Keep Stealing Like An Artist

Are there any original ideas or are all ideas sparked by something that already exists, somewhere?

Everything is a remix. If you watch the series, you will know this to be true. Science says we are all connected and if you watch this film, you might see new ways in which that is true – the arts and science bouncing off each other, creating theories and movements which mimic each other, disciplines evolving and co-existing together. Here’s the trailer to whet your appetite:

So where does that leave us? I would say in one of the most fortunate, creative, inspiring times in history. The more I read about the development of technology in education the more I think the motto should be “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. It covers everything! With this in mind, fair and ethical use of ideas already “out there” comes down to knowing how to Steal Like An Artist: to be able to differentiate between good theft and bad theft:

Austin Kleon suggests that when we honor those who have created before us by studying their work in depth rather that dipping into their work for a minute, when we give credit to all those who have inspired us, when we draw inspiration for who we are and who we want to be from a wide pool of talent, when we transform ideas into something truly our own, and when we create what can genuinely be called a remix (as opposed to a rip off) we have done ourselves proud.

It should be no surprise that Austin is friends with Kirby Ferguson. The two co-presented with each other at SXSW2012 and I previously posted about their collaboration. This is what an Austin/Kirby mash-up looks like via FueledByCoffee artist Craighton Berman:

The ‘takeaways’ from these notes that should be shared with students?

Rubbish In/Rubbish Out: You are what you let into your life
There is a ‘hierarchy’ of creativity: It is ok to start with copying as inspiration but don’t stop there and call it what it is – not your own.
Ask yourself: Would you be ok with meeting the original creator of the work you are claiming as your own?

Here’s an example of what I consider “Good Theft” (and I may be biased because I am the artist in question!). I am a big fan of Seth Godin. Love him. When he wrote his manifesto on education, I devoured it. In it, he challenges people to do something with his ideas, so in the spirt of Dr. Seuss and mirroring the monochromatic, square book that I associate with Austin Kleon, I penned my own version of Stop Stealing Dreams and called it Imagine A School.

Click to read!

My list of creators that inspired this book is long, I wanted to be unique AND part of something, and while I haven’t stood in an elevator with Seth Godin, I have stood in an auditorium with him and he didn’t punch me in the face but rather gave me a standing ovation on behalf of all teachers who are trying to make a difference.

We have to teach responsible use but at the same time we have to teach awesome curation skills, expose our students to quality ideas that inspire, connect them with people who are making a noise. The more they are exposed to how to do it right and more importantly WHY they need to care about doing it right, I believe the richer we all will be.

And it can start young. My second graders are able to find images via Google search that are licensed for non-commercial reuse with modification. My fourth graders are adding links to Keynotes to reference their images. There are tools that are making it even easier for people to make the right choices – because they are being made for them. Apps like Haiku Deck and Adobe Voice use Creative Commons licensed images when you search for a photo within their app or icons from The Noun Project which are licensed for reuse. All images are then cited in the credits of the presentation and options are given for you to add your own credits if you source images from elsewhere.

Why? Why go to all this bother of citing, referencing and giving credit? Because otherwise we are devaluing ourselves and the original creators of the work and drawing everyone into a less civilised society. And we are all better than that, right?

Be nice; stop plundering and looting. By Jessica Hagy of Indexed

You Are Beautiful

I was given a perfect gift. I say “perfect” because I just love it, I know it was given with love, and I know I can pass it on to others. It is a stunning, inspiring, beautiful book, titled, “You Are Beautiful” written by Matthew Hoffman. Here is an overview of his project:

The book is a work of art in itself and it is somewhat of a ‘how to’ (but not) for how to put yourself out there and share your art. It is about how small ideas can have a huge impact. It is about how life won’t always be easy, and things won’t always work out, and some people won’t always get what you do, but life is beautiful, nonetheless, and so are you. It is peppered with Seth Godin-isms (which I love) and full of humility, hope, and inspiration.

Here is an overview of what to expect from the book. Just from the 10 chapter titles, you should get the idea of the inspiration the pages hold! (I see a drawing or some such thing being created from this fab list!).

Chapter 1: Start Anywhere…As Long As It’s Now!

Chapter 2: Keep Going…You’ve Got This!

Chapter 3: Put Your Back Into It….Get Your Hands Dirty!

Chapter 4: Take Action…Embrace Risk!

Chapter 5: Create Impact…Do A Lot With A Little!

Chapter 6: Start A Conversation…See Where It Leads!

Chapter 7: Make It Yours…Run With It!

Chapter 8: Work Together…Invite People Into Your World!

Chapter 9: Be Open…Define Your Success!

Chapter 10: Be Spectacular…Be YOU!

In light of the upcoming PYP Exhibition that my students will be embarking on, with a central idea of: “Small Actions Can Make A Big Impact”, I couldn’t think of a more perfect resource to share with my kids. At first I was thinking, “But won’t they just want to copy?” and then I remembered that I am also encouraging them to “Steal Like An Artist” and remix other people’s ideas for the greater good. After sharing the YAB project with them, I want to share Austin’s list with them:

Then I want to know: “What would a “good theft” or a “good steal” of the You Are Beautiful project look like? I look forward to sharing their ideas with you.

As for me, I am excited to share the YAB message in my travels, armed with my own You Are Beautiful stickers. For now though, I am starting with me.

My first sticker has been placed at the base of my computer. As my eyes sweep from my screen to my keyboard, they must pass over this sticker. You Are Beautiful. Sweep, Sweep. You Are Beautiful. Sweep, Sweep.

Sometimes I don’t feel so beautiful. I feel tired, grumpy, disheartened and disconnected. When I see the sticker – that little piece of silver paper – I am reminded of the friend who gave it to me, of our incredible friendship, and of the faith she has in me. I remember to value, to appreciate, to acknowledge. I remember to hug, smile, laugh, and keep going. What a gift. What a friend.

What are you waiting for? Get your stickers now! 🙂

Share Some Love!

Yesterday I posted about Austin Kleon’s upcoming book, Show Your Work.

I was thinking of #10 as I wrote this post. It reads:

This one leapt out at me. Perhaps because as a new mom, I am realizing very quickly that my time is no longer my own. I love it, it just takes some adjusting to a new kind of normal.

*SIDE NOTE* How could you NOT love something this adorable?

This blog is something I am really passionate about. I use it to synthesize my thinking, process what is going on, curate ideas for future use, and, connect with others. There have been lots of times in the last year and half when ~~morning~~ afternoon sickness or later, tiny human + “life”, made me think of packing all this in. My postings were infrequent and I didn’t feel I was giving them the time that was warranted to make sure I was fulfilling #’s 5, 6, and 7. But I hung in there (#10) and I focused on #’s 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, and I kept the blog. But still….its a lot of work.

On Friday I am giving away 2 copies of Seth Godin’s latest book. In order to enter, I asked readers to leave a comment. I was expecting “Pick me!” or “I would love a book!” and I did get that (awesome!) but I also got these:

I know I need to “learn how to take a punch” (#8) but perhaps there should also be a #11 that says something like:

11. Make a difference

And that this point reminds us that in sharing our work, we may just never know the difference we are making in the lives of others.

Or maybe we will. I encourage you to reach out to those who share their work and, in honor of Valentine’s Day this Friday, share some love with them as a thanks for sharing THEIR work with you.

Show Your Work

I am a big believer in “Process over Product”. I have posted about this before. It would appear I am not alone (thankfully!).

Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like An Artist, has a new book in the works titled Show Your Work. Here’s the trailer:

Here’s what Austin has to say about the book:

Show Your Work! will teach you how to think about your work as a never-ending process, how to build an audience by sharing that process, and how to deal with the ups and downs of putting yourself and your work out in the world. Whether you’re an artist or an entrepreneur, a student or a teacher, a hobbyist or a professional, it’s time to stop worrying and start sharing. – Austin Kleon

Putting yourself and your work out into the world. Something else I have posted about. I think Austin and I would be good friends.

Here is a very cool “flip through” of his book (Austin flips through the book in 6 seconds of awesome! Can’t make it embed here so do click the link!).

The book is out on March 6th BUT you can pre-order from Amazon or from Austin’s Website – and if you do, there is a treat in store for you from Austin!

But, why do I care? Why is this whole post dedicated to getting you to think about the concept of ‘Showing Your Work’? Well, as with “steal”, Austin is going to share 10 ways you can SHARE like an artist:

His book will expand on these ten points but here’s my take:

You don’t have to be a genius – you just have to be passionate, honest, genuine, and operating with only the best intentions.
Process, process, process – HOW do you do what you do? WHY do you do what you do?
SHARE – we all get richer when we bounce off each others ideas.
Did I mention you should share? I think this also means you should ask great questions.
Don’t just babble on – make your stories worth listening to.
One of my favorite quotes is from Tony Wagner: “No one cares what you know, they care about what you will DO with what you know.” Teaching others is a great start.
If you don’t have anything good to say…..no one likes a spammer.
Remember, all the world is a stage – but not everyone is going to be your biggest fan.
Sell Out….I am sure there is a double meaning here! I am curious to read where he is going with this one!
Stick around – no one really becomes an ‘overnight’ success. And even when you are not sure you are making a difference, by putting your honest art out there, you are. Trust me.

Can’t wait to read it!

Invent Yourself As A Writer

A few days ago, I posted about reading. Today, writing. I was reminded of wanting to post about writing when I saw this, three minutes ago:

An adaptation of his own work “Steal Like an Artist” by Austin Kleon

I read this post by a teacher named Jenn, who shared her struggles with teaching writing and I felt like I could have written it (the first part anyway) about myself as a teacher of writing. What hit me was when she described her routine:

I gave a writing assignment and expected my students to complete it. They would complete it, sure, but with errors galore. I would instruct students to proofread their rough draft, and they would read through it, say, “It’s good!” and turn it in. Then (just like my teachers had done for me) I would spend hours correcting all of their mistakes, which they would then copy for their final draft. It was exhausting doing their work for them, and my students weren’t becoming better writers.

Exactly!

I was fortunate this year to have a teaching partner who has many strengths – one of which is teaching writing. By watching him and by doing in my own classroom, I felt like I was beginning to morph from the teacher described above to one more able to evoke a love of writing. But I still have a long ways to go! I know that I need to:

write when my kids write
be more explicit in talking about writing
share my own struggles, frustrations and triumphs in writing
make sure I am providing authentic audiences for their writing
draw upon real life experiences for writing

One of my biggest ‘breakthrough’ moments as a teacher was with a student who is a really good writer. She was ‘well-schooled’ in how writing works: She writes, the teacher approves her writing, she moves on to write something else. I felt a little stifled by this routine and wanted to break it – but didn’t know how. After almost a year of slowly working away at the idea that revising work is not a punishment, that the feedback from others can improve the work and that success as a writer isn’t determined by wether or not I, as the teacher, “like” your work, we made a breakthrough. One day, out of the blue, I noticed that our conversations about her writing had become a real conversation. She would share her work, ask for ideas, and when I gave suggestions, she would weigh in, ultimately making edits that suited her artistic inclinations.

My other writing epiphany came as I watch the writing of another student go from good to amazing in a really short period of time. I have been with some of my kids for two years having followed them from fourth to fifth grade and when I saw the change in this student’s writing, I was blown away. How did it happen? There were a number of factors and none of them had anything to do with me! Firstly, she read – a lot. Different genre, current books, all the time. Secondly, she was not at school, she was on a 77 day sabbatical in Barcelona. She wrote without pressure of the hamster wheel pace of school life and with the experience of a reader, traveler and explorer and it showed. Big time.

My question to myself is

“How do I make sure I help all children get to the same place these girls arrived at without leaving it to chance? ”

I did some research and came across a great post titled How Do Kids Really Learn To Write, 2.0 by Patricia Zaballos. It is an excellent read. I am highlighting points from it below but do yourself a huge favor and go read it in it’s entirety. It begins by outlining:

What Kids DON’T Need In Order To Become Writers:

Kids don’t need to master the mechanical skills of writing before developing voices as writers.
Kids don’t need daily, or even weekly writing practice.
Kids don’t need to practice writing in various formats.
Kids don’t need to write to develop as writers.

All these points would describe 99% of what goes on in a regular, grade-school writing class. But if this is being touted as what kids don’t need, what do they need? The blog post goes on to describe what you can do:

How Can You Help Kids Develop Into Writers:

Raise them in a literature-rich, word-loving home.
Talk about what interests them.
Make the distinction between getting-words-on-the-paper skills and written expression.
Let them write about what interests them, and in genres that they enjoy.
Explore intriguing nonfiction
Help them find meaningful, authentic reasons to write.

Although not explicitly said, my thinking is that if you focus on how you can help kids develop into writers, they naturally may start to do some of the things that they “don’t need”. They will want to learn to type or write faster/more neatly in order to be heard as an author. They will want to know the mechanics of spelling, punctuation and grammer in order to develop their writers voice. They will write daily or weekly without prompting because they have something to say. They will write in a variety of formats because they will realize that writing is everywhere and writing is for a purpose and those purposes are endless! They will develop as writers with each piece that they write, but also by each experience, discussion, reading, discovery, encounter and adventure that they undertake.

In reading the comments of other readers of this post, there is discussion of the use of dictation tools to facilitate the writing process. I hadn’t thought of doing this but I have previously allowed the kids to make audio or video recordings as reflections on their work. Doing this has meant I have gotten a much richer picture of their true thoughts on the topic. Kids are naturally going to be more fluent as speakers rather than writers and what better way to build confidence as a writer than by dictating your work? No longer does it have to be about how fast you can type or how quickly you can write, the focus can be on the richness of the content of your work. And isn’t that the real point?

Take another look at Austin Kleon’s 10 Ways to Steal Like A Writer:

I don’t know exactly what he was thinking when he wrote this, but here is my interpretation:

Slap things together from all parts of your life, moving things around, rearranging them and ultimately piecing it all together.
Be prepared to write anytime, anyplace, low-tech.
READ!!!
When you see something you consider “killer writing” copy it, rip it out, photograph it, keep it. Read it again and again. And again.
Write first, think later. Just do it – then refine, or not.
Experience 3D life so that you will have something to write about.
Do something each day to further your role as a writer: read, write, discuss, explore, create, do…
Entertain yourself with your writing – you will always be your number one fan.
Make people laugh/cry/give you stuff/root for you/want more.
Share your art.

Notice the correlation between Kleon’s list and Zaballos’ second set of bullet points? What does this tell me? This is just another reason why we need to keep explaining to the parents of the kids we teach, the WHY behind why we do what we do.

I am also reminded that Kleon’s message in Steal Like An Artist – and therefore presumably Steal Like A Writer – is not ‘be yourself’ and all will be fine. According to Kleon, this is the “last advice” he would give anyone. The idea is to invent yourself as an artist, a writer. Consciously move yourself forward in your quest to better yourself artistically, linguistically. This is great advice and implies a call to action on the part of the artist, the writer. It is this advice that I want to carry into the new school year as I actively guide my kids as they invent themselves as writers.

Creativity

Did you know that the most creative companies have centralized bathrooms? This is the line that totally grabbed my attention when I first read it. Can you imagine? Makes me think of Ally McBeal, actually!

Creativity is the buzz word of the moment – at least inside my own at head – and so I wanted to share a couple of things with you to ponder:

Imagine

The video below is a 90 second preview of Jonah Lehrer’s book, Imagine. He describes creativity as “our natural state”. Love it. The video itself is worth watching for the sheer brillance in the use of graphics at speed to convey a message. So good! This book is on my wish list and ever-growing pile of ‘books I need to read’. A quick peruse of his website and he is quickly climbing to the top of my Fabulous People Club list too!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Creativity, posted with vodpod

Yesterday on Twitter, GOOD asked the question “Define creativity in five words or less”. I added my tweet to the chorus:

I then went on to type a list of what everyone else had to say and turned that into this. What words would you add?

One of the workshops I went to at the NAIS Conference was on The Taxonomy of Creative Design by Peter Nilsson. The workshop was very thorough, with underlying the message (bear in mind you are getting a major summary here – please visit his website for a more full understanding of the work he has been doing) was that in a way similar to Blooms Taxonomy, we can actually have a Taxonomy of Creative Design. This was interesting if a bit analytical and ‘boxy’ for my liking. What I did like about it was that it gives a framework to teachers who are now asking “Well, how can I be more creative, add assignments of a more creative nature and extend creative thought in my classroom?”. Peter shared some examples of work that would fall in each category and this is an area I want to pursue further. His taxonomy looks like this with ‘curation’ at the point where novelty in form and novelty in content meet.

That leaves me with three last ‘gems’ on the topic of creativity. If you have seen them before, you know where they are when you are ready to look at them again! If they are all new to you, then you are in for a treat!

Steal Like An Artist is something I came upon about a year ago. I love it. It is now a book and the only thing I don’t like about that is that the content used to be free and now you get to read the first few points and then are asked to ‘buy the book’. Now, I know artists need food and shelter and trust me when I say the book is slick and sexy and square (love square books!) and that you will want to buy one, but as my guy Seth Godin points out,

If I give you an idea, a blog post, a PDF and just say here, take it, spread it, it starts by its nature as being uneven. And since it’s uneven it can be a gift. And when it’s a gift, it’s art. And when it’s art, it can make a change. ~ Seth Godin

I’m not picking on you, Austin, just sharing some Seth Godin love! The book is beautiful but more importantly, it is so cool in the way it talks about how everything really does come from something else.

One of my favorite parts is when he talks about creating your own genealogy of creativity – your creative family tree. Immediately, the crafter/art teacher/elementary school teacher came together in me: Start by taking all the people, things, passions you love and arrange them all at the top of a page. Now make another copy and lay them on top – you might even want to have a pile of three or four of each (you will see why in a minute!). So, have you got it – Steve Jobs, Picasso, Running Shoes, iPad, Art Supplies, Kandinsky, Jamie Oliver, Ansel Adams. These are my ‘grandparents’. Now, move ’em around. Mix ’em up. What would Steve Jobs, Jamie Oliver and Kandinsky make together? What about Kandinsky and Ansel Adams? Running Shoes and an iPad? Bring your passions together in weird and unusual ways and see what you end up with!

If you are going to Steal Like An Artist, then you should probably know that Everything Is A Remix – which leads us to Kirby Fergusson, creator of the recently finished four part web series “Everything Is A Remix”. He describes Part Four as some of his best work – and it is pretty great and very much worth your time. He begins by saying:

Copy, transform and combine. It’s who we are, it’s how we live, and of course, it’s how we create. Our new ideas evolve from the old ones. ~ Kirby Fergusson.

FYI, His new work, which has just been funded by Kickstarter donations, is called “This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory” which is designed to give perspective as to ‘where we are now’ with the first episode due out before the US Election. This is a totally FREE project that Kirby has opened up to be remixed as people see fit. Kickstarter is a great way in and of itself to ‘fund and follow’ creativity, describing itself as “the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects”. This is a treasure trove of good stuff waiting to be discovered!

Finally, these videos blow my mind every time I watch them. Pure creative genius. Enjoy!

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sonya terborg

innovation. inspiration. education.

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Tag Archives: Steal Like An Artist

Keep Stealing Like An Artist

You Are Beautiful

Share Some Love!

Show Your Work

Invent Yourself As A Writer

What Kids DON’T Need In Order To Become Writers:

How Can You Help Kids Develop Into Writers:

Creativity

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