Steal Like an Artist – For a long time now I have been aware that in the art and design world it is very difficult to find something that is completely new. There are elements borrowed from one piece of work that may be copied or changed to make a more exciting piece of work. Even in my own practice it feels like there is ‘nothing new under the sun’. I find there is nothing more frustrating to think I’ve found a great idea, only to research it and discover that actually I’m way ‘behind the curve’. However in today’s talk this became even more pronounced when we had some examples quoted from artist Austin Kleon’s book titled: ‘Steal like and Artist’. Kleon decided to research into his own style of art. He found that over the centuries there had in fact been not one but three other artists working in a similar way. These were namely Brian Gysin (1916 – 1986), Tristan Tzara (1896 – 1963) and Caleb Whitefoord (1734 – 1810). Apparently they had all been doing something similar. When this is seen across the ages it really does show that nothing at all is ever new. Indeed […]
