As a creative person with internet access you probably have at least heard of this link if not bookmarked it.

A writer who draws, is how Austin Kleon describes himself.  I prefer to call him an artist who chooses his tools wisely.

I’ll admit I was ever so slightly turned off by his notion of stealing from other artists, but after reading his list of 10 things I realized first that he is good at writing a captivating title (no wonder he is a copywriter at his day job), and second that it was much like my talk on how to be creative, inspired by Ray Bradbury’s talk to on where do ideas come from, or Don Hahn’s book on reawakening your creative spirit entitled DANCING CORN DOGS IN THE NIGHT, (I know Don is way too busy to give talks – but his book is a must read).  What these and countless other similar talks and books and blogs have in common is what Austin so adeptly describes here:

“Ask any real artist, and they’ll tell you the truth: they don’t know where the good stuff comes from. They just show up to do their thing. Every day.”

And yet any respected artist is always asked ‘where do you get your ideas?’

True creativity is not in the (un)original idea it is in the execution.  Which Austin is a master at.   I love what he says about advice, mashups and Martha Stewart.

Whether he’s writing poetry by using an obsolete media, and promoting it via the latest technology, putting together a doodle made slide show or designing his website, or writing his blog.  Every thing he produces he makes creatively excellent by his use of tools to not only create but to get it noticed.

My high school art teacher used to say, ‘a good artist doesn’t blame his tools’ in Austin’s case he thanks his I’m sure.