I\u2019ll start today with a confession. I love art in all its forms, but I didn\u2019t know this about myself until recently. Growing up in a rural community with parents in medical and business professions, I\u2019d never visited an art museum. My dad’s hunting trophies were the decor that graced the walls of our home.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m making up for lost time. On my days off, I go to museums and galleries. On vacation, I always find an art museum. I dream of hanging works by local artists in our home (for now I\u2019ll have to be content with framed posters that I buy in the museum stores). So I was intrigued when I saw the title of this week\u2019s read, Steal Like an Artist.<\/em><\/p>\n This book reads like the book of Proverbs. It\u2019s full of nuggets of wisdom, sometimes quite quotable, but we\u2019re not really going to build a whole theology around it.<\/p>\n For example\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cGarbage in, garbage out.\u201d[1]<\/a> In other words, surround yourself with the right inspiration.<\/p>\n \u201cFake it \u2019til you make it.\u201d[2]<\/strong><\/em><\/a> Just keep showing up and putting in the work. Isn\u2019t this what Jason told us on our Zoom call last week? Hindsight will reveal how far you\u2019ve come.<\/p>\n It seems this snippets-of-wisdom style is intentional on the author\u2019s part. Toward the conclusion of the book, Kleon says, \u201cSome advice can be a vice. Feel free to take what you can use, and leave the rest. There are no rules.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n As we know from previous readings like Daniel Kahneman\u2019s Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em> and Kathryn Schulz\u2019s Being Wrong<\/em>, our brains are meaning-making machines. Our brains are always jumping to conclusions because they are designed to make sense out of whatever input they receive. Robert Pepperell calls it \u201cthe sense of compulsion I felt to make sense of what was in front of me.\u201d[4]<\/a> He is referring to his research at the intersection of art and neurobiology, examining how the brain makes sense of a more-or-less abstract image. This \u201cvisual indeterminacy\u201d as he calls it, \u201cis by no means a straightforwardly pleasurable experience; it can sometimes be quite frustrating or disorienting, and not immediately rewarding.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n So that brings me to making sense of Kleon\u2019s snippets of advice. Like most of you, my vocation is not particularly artistic in nature. My NPO has little to do with artistic expression, so what can I learn from Kleon? In many ways, he is showing readers how to be the architects of their own experience in order to produce their best work. As I look to the future, especially if I hope to create a ministry to parents unlike anything that already exists, the issue of validation is likely to be important. Kleon says, \u201cYou can\u2019t go looking for validation from external sources. Once you put your work into the world, you have no control over the way people will react to it.\u201d[6]<\/a> That sounds to me like another way to describe self-differentiation. Kleon continues, \u201cNot everybody will get it. People will misinterpret you and what you do. They might even call you names. So get comfortable with being misunderstood, disparaged, or ignored\u2014the trick is to be too busy doing your work to care.\u201d[7]<\/a> This is actually something that I had to deal with last semester. As I began talking to potential stakeholders, I had one couple decline to participate in my Discovery Workshop. While they would never say it, I strongly suspect it was because they disagree with some of my underlying ideology. At first I was upset because I was trying to affect change as broadly as possible. But through my one-on-one interviews, I realized that it will be more impactful to offer a new approach to those who are ready and hungry for change instead of spending all my energy trying to persuade those who are not ready. And so, exactly as Kleon said, I\u2019m too busy doing my work, investing in those parents who are receptive, to worry too much about my critics.<\/p>\n The other area that I want to highlight is Practicing Productive Procrastination.[8]<\/a> I do a lot of procrastination, and not all of it is productive. But I do agree with Kleon that sometimes we just need to get bored for inspiration (or motivation or the perfect solution to a problem) to strike. That\u2019s why, despite the extra workload of a doctoral program, I\u2019m trying very hard to pursue new friendships and hobbies in this season. This is another small way that I can be the architect of my own experience and in the end produce the best results.<\/p>\n In the end, I think we can all hold onto the main idea of Steal Like and Artist.<\/em> \u201cThe manifesto is this: Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use\u2014do the work you want to see done.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n But before I hit that \u201cpost\u201d button, here is my honest question for you: Does Kleon\u2019s advice speak more to System 1 or System 2 thinking? I could almost see arguments for either\/or, so I\u2019m curious to know what my cohort thinks.<\/p>\n ___________________________________<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Kleon, Austin. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things No One Told You About Being Creative.<\/em> Workman Publishing Company; New York. 2012. 21.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid. 35.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid. 117.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Pepperell, Robert. “Connecting Art and the Brain: An Artist’s Perspective on Visual Indeterminacy.”\u00a0*Frontiers in Human Neuroscience*\u00a0(Aug 17, 2011). doi:https:\/\/doi-org.georgefox.idm.oclc.org\/10.3389\/fnhum.2011.00084. https:\/\/georgefox.idm.oclc.org\/login?url=https:\/\/www-proquest-com.georgefox.idm.oclc.org\/scholarly-journals\/connecting-art-brain-artists-perspective-on\/docview\/2293168479\/se-2<\/a>.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Kleon, Austin. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things No One Told You About Being Creative.<\/em> Workman Publishing Company; New York. 2012. 93.<\/p>\n