Was introduced to Austin Kleon‘s timely little book this morning, via a post full of Kleon’s catchy, inspiring graphics, over on Thoughts On Theatre. Followed her links from there to Kleon’s own site promoting the book.

There’s not much I can say to add to this succinct message. If you are a creative person, you will already, instinctively, intuitively know these things. No doubt you’ve heard the message before…you’ve come across one of the many famous quotes on the subject, or maybe you’ve even thought these things up for yourself, and reading this list simply confirms what you have suspected all along.

And yet, as common and familiar as these ideas are, seeing them still excites creative types. Why? Because while we’ve all heard the message, it hasn’t really sunk in to the point where we believe it, practice it, apply it, and really, truly KNOW it.

Kleon’s message is familiar, but not redundant. These things need to be said, and said, and said, until it sinks in and starts to change us from the inside:

The ability to create is a gift that life gives to everyone—your own creative ideas are a mashup of having seen other people’s creations—and what you then go on to create becomes your gift to the world, your contribution to the massive pool of art, ideas, and thought; you are simply joining in a conversation that started when human life began.

“Creativity is not magic, creativity is for everyone.”

One of my favorite examples of both the continuing life of a good idea, and of artists drawing on what has inspired them in order to go on and make something “same, but different,” are these incarnations of a rhino woodcut that is nearly 500 years old…

clockwise from top left: anonymous 1514, Durer 1515, Durer 1515, Dali 1956, preemiememe 2009, Hans Burgkmair 1515

Related articles

• Austin Kleon on 10 Things Every Creator Should Remember But We Often Forget (leggotunglei808.wordpress.com)