lifehacker.com: “A good composer does not imitate; he steals,” Igor Stravinsky supposedly said. Faulkner allegedly phrased it as “Immature artists copy, great artists steal.” Steve Jobs put it most simply: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” The saying regularly inspires artists, thinkers, and dorm-room poster designers. But in practical terms, what does it mean?
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Another tried and true saying in the art world is that you have to learn the rules so that you know which ones to break. The example this article provides of the student experimental film is funny but true. When you are just starting out as an artist you have no idea which rules to break and which rules to follow. You can only learn that by looking at great work by much more experienced people in your field. My physical computing professor tells us every class that the only way to learn how to write good code is to read a lot of code and the only way to learn how to build machines is to look at a lot of machines. Stealing from other artists is not copying because you don't want to do that work yourself, it's about copying parts of their work so that you can explore other parts of your idea and push yourself outside of your comfort zone.
I have often heard this phrase and enjoyed joking about it, but I have never given it serious thought before. It really is a great idea to have when creating artwork. After all, it is impossible to create any art that is not influenced by some other work, unless you have never seen any art before.... Even subconsciously other works influence what we create. In high school, my English teacher told us that we were only allowed to break a grammatical rule when writing poetry if we truly knew the rule. She wanted us to start with the basic rules as a platform for our work, even our creative free form poetry. It makes for a good place to start and then later you can decide whether or not to follow the rules and which ones you want to break.
The article explains that stealing is really finding inspiration from ideas. This inspiration is different from imitation. The article emphasizes that this very common idea in art and proves that there are set ways to do things or rather better ways than others. I feel that this a common unoriginal idea that we see a lot in. Not just in the fine and performing arts but in writing. There are different strategies like starting essays with questions or structuring writing in similar formats. I think this idea of inspiration and form applies to almost any discipline. However, I think the idea of stealing is something that should change. Stealing has a negative connotation where inspiration and creating works based on others has a positive connotation. I think the terminology needs to change because even this article has a positive tone. It is a sign of respect and point of pride to be an inspiration to someone so the phrase really should be “inspired by a strong idea” instead of “stealing the idea.”
The phrase "steal like an artist" is one that always resonates with me. As an artist you have to take from the world around you and subconsciously the other works around you. I truly believe that each idea and design is never actually new, but rather a cultivation of inspiration from the outside world around you. The world of art is so unique in the way it builds off of literally anything and everything around it. A sculpture a girl saw in an exhibit four years ago could inspire a painting she does tomorrow. A book a boy read last week could share the same thematic elements of a design he does today. There are so many ways the world around us shapes what makes your work, your work. Everything builds off of each other in some way, shape, or form, and its truly incredible.
The article mentions that artistic “stealing” done well is a way to explore an idea more deeply, a way to learn the rules so you can break them (and comment on those rules), and even honor your sources. Another reason “artists steal” is because it continues the overarching artistic conversation. If artists didn’t use, and by using, comment on the artists that came before them there would be no conversation. It would just be artists shouting their own disconnected ideas into a noisy room. This ongoing conversation is what gives us art history. It’s the long chain of stealing, commenting on, expanding on, and even criticizing the work that came before. It’s the reason some eras are defined by particular ideas or modes of expression. And some ideas are so important and so timely that they can only be done justice when many artists are engaged in exploring them. “Stealing” makes exploration possible.
It is so interesting to read articles like this because I think that they are so subjective. Like sure that is how this one person feels about the concept of "stealing" other peoples work but how do I feel, or how does the next person feel? My big question is does it really even matter? We are constantly influenced by the things around us and what we have already been exposed to. It would be impossible to create art and not be inspired by things that you have seen or other people's ideas. That being said there are plenty of people who create very new and original work. or styles and they are individuals but if you ask them what their inspiration is I bet they could get you a long list of people that they "stole" from. So again we get back to my question of who really cares. I suppose if I was an artist and I went to a gallery opening and saw something that looked just like my stuff I would maybe be mad, but also who's to say that a person was not just inspired by the same things you were, and who's t say they even knew of your art or were "stealing" from you on purpose? We have literally no idea how any of tat happens so I think for now lets just look our for true plagiarizing and let the rest be called inspiration because honestly we have much bigger problems.
Today in class Susan talked about how we no longer have “new” ideas, we simply cycle through different variations and combinations of tried and true themes. We begin by learning the “rules”: what makes a piece strong, what techniques invoke what emotions, the impact of color, and more such as this. As we learn those rules, we understand them in the context of art that has been created. We have incredibly difficult times conceptualizing these ideas without feeling their impact on us first-hand. It is once we understand all of this that we have the ability to implement these techniques as we understand they already exist but in a different perspective or combination. Much of our challenge as artists is not to create something new, but to provide a different perspective on something we already understand.
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