There is nothing wrong with being a copy cat!

What Meta's newest social media platform and Vincent Van Gogh can teach artists about copying.

Meta rolled out Threads yesterday, and it took the internet by storm. On the first day itself, the platform had over 30 million users. The vibe there is that of a noisy, bustling coffee shop — think the early days of Twitter, when people were just being people, sharing their interests; photographs of their bookshelves, art, pets, gardens, and coffee mugs; having conversations, and shit posting.

In fact, if you’ve ever used Twitter, Threads will be immediately recognizable. The user interface is an almost exact copy of Twitter, with some under-the-hood changes, most likely with the algorithms and with the seamless experience of connecting with your IG followers.

There are no ads there — yet, and the bots haven’t appeared — yet. How long this vibe will last is anyone’s guess, but the early days of most social media apps are fun.

I’m not here to talk about Threads, though, at least not directly. What I want to talk about is copying, a hot-button subject in artist circles, which is where I hang out the most.

Many of you probably know that I’m a self-taught artist, which means that I’ve picked up everything that I have learnt from books, YouTube videos, and e-courses.

One of the first controversies that I was exposed to was in a large Facebook group, and it was on the question of copying. Someone asked if it was OK to copy a teacher’s work or another artist’s work in their own sketchbook while they were still learning. There were mixed opinions in the comments. But the ones that had the strongest impression on me were made in censorious tones, saying that copying was BAD, that it was unethical, that you should never, ever copy another artist.

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As a result of that heated exchange, all the time that I was trying to learn how to paint, before I had ever started posting any of my then sorry attempts at art online, I tried very hard to NOT copy the teacher. For a newbie like me, that was sometimes very difficult. And the only result was that it took me a lot longer to understand some of the concepts that would have been much easier to grasp if I had just allowed myself to copy what was being taught. THEN, once I had understood it, I could make it mine.

Soon after that incident, another artist started a discussion on copying based on Steal Like An Artist by

Austin Kleon

That’s when I learnt that copying isn’t unequivocally BAD — artists do it all the damn time!

You’ll spot them in museums, copying the great masters. You’ll find them in art schools, where copying apparently “remains a central tenant of fine art education”. Go back to history, and you’ll even find the masters copying one another!

Case in point: Vincent Van Gogh, who spent his time at the Saint-Remy Asylum copying the works of his favorite artists, including Eugene Delacroix and Francois Millet.

And yet, we are constantly getting our knickers in a twist over something without which “the art world as we know it would not exist.”

Though copying can and has assumed many forms—and sprung from a wide array of motives—throughout art history, the art world as we know it would not exist without the practice.

Anna Claire Mauney

Coming back to Threads — yes, it is a copy of Twitter in many immediately discernible ways. But there are some differences — it has left out some of Twitter’s features, for now — there are no hashtags or DMs. And I’m willing to bet that Meta has brought its own spin to the technology that underlies Threads, by which I mean the algorithms that run it.

That’s similar to Van Gogh’s copies — you can see the similarities in the composition; it’s the execution that is different.

That is the premise of Steal Like An Artist — that you copy the elements you love from the artists you admire and then you make them your own, in your own style.

That is the premise for making art, for creating things — books, paintings, courses, pottery. You absorb ideas from a variety of influences, and you bring your own unique spin to them.

This is your permission slip

For anyone who is just starting out: Copy the artists that you are learning from. Copy their techniques stroke by stroke and step by step in your sketchbooks. Understand what they are doing and why. Then find out what you love doing. What parts of their process don’t interest you. What techniques light you up. Then make it yours!

For anyone who is interested in experimenting and growing their art: Find the artists you admire. Figure out what you love about their work. Copy it. Then make it yours.

For anyone who has been scared of stepping up to teach or to show their work: If you’ve brought your own take to a technique, teach it! If you’ve gathered ideas from a number of different sources and put your own unique perspective to it, teach it. As long as you are not teaching the exact same thing you learnt from someone else, teach it. Share it. Own it.

Copying is a hot-button subject in creative circles, but it isn’t unequivocally wrong. Understanding the nuances, using your own discernment, and tuning in to your own moral compass should help you to understand when copying is wrong, and when it is a perfectly legitimate way of learning, developing, and growing as an artist.