Chapter 7 of Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon, is all about how the internet has allowed us to go places that we would never have been able to previously. It is aptly called Geography is No Longer Our Master. I find this true in so many different ways. With just a few key strokes you can visit far off lands that before you would have just dreamt about. You are able to see an almost endless supply of pictures from exotic lands that you would have had to search out in multiple books in the library before. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE libraries and books (I have a huge library myself) but when the internet is in your house and at your fingertips, the world is now that open book.
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| Steal Like An Artist |
While
reading I came across something the author said about "Your brain gets
too comfortable in your everyday surroundings." At first thought I was
thinking "Isn't that what I want? A nice comfortable place to live and
work in." But then, on further thinking I realized that the author is
talking about when you can get in a rut or your work can become
stagnant. That's when you need to mix it up a bit. Go somewhere
different. Meet new people and try new foods. Step out of your comfort
zone for a while. Austin also thinks that everyone should move to a
different place. He says "You can always come back, but you have to
leave at least once." I guess I could say that I've done that. I went
from living in a small farm town to moving to a bigger college town
where multiple cultures abound. The only people I knew here were my
husband and son. I felt out-of-place and a bit lonely. But, to be
honest, it was the best thing I could have done! I made new friends, I
love the area, and I started a new career - Graphic Design.
The author mentions that he grew up "in the middle of a cornfield in southern Ohio" but now lives in Texas. He thinks that most of the people who grew up where he did, Texas would be as different as Mars. I feel kind of like this when I go back to where I grew up. Everything is so much different than where I live now, and it seems like an entire different lifetime when I lived there. Your life will be so much richer if you add more experiences like these to it. So, I travel and then I go back to where it all began and see the differences. The following quote from the book kind of sums it up nicely.
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I read that it helps to live around interesting people. I also agree with this statement. I love having friends in all different walks of life. I have a lot of friends that are students, but I also have friends that are lawyers, engineers, artists, physical therapists, psychologists, doctors, homemakers, dentists, you get the idea. I can't even list all of the professions! I also have the privilege to have friends of varying nationalities. All of these things help to enrich my life. I learn so much from all of them and hope that they, in turn, learn something from me, too. I volunteer for different things at my church, school, and with Boy Scouts, and get to meet even more people this way. Every new person brings new experiences and these can spark new ideas and creativity. I even find myself bouncing project ideas of different people to get their perspective to see if they might spark an idea that I might not have thought about previously. So, keep meeting new people and making new friends. You never know who might give you that next great idea!
In closing this week, I would like to backtrack to a previous blog entry. This would have been about 6 weeks ago, and the blog entry was "Read, Read, and Read Some More." I posted some books that were on my "to read" list. I'm happy to say that I was able to get one of them last weekend and read it in 2 days. No, it's not a little 30 page thing, it had 322 pages. I just love reading. I devour books, and when I get a book that I am really enjoying, it's hard for me to put it down. This book is part of a series by Karen White - The Tradd Street Series. So far, there are 4 books in the series:
The one I just finished reading is Return to Tradd Street. I own all of them and have read the first one multiple times and will re-read the others, too. It is a series set in Charleston, SC present day. It does mention some true historic things in it, but is almost completely fiction. It is about a woman, Melanie Middleton who is a real estate agent who happens to also be able to see and hear ghosts. This makes life in a town as old as Charleston quite interesting and sometimes scary. She has some great friends, some antagonists, a romantic lead (or two) and a mother who also has "the gift". Her mother is also able to get complete "stories" from items when she touches them, thus leading her to wear gloves most of the time. In this book, Melanie is pregnant and dealing with her everyday life and some troubles that pop up along the way. There are some people causing trouble along with some dearly departed doing the same. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, so I won't go into any more detail. I had been waiting to get my hands on this one and can't wait for the next book in this series. It was a really good read!
I'm having fun working my way through the book Steal Like an Artist and am now on Chapter 6. The name of this chapter sums the content up pretty well — The Secret: Do good work and share it with people. So, there are two parts to this, "do good work" and "share", both of which are important.
The first part can be a bit disconcerting. The author puts it in terms that make complete sense; while in school, everyone there, even the teachers, are either paying or being paid to help each other have "good work". But, once you're out of school, there aren't people there every day to tell you that you're doing a good job or to tell you how to improve your design. He even shares a design given to him by one of his friends, and I've included it below.
Then we have the concept of sharing. It sounds pretty simple, but actually doing it can be a little overwhelming. The main advantage of this day–and–age, is that we have the internet. I don't know about everyone else, but, I know that I'm a bit nervous about putting my work out there for "God and everyone" to see. In fact, it kind of terrifies me a bit, but, everyone starts somewhere.
The author mentions that the internet is an incubator for ideas. I think that is a great idea! Imagine putting something that you're working on up on your blog. People look at it and comment on it. First of all, people are looking at your work - that's a step in the right direction. Then, they are commenting on it, both good and bad. This is a good thing even if their comments aren't very nice. You can learn from these. By seeing the comments and working off of them, your design might go in a direction that you might not have ever thought about on your own. Even if that direction doesn't work out, you've tried something new and learned from it.
Austin says that "I've found that having a presence online is a kick in the pants." I find that kind of funny because it can be taken two ways—either as a "kick start" of sorts, or as "I really wish I hadn't posted that." He points out something that some people may not realize, most websites and blogs are set up in reverse chronological order—most recent is first and oldest is last. "So, you're only as good as your last post." That in itself, is enough to make sure that your blog posts are as complete and clear as possible so that you get your point across and draw in viewers for the right reasons.
Chapter 5 of Steal Like An Artist, by Austin Kleon, is what this week's post is all about. I think I could use the old saying "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" to summarize this chapter. For the most part, I must agree! If you continually do nothing but work, your work and ideas can become stale. This can put you in a real rut. Nothing is worse than being stuck without any new ideas and the proverbial "writer's block." So, do things that aren't work or work related, that you simply enjoy doing, and you just might rejuvenate your work and your ideas, too.
There's a quote in the chapter that says "Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing." Personally, I can't just "do nothing", but I know what they mean. I think they are saying to do something that doesn't take a lot of planning and forethought, something that is definitely not "work." In my case, I am always in the process of reading a book. I LOVE to read! I also watch a lot of movies—old, new, foreign, etc. Then there's always puzzles (on my iPad and "real"), a few games of solitaire and Sudoku to decompress with. I find these are all really good to play when I just need something "mind numbing". The apps I like to play are called Jigsawed, Solitaire and Sudoku, and they're pictured below.
I also enjoy listening to music, drawing floor plans, building with Legos and coloring. Then there is one thing that I do that takes absolutely no heavy brain work—I deal with my puppy. I have a Siberian Husky, named Freya, that is 12 weeks old. I've had her for five weeks now and am in love with her. She is a great distraction from projects, which can be both good and bad. But, just look at that face and tell me that you wouldn't take a break to play with her, too.
Getting back to chapter five, the author says that it's very important to have a hobby. Again, I agree. As for me, my guilty pleasure hobby type thing would probably have to be video games. I am admittedly a nerd! I have a Gameboy Advance, a Gameboy Advance SP, a GameCube, and a Wii. I love almost all things Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda. I've been known to play Guitar Hero and Rock Band (and their various 1, 2, 3's etc.) until my fingers practically fly off. Then there's Red Steel, a sword fighting game, that I play until I can't raise my arms any more. I know, that's pretty pathetic, but, it's fun and I can't help myself. There's also the Just Dance games. These are fun on a different, completely embarrassing level. Try them, before you judge me, you just might have fun, too!
There are multiple quotes in this chapter, as with all of the previous ones, too. One quote was by someone that almost everyone if familiar with, Steve Jobs, but another is a quote by Maira Kalman that says "Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind." I wasn't familiar with her, but, her quote works in perfectly with this chapter. This led me to do a bit of research on her. I found that she was born in Tel Aviv, but has lived in New York since the age of four. Maira is not only an illustrator, but a writer, too. She has done many The New Yorker covers and has done books for children and adults.
One of the books that she illustrated, which Michael Pollan wrote, is Food Rules an Eater's Manual. This book looks like it's a lot of fun. If you go to her website this book is on her landing page. I started looking at the pictures that she had posted, and reading the captions that went with them, and immediately started laughing. She seems to have such a great sense of humor and her pictures can take a serious topic and make it easier to understand and poke a little fun at it at the same time. I'm definitely going to add it to my library. Below are just a few images from this book. Enjoy!
One more thing, she was married to the designer Tibor Kalman
until his death in 1999. As some of you may know, he was a graphic
designer and was well known for his work as editor–in–chief of Colors magazine. A couple of his pieces were the ones of famous people if they were born of another race. They were published in an Color Magazine's issue #4 on Race, in an article called "What if..?"
Of course this first one is Queen Elizabeth.
The second one is
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
