Month: January 2018

In the follow-on book, Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, Austin Kleon talks about the art-stealing process in reverse. Doing the giving rather than stealing. Here are my reflections on the topic in the book.

“Work Doesn’t Speak for Itself”

But the stories about the work do.

The stories about the work affect how people feel and understand about your work.

The feelings and understanding affect how people value your work.

Become a better story-teller is a must-have skill for pros who want to produce work that matters.

“Structure is Everything”

Our lives may be messy and unorganized, but the stories we should not be.

The most important part of a story is its structure.

Steven Pressfield talks about this structure of beginning-middle-end in his book “Do the Work.”

Story-telling is a hard skill to master and can take a lifetime to do.

Just like many things, the stories get better the more we talk about them.

“Talk About Yourself at Parties”

The stories about your work are non-fiction, so tell the truth and with dignity and self-respect.

You do have to make your case because no one else will.

There is no need to hijack your audience, either. Tell stories with a sense of empathy for your audience.

Your stories might not be for everyone, and that is OK.

In the follow-on book, Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, Austin Kleon talks about the art-stealing process in reverse. Doing the giving rather than stealing. Here are my reflections on the topic in the book.

“Don’t be a Hoarder”

The things we like to experience, collect, and learn about might not be all that different from what we can create.

It is OK to use our taste as the guide for our creation. Absorbing and creating can feed off each other and form a virtuous cycle.

Our taste and influence are worth sharing because they tell the world who we are about.

“No Guilty Pleasure”

Kleon said that “dumpster diving” is one of the jobs of the artist.

Many sources of inspiration came from artists who are willing to pay attention to the stuff others had discarded.

The world is full of hidden gems. Sometimes all it takes is the willingness to search for those treasures in places other people are not willing or able to go.

Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with those who appreciate what you appreciate.

“Credit is Always Due”

Share other’s work with care and respect. Crediting other’s work is the right thing to do.

In fact, when it comes to sharing other people’s work, proper attribution is not just nice-to-have.

Crediting is a must-do.

In the follow-on book, Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, Austin Kleon talks about the art-stealing process in reverse. Doing the giving rather than stealing. Here are my reflections on the topic in the book.

“Send out a daily dispatch”

Overnight, lightning-bolt or big-bang success is a myth.

Behind every success, there is usually tons of small piece of work that accumulate into something significant.

Get into a habit of regularly putting your work out on display but don’t overdo it. Strike a balance between sharing the work and doing the work.

“The “So What” Test”

Sure, share your stuff, but be selective about showing what you got.

Share useful or interesting work. Skip the triviality. If you are not sure, save it for later.

“Turn Your Flow into Stock”

Focus on building assets and achievements drip-by-drip or piece-by-piece.

It is more important to show on-going, well-orchestrated progression than a one-time flash of brilliance.

At the same time, pay attention to the common thread that might exist between some of these pieces.

Some pieces of your work just might become naturally synergetic with some other parts. You can then combine them into something even more useful or interesting.

“Build a Good (Domain) Name”

Find a build a right spot with your name on it.

It is your space for doing self-teaching, self-learning, or just self-invention and reinvention.

Keep it clean and don’t make compromises or selling out.

In the follow-on book, Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, Austin Kleon talks about the art-stealing process in reverse. Doing the giving rather than stealing. Here are my reflections on the topic in the book.

“Take people behind the scenes”

We have often been told that people do not care about how the sausage gets made as they only care about getting and eating the sausage.

That could very well be the case before the digital age except for this model of thinking is outdated.

If given a choice, most of us would like to understand better how people carry out their creative process.

Part of the learning is to understand and emulate experts’ doing till we are getting better as well.

In Scott Adams’ book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Adams also discussed the importance of having a system or a series of processes.

By showing the audience the process, how a piece of art gets made, the artist shows her humble and vulnerable side.

The generous sharing of the process can create an even stronger connection between the artist and the audience.

“Become a documentarian of what you do”

Sharing the process sounds like an excellent idea, but how?

How can you show your work even when you have nothing concrete to show?

Kleon suggests becoming a documentarian of what you do. Take advantage of all the cheap, accessible tools around us such as smartphones and laptops.

Document and record our progress as we go. This is not making art. It is not about making it pretty.

It is about capturing your experience and the materials. Those experience and materials, at some future point, just might turn into some sharable assets at your disposal.

In the follow-on book, Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, Austin Kleon talks about the art-stealing process in reverse. Doing the giving rather than stealing. Here are my reflections on the topic in the book.

“Find a Scenius”

Very few of us are the lone geniuses who can create and succeed on his or her own alone.

Kleon suggests that, for most of us, creativity is always the result of a mind connected with other souls.

This debunks the image of creativity can only come from lone geniuses working alone and coming up with the one-and-only earth-shattering idea.

This also means that these days everyone – the artist and the curator, the master and the apprentice, the expert and the amateur – can contribute something.

“Be an amateur”

The knowledge gap is not so much about moving from mediocre to excellent. You can improve in increment. The real difference comes down to between doing nothing and doing something.

Kleon asserts that the world is changing at such a rapid rate that it is turning us all into amateurs. Working in the IT field, I can say this is undoubtedly true. Other technology-driven industries are experiencing the same phenomenon.

He further suggests, “Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.”

“You Cannot Find Your Voice if You Don’t Use It”

The Internet has created a tremendous platform for everyone to show off their work and allow others to see those work with just a few clicks.

Sharing is the best way to let people know what you do and the things you care about.

“Read Obituaries”

We all have a limited lifespan. At some point, nothing matters, and you want to be remembered for what you had stood for.

Kleon suggests we take inspiration from the people who muddled through life before us. They all started out as amateurs, and they got where they were going by making do with what they were given, and having the guts to put themselves out there.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that has been given to us.” –The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien