Steal like an artist

Good artists copy, but great artists steal.
— Pablo Picasso

In case you were wondering, no, this is not me announcing I'm going to remove the anti-copy+paste code on here or start posting photos from Pinterest. Never. Here's the deal: a while ago, I discovered the webpage for Steal Like An Artist (And Nine Other Things Nobody Told Me) by Austin Kleon. And it painfully confused me.

"What?" I stared the the screen, dumbstruck. "Why is he saying to steal?"

I closed out the webpage and went back to whatever I was doing. Still, those words stuck with me, even though I wasn't quite sure what they meant. Or what they had to do with me or anything I liked. But, just the other day, I understood. Through a saying from a Bible verse: There is nothing new under the sun. No matter what you believe, I think we can agree on that. Everything is a remix, the reloaded version of what came before it. Even me and you. Even this blog, I'm sure.

I don't want to be original. Originality is unoriginal because of the simple fact everyone is trying to be original. I want to be an artist, and I want to steal like one. Because artists don't simply 'steal'. Not in a literal (or illegal!) way. At least, the real ones don't. Artists reverse-engineer, artists remodel, artists start with the foundation of what's there and build up; until you have something completely new (and maybe even a little revolutionary).

Steve Jobs did it. So did van Gogh. And Beyonce.

I think I will too.

xoxo | annika