Chapter Eight

Chapter eight has probably been one of my favorite chapters so far in Austin Kleon's book Steal Like a Artist. Austin talks first about how to handling people on the internet. He says the best way to vanquish your enemies is to ignore them, and the best way to make friends is to say nice things about them. I really agree with Austin on this topic. In fact I have grown tired of all the negativity on the internet. It seems that people feel that since they can hide behind a screen that they can be downright vulgar on the internet. 

Austin also talks about surrounding yourself with the people that are way smarter than you and better than you, the people who are doing the really interesting work. My favorite part of this chapter is when he is quoting Harold Ramis. "Find the the most talented person in the room, and if it's not you, go and stand next to him. Hang out with him, Try to be helpful." Austin also adds that if that person that you find in the room to be the most talented, you need to find another room. I feel having a list of the "smart people" completely works in your favor in the creativity department. Seeing what they do and how they do it is quite inspiring. I follow a artist by the name of Jasper St Aubyn West. He superimposes his drawings over photographs that he takes. I will include a few of my favorites in this post. Another person I have followed on Instagram is Chip Kidd. I started following him because of our shared love of the caped crusader Batman. In following Chip Kidd I also started following Stefan Sagmeister.

The next part of the chapter kinda goes back to the first part. You're going to see stupid stuff out there and you're going to feel like you need to correct it. Well, keep your mouth shut and use that energy in your own work. 

The last part of the chapter talks about how you should write fan mail to your heroes. Austin recommends public fan letters. Write a blog post about someone's work that you admire. Make something and dedicate it to your heroes. Answer a question they've asked, solve a problem for them, or improve on their work and share it online. Maybe your hero will see your work, maybe they won't. Maybe they will respond to you, maybe not. The important thing is that you show your appreciation without expecting anything in return.

These are the pieces from Jasper that I was talking about. The last one is my first attempt in his style.