Thanks to duckrabbit for letting me know about How To Steal Like an ARTIST, in which Austin Kleon, a writer and artist from Austin, Texas, and author of the two books, Steal Like An Artist and Newspaper Blackout, reveals and explains “10 things I wish Id heard when I was in college.”
It’s a useful list and a clear and amusing presentation of some very good advice. But you really need to read it rather than read me writing about it. But I’ll just steal one little bit, where he talks about what you learn from a couple of guys you may have heard of who decided they were going to be artists (and later Patti Smith wrote about it.)
Patti Smith and her friend Robert Maplethorpe dress up in all their gypsy gear and they go to Washington Square, where everybodys hanging out, and this old couple kind of gawks at them, and the woman says to her husband, Oh, take their picture. I think theyre artists. Oh, go on, he shrugged. Theyre just kids.
Of course neither Austin or I suggest you should all dress up in gypsy gear and nip up to Washington Square, but as he says “Fake it til you make it.” And read his post to find out more. Mapplethorpe never became one of my favourite photographers, perhaps because I always felt he was faking it, but he certainly made it so far as the art world was concerned.
And when you get to the bottom of the page there are other things to explore, including a page of some great quotes on ‘stealing’, a few of which may be familiar.