Last week an artist I follow on Instagram posted this quesion: when someone copies your work, are you flattered or annoyed?
The discussion blew up. Artists had a lot of feelings. And I jumped in, because, well, I had a lot of feelings too. In fact, this whole thing has been on my mind ever since I picked up a paintbrush in 2020.
The comments got me thinking about a painting I made fairly recently that still sits in the growing pile of unshared work in my studio.
One of my favorite artists is Kathleen Taylor. I’ve followed her work for years. I own several of her pieces and can count at least five different places in my house where her work is displayed. Her paintings have always had a way of speaking straight to my heart.
A few months ago, she posted a painting that spoke to me in a very different way.
Usually when I see one of Kathleen’s paintings, I want to buy it.
This time, I wished I had painted it.
The piece was a smiling sun faced flower growing on a stem with big green leaves. Hand-lettered lyrics from You Are My Sunshine wound through it. The gray sky was a subtle nod to the other song lyrics without spelling them out. There were patterns and folk art elements and all the little details that make Kathleen’s work unmistakably hers. And all I could think was:
How did she think of all that?
So I set out to paint it. Not something like it. Not something it reminded me of. I looked at her painting and decided I wanted to paint my own version of it. Just for fun.
As I painted, I found myself using pieces of her visual language. I painted her signature striped tendrils but in shades of green. I thought about how to hand letter the lyrics across the top.
I was almost finished before I stopped.
I remember sitting there staring at those tendrils. They were the part I loved most about Kathleen’s painting. Which was exactly the problem. Even if this painting was never going to leave my house, something didn’t feel right.
So I painted over them. I couldn’t find any other sunshine lyrics either, and using the same song on top of borrowing her concept felt like a step too far.
I simplified. I made different choices. And what emerged was a painting I genuinely like.
The painting isn’t what bothers me.
It’s how it started.
The book that gives me a framework when the spiral starts
Austin Kleon wrote a small book called Steal Like an Artist that I return to whenever the imposter voice gets loud.
The central argument is simple: nothing is completely original. All creative work builds on what came before. The goal isn’t to avoid influence. It’s to collect good influences and let them move through you.
That genuinely helps. But it doesn’t resolve the feeling permanently. It just gives me something to argue back with when the voice starts.
That’s not nothing. It’s actually a lot. But it’s not a cure.
Let me show you the paintings side by side:
Kathleen Taylor
My Painting
The thing I can’t quite shake
The idea came from Kathleen’s painting. No matter how I look at it, that’s where this started. I didn’t wake up one morning and think, What if a sunshine had a face and grew like a flower with great big leaves for arms? Kathleen’s painting planted that seed.
There are other artists whose work I feel this way about too. Bailey Jack. Amanda Evanston. Kelly Rae Roberts. Julia Speights. Melanie Underwood. I follow all of them. I own and live with their work on my walls every day so of course they’ve shaped the way I see color, composition, and whimsy. It would be stranger if they hadn’t.
Sometimes I see one of them post a new piece and feel that familiar push-pull of admiration and envy.
Wow.
I want to think like that.
And usually, I head to my studio and try to paint my own version, hoping it might unlock ideas like that for me.
One of my earliest paintings was inspired by a piece of sea glass art I purchased in an artsy gift shop on Jekyl Island. Two birds sitting on the roofs of their houses on separate branches. One looking down. One looking up.
I painted that exact composition. Same idea. Same arrangement. Same little moment between those birds.
Yet, somehow I’ve never felt guilty about that one.
Maybe it’s because it was a different medium and style. Or maybe it’s because I was a beginner and didn’t know enough to question it.
For me, the space between inspiration and copying is where things get messy. There’s a continuum between influence and originality, and where something lands on that continuum depends on medium, intent, context, experience, and probably a dozen other things I’m still figuring out. I’d love a clear rule. But the honest answer is that the line moves. Learning to navigate it is part of becoming an artist.
I still buy Kathleen Taylor’s work. I still follow these artists, share their posts, and recommend them every chance I get. The truth is, I admire them. Their work moves me. And I’m slowly accepting that the things I love will eventually find their way into my work.
What I Tell Myself
When the overthinking starts, I come back to this. I’d like to think artists like Kathleen feel more flattered than annoyed by emerging artists painting suns with faces. When you’ve spent years building a visual language that is unmistakably your own, I imagine seeing echoes of it in someone else’s work feels less like theft and more like evidence that something you made mattered. It traveled. It got into someone else’s hands and heart and came back out differently.
Artists have always learned from other artists. Influence isn’t copying.
I know this.
I just don’t always feel it.
Looking at the two paintings side by side, I can see all the differences: the style, the face, the details. But I can also see exactly where mine began. Maybe that’s what makes this question so hard for me. I know the backstory. I know where the idea came from, what I borrowed, what I changed, and how I got there.
Everyone else just sees the painting.
I see Kathleen Taylor’s painting.
Kathleen Taylor’s work can be found at Wild Oats and Billy Goats or by following her on instagram @paintedpieces.
Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist is available at austinkleon.com.
