making art, it’s about simply keeping track of what’s going on around you. Take advantage of all the cheap, easy tools at your disposal—these days, most of us carry a fully functional multimedia studio around in our smartphones.
Austin Kleon
Another chapter talks about how you don’t have to wait until you are an expert to post about something. You can learn something and immediately turn around and teach that something to someone else on the path behind you. I’ve found that the simple act of teaching someone helps me more throughly learn a subject, so it’s a win-win exchange.
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.
Austin Kleon
The book also encourages you to post all your interests and inspirations. I thought I had to stick to the topic, only talk about art. I have many, many interests. My head is a three ring circus of thoughts. Austin says put that out there too! Ok, I will.
What sorts of things do you fill your head with? What do you read? Do you subscribe to anything? What sites do you visit on the Internet? What music do you listen to? What movies do you see? Do you look at art? What do you collect? What’s inside your scrapbook? What do you pin to the corkboard above your desk? What do you stick on your refrigerator? Who’s done work that you admire? Who do you steal ideas from? Do you have any heroes? Who do you follow online? Who are the practitioners you look up to in your field?
Austin Kleon
I found this book to be very inspiring and did change my life. It’s motivated me to post a lot more.
