A
self-described writer who draws, Austin Kleon is an artists’ artist.
Assuming he would have to take on the Bruce Wayne/Batman approach to his
life as an artist, he surprisingly found that he could do what he loved
for a living. This is his advice on how you can too.
I
have taken his interview on 30 Days of Genius with Chase Jarvis,
extracted the information, and used it to answer common questions by
readers just like you, who are looking to take their lives to the next
level, or at least a different level than the one they are on.
Please enjoy.
My Parents Always Told Me That Being An Artist Is Only A Hobby
I
would love to tell you how wrong they are, but I had the same outlook
when I was younger. My impressions of being an artist were of the
“starving” variety. Like Bruce Wayne and Batman, I assumed my life as an
artist would be night and day, literally. Doing something I didn’t love
during the day in order to support the thing I did love at night.
What
I started to realize was it wasn’t as “night” and “day” as I thought. I
wanted day jobs that would inform the art. Learn from the day job,
taking jobs that would make me better at my craft, then my growth in the
craft would help me land the next day job. It turned out to be a
beautiful cycle. What was even more beautiful was having the income to
create. If you handcuff yourself by having to use your art for money,
you may head down a path that you don’t want to be on. Monetary freedom
is creative freedom. Keep your day job until you can support yourself
with your art. But use your day job to push the art forward.
Don’t
assume that because you can’t make money yet that you will never be
able to. What do you need to get better at? Start there. There are so
many aspects to being an artist besides the art, especially today. Not
only do you need to create the art, but you need to market it and manage
it. You are your own business.
Doesn’t
sound appealing? That’s fine, just find someone who loves your art more
than you do, then they can do all the stuff you don’t want to. Where
you going to find that person? Exactly, get to work.
My
advice is to decrease the tension between creation and self-promotion
by combining the two. Make sharing a part of your creating and
vice-versa. Sharing should become a daily practice as much as the actual
daily practice of your craft. A great thing I have found is the added
perspective of an audience helps create the art you are sharing with
them in the first place. You will start to build community and
networking around your art. The bigger the community, the more likely
you can do what you love for a living. Sharing creates an ecosystem of
creativity and connecting.
What Do You Feel Is The Foundation Of Creativity?
Everything around you is your foundation.
Too big?
Try this:
Take
bits and pieces from everything, and create something completely new.
Extract as you go and save it for later. Look for patterns. Create,
study, make, study more, create more, etc. You should study as much as
you make, and share as much as you study and make.
Got it?
Being
a creative is as much about the community as it is the individual
artist. The best artists in their respective generations are always
products of their environment. Being that person that is connected to
many different things allows you to create things that no one else can.
The more input, the more output. Look at what you are doing, what other
people are doing, and more importantly what they are NOT doing. Once you
start recognizing that, you can take it on and create your own niche.
Time
is also a huge foundation of creativity. You need to spend time every
day sitting in your art. Visit it, listen to it, absorb it, and practice
it. Schedules and routines free you. Knowing when you have time for the
thing you want to be doing every day is liberating. If this is
something you really want to do, you need to make sure you are actually
doing it.
Never
get caught up in the FOMO (fear of missing out), because you are not
missing out. You are doing your thing. Let go of what you think you
should be doing, or what everyone else is doing. You are an individual
with their own goals and dreams. Following what other people are doing
will pull you away from them.
If
you need to refocus yourself, if you feel like you are not doing the
thing you should be, ask yourself: what would I do if no one was paying
attention? Or if no one was looking? That will usually be the thing that
seems boring, or not cool, and not what everyone else is doing. That is
also the best part. The time you are putting in the effort to reach
your goals is the same time that will keep everyone else from reaching
theirs.
One day you won’t be here, but you get today. What are you going to do with it?
Quotes
The artist welds their theft in to something completely new.
Don’t flatter through imitation, flatter through transformation.
It’s about content.
Make sharing a part of your daily practice as much as the daily practice on your craft.
Austin Kleon Links
Chase Jarvis Links
Joey Links
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