Vincent and The Thief (me)

Most artists have a phase where they mimic the greats. They’ll go to the museum with their sketchbook or their easel and reproduce something ancient and duplicate the technique of its creation — a tactile learning experience when the practice of apprenticeship has been lost to time. The Masters. The Geniuses. The Renaissance Men who forged the path before us are to be admired and honored and, if possible, copied exactly. This is how you learn to be great yourself.

The author Austin Kleon calls this “stealing like an artist,” in his book with a similar title. Nothing in the world is original. Everything that has ever been made is a copy of a copy of a copy. But the best artists don’t only make carbon copies of the artists’ work that came before. They use this “thieving” practice as a stepping stone to forge their own path. All artists piece together what might not make sense to someone else and make something new. This is what makes up their style. — for example, in one of the plays I’ve written, I mashed up The Flintstones characters into the context of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams to talk about the current political climate. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite works, even if it may never be performed on stage. Why?

Mashing together strange, unconnected input collected from your world will create something new in a way only you can. Absolutely nobody else can see everything you see, even if they can see it, too. Your perspective is needed, now more than ever.

I’ve never been one for realistic art. My brain does not see the world that way. Everything is line and shape with a wiggly little rift in spacetime that makes it wonky and weird. I could never be a tattoo artist because I can’t copy anything and I can’t do realism, and perhaps it has stagnated my growth as an artist to learn how, but I’m content with my practice.

Recently I revisited a drawing by my favorite impressionist, Vincent van Gogh, whose art I appreciate because he seemingly saw the world the same way I do: in glances and vibrations. I’ve recreated his Sunflowers a few times. As the Doctor Who characterization of Vincent one said, “They’re always somewhere between life and death,” and I can’t imagine a better way to describe my life and my art.

As you can see, it’s not perfect. In fact, it didn’t even start out as sunflowers, but rather, a doodle of any old flower. That’s always what I draw when I don’t know what to draw. It just so happened to look close enough, and so I turned it into a reproduction.

Maybe Vincent was mad, but he, in my opinion, was one of the greatest artists who ever lived, not because he was famous in his life, but because he was willing to create in spite of it all. Despite nobody liking or buying his art. Despite his mental illness. Despite the devastation he continually felt, he made art. And that, I think, is what keeps me going.

I don’t know if I will ever sell another work of art again as long as I live. To me, that’s not the point. It’s healing. It’s meditative. It’s fun. I like the way it helps me explore the abstract, weird, dark recesses of my mind and bring it to life.

Dealing with feelings like putting flowers in a vase. They won’t last. Nothing ever does. But they can stay a while, and we can admire them or hate them or despair about the loss of them, but then we have to let them go.

All art is like this. If you hold on to everything forever, the pen won’t move. And neither will you.

So if you’re stuck and need inspiration, get out there and copy. Steal. Replicate. Embody the artists you love and create the art you want to see in the world.

And who knows? Maybe one day, young artists will go to the museum to duplicate your art. But there’s only one way to find out. Go make something!