{"id":31737,"date":"2023-03-09T21:02:05","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T05:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31737"},"modified":"2023-03-09T21:09:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T05:09:32","slug":"thou-shalt-not-steal-unless-youre-an-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/thou-shalt-not-steal-unless-youre-an-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"Thou Shalt Not Steal…Unless You’re An Artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t watch a lot of movies these days, but several months ago I had some time and felt the urge to watch the new Elvis<\/em> movie with Austin Butler. Austin \"\"<\/a>ended up winning the Golden Globes Award for Best Actor<\/em> in his portrayal as the \u201cKing of Rock\u201d. I had a new appreciation for Elvis\u2019 music and found myself searching for his songs on iTunes in the car for a few days following the movie. That didn\u2019t last. I\u2019m back to my VERY diverse playlists!<\/p>\n

Elvis was certainly talented and unique. He seemed to offer something \u201cnew\u201d to his demographic audience. However, he was highly influenced by multiple artists, genres, and styles. \u00a0Of course, Hollywood has a way of embellishing and exaggerating history for the sake of drama and entertainment, but the producers did a good job showing that Elvis\u2019 \u201coriginality\u201d was not pulled out of thin air. As Austin Kleon says in Stealing Like an Artist<\/em> while quoting the cartoonist Gary Panter, \u201cIf you have one person you\u2019re influenced by, everyone will say you\u2019re the next whoever. But if you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you\u2019re so original!\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, John Lennon from the Beatles reportedly said, \u201cBefore Elvis, there was nothing.\u201d[i]<\/a> The movie shows that was certainly not true. \u00a0Presley is shown to take gospel, blues, country, and rock genres and songs from various artists he was around then transform them into something of his own. This has actually brought some negative press to Elvis by some over the years. \u00a0Nevertheless, Austin Kleon\u2019s book further validates that originality is never really original<\/em>. Pulling together existing styles, approaches, ideas, and concepts is actually the key to creating something \u201cnew\u201d. Like my graduate professor Dr. David Michelson always said, \u201cEverything is a remix\u201d.<\/p>\n

The main concept about stealing like an artist that I absolutely loved was imitation is not flattery<\/em>. Kleon says, \u201cDon\u2019t just steal the style, steal the thinking<\/em> behind the style. You don\u2019t want to look like your heroes, you want to see<\/em> like your heroes.\u201d[ii]<\/a> That will preach. One thing I respect about our senior pastor, John McLendon, is how he learned to see<\/em> and think<\/em> like his hero (Jesus of course!) when it came to his own approach to ministry and teaching in the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Our pastor and his wife grew up and served in non-denominational, Pentecostal based, churches all their lives. One day while John (our senior pastor, not the apostle) was reading the gospel of Matthew, he noticed Jesus\u2019 method of teaching in his context and time in first century Palestine. Jesus consistently used relevant and familiar imagery that people in that world could relate to and track with, to teach about God and faith. This is not a new concept, and most pastors today use relevant stories and topics to convey spiritual truths. John just took this idea and shot it with steroids.<\/p>\n

Our church is different. Really different. My wife and I were hesitant when we first attended five years ago. We do pop culture dramas, shoot music videos with prophets dressed like hip hop artists. Our band plays songs each week that tie into the message ranging from Kacey Musgraves to Five Finger Death Punch to Tim McGraw to Chris Tomlin. We plant people in the crowd with mics who may start singing or asking questions in the middle of the message. We recently did a Jackson Five choreographed dance to illustrate a point about finding our gifts. On top of all of that we engage a lot of controversial topics on Sunday mornings. I realize how unconventional this all sounds, I\u2019m struggling not judging it while I write, but it works and God uses it to create spiritual transformation in people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

I say all that to emphasize the portion of Kleon\u2019s book that says, don\u2019t just imitate, emulate. Learning how our influencers think, process, and see allows us to apply those principles and methods in our own ways and in our own contexts. For John (once again, our senior pastor not the apostle), this is how he took Jesus\u2019 Spirit and approach to teaching in the first century and applied it in his in the 21st<\/sup> century. Take something that exists and is familiar and transform it into something new and unique.<\/p>\n

A documentary named, The Creative Brain<\/em>, that I can longer find on Netflix unfortunately, followed a neuroscientist who interviewed some of the most creative artists and innovators in the world.[iii]<\/a> They covered several principles on creativity that reinforce and supplement what Austin says in his book. Balance was one of the key principles. Striking the right balance between art, inventions, or ideas that are familiar enough to get\u00a0<\/em>people\u2019s attention, while different enough to keep<\/em> their attention was a key to creative success and progress. The human brain likes both familiar things, to feel safe, but also needs novelty to enjoy new experiences. However, too\u00a0<\/em>familiar, it will be undetectable among everything else, but too<\/em> different it will be indigestible and off putting.<\/p>\n

When it comes to my NPO, this book gives me permission to be unconventional and creative with information that can be viewed as dry, dense, and complex. My goal is to take existing research, discoveries, and content from the ivory tower of biblical academia, especially those that are foreign to people in my context, and creatively present them in ways that are fresh, relevant, and engaging for the sake of biblical discernment, education, and integrity. After reading Steal Like An Artist,<\/em> I feel completely justified in finding and using comic books and superheroes as a way to teach all kinds of ideas for the general public and fellow nerds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Lou Marrelli, \u201cSix Musicians Who Influenced Elvis Presley,\u201d PBS (Public Broadcasting Service, October 6, 2022), https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/americanmasters\/six-musicians-who-influenced-elvis-presley\/21850\/.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0[ii] Kleon, Austin. Steal like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative<\/em>, (New York: Workman Pub. Co, 2012) 36.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> \u201cThe Creative Brain,\u201d IMDb (IMDb.com, April 25, 2019), https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt10338308\/.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t watch a lot of movies these days, but several months ago I had some time and felt the urge to watch the new Elvis movie with Austin Butler. Austin ended up winning the Golden Globes Award for Best Actor in his portrayal as the \u201cKing of Rock\u201d. I had a new appreciation for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2680,2588,2688,2687],"class_list":["post-31737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02-kleon","tag-steal","tag-elvis","tag-steallikeanartist","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31737"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31744,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31737\/revisions\/31744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}