Finding Your Voice

[Becki]

I was browsing the net this morning and found this link in a discussion on copying someone's work vs finding your own voice.  The author doesn't work in glass but it certainly applies to whatever art medium you work in. Great food for thought.

http://luannudell.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/what-is-the-story-only-you-can-tell/

[Kev]

I liked it!

[PiscesGlass]

Thanks for posting that Becki.  She wrote very well about the feelings and her thoughts about why people would "copy" or "borrow" and idea.  Some of the comments people wrote were also thought provoking.  I particularly liked the idea that maybe seeing something that someone else created gave that person the incentive to try it themselves, although not for resale, for personal use.  I have no problem with that, but having had a copycat try to take responsibility for my work as their own...well that's a little bit of a different set of feelings...

De

[Anne]

It made me think about some Asian people at one of my summer shows last year.  I do a lot of original patterns.  I looked up and saw the lady and her husband - both with cameras taking individual pictures of my work. I stepped over and asked them what they were doing and she gushed about how nice my work was and that they were taking the pictures so they could send them to their friends over in China so they could make them too.  When I asked them not to do that she said oh but they are so nice and Canada is one of our best trading partners!  She totally missed  (unintentionally.........or not??) what I was trying to tell her!

It's so frustrating.  We're obviously beating our heads against a wall in trying to get people to not copy our work.  I'm ok with someone copying for their own use and I've had people buy pieces and tell me they're doing that.  But when another glass artist bought a couple of my pieces at a show 2 years ago year I told her they were original pieces and that I didn't want to see her at the next show having copied my patterns (because her work was all stuff from the books, many of which stated not to be reproduced for resale) - she assured me she'd never do that!  Oh right!  So of course when she showed up last year with exact copies of my work we had words. I know this is going to happen I don't just want to see my stuff done by another person at the same show I'm at. That's why I don't sell my stuff on Etsy. At the last show I did  I saw that she'd switched what she's doing - she's making jewellery now (actually she's stringing beads). We're always going to have these kinds of people to deal with unfortunately.

Ok, that's my rant for the day! Thanks for posting that Becki.

[Amber]

It is funny how some people miss the point, they don't seem to understand the personal value in creating. I had it happen even with a little votive, when I was first starting to use a kiln I was going to a shop in town and they fired stuff for me. While sure it was just a little candle holder the fact that a week later I saw they had one exactly what I had made for sale on their shelves, from the same base color, same confetti pattern and same black and white border. It just makes me angry! And I actually had someone come up to me at a show saying they saw a bowl that looked like mine across the river in this same store *grr*. While I certainly don't claim the style I use, it's another to use the same pattern, colors and layout! To be honest it's another reason why I want to switch to Bullseye since they don't use it it'd be harder for them to copy. This is the same place that has never designed an original panel, from the owners mouth, he says he only uses books for his work and that he lacks the creative gene. It's like he doesn't understand how awful it is to profit off other's creations.

[Becki]

I've been through it too, De, and it's not a good feeling.  If the comment "it's the sincerest form of flattery" is true then why does it make us feel so bad?  I feel it's because, as the author put it, "It's that they got the wrong idea."  They don't get it. They ignored their own "voice" and tried to substitute someone elses.

One of the best comments I read was on another discussion of this topic.  The poster said, "copying someone else's work hurts the copier as much as the original artist, because that person neglects to seek what is unique in their own story. Our stories overlap, as one commentator wrote, but no one sees/experiences things quite in the same way as you do."