A note (rather long one) on originality.
None of this has completely come together in my head. It's all kind of sitting out there trying to make sense.
So I'll try. If I don't start writing it all down I'm going to explode. But, bear in mind that it has been nearly 3 years since I've so much as thought about any of this on any sort of intellectual level. I'm dusting it off but I really do need to dig up my texts and notes and refresh myself in order to give accurate background.
First: True originality is impossible to obtain. (thank you, wikipedia, that was a very concise way of saying what I was taking a paragraph to say.)
The issue: Artists complaining (on sites such as etsy) about people "copying" their designs. Not only complaining, but attacking people who "stole" their ideas.
A touch of art history (under the cut):
Art absolutely EXPLODED in the 20th century. Prior to this it was fairly slow to progress. I'm not even touching pre-Impressionism, so we'll start there. We had a long (relatively speaking), beautiful period of impressionism followed by post-impressionism. Impressionists were rebels of their time. Everything up until now was based on realism and portraits and booooring. Impressionists began to pave the way. They painted outside! They painted with big, fat brushstrokes. They painted as they wanted to, not as they were supposed to. Post-impressionsts such as Cezanne began to push the envelope further. Perspective? Screw it!
Anyway, then the 1900s came. As did fauvism, expressionism, cubism, dada, surrealism, ab ex, pop art, photo realism...and that's all encompassed in the modern period, though many are considered post-modern despite when they occurred. That's nto even ALL of it, just the major movements.
And then the contemporary period, in which post-modernism is a part of. That time is now. So many things are happening at once, so many new concepts of art. Art, as a concept, was once very rigid. And then you had a whole slew of people who said fuck that, THIS is art. Please refer to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain." He was long before post-modernism but had very PM ideas. Many of the modern artists really pushed the envelope, and now people are pushing it even more.
I don't care if you hate modern art. I don't care if you think you can do it, or think it's shit, or don't agree that it's "art." That doesn't matter. This is a part of art history and that you cannot argue with.
Once the definition of art changed it opened up so many doors for so many people. Anyone and everyone can be an artist. We have street artists, installation artists, video artists, metal artists, mixed media artists. We have people creating art out of plastic bags and burlap. What is art? It's completely left up to to viewer.
But that's not really what I'm trying to get into. Let's try and go back to "the issue."
If you look at HOW MUCH has been done over time, what the artists of the past have done (and these are just the BIG names), what the artists of the present are doing...how anyone can think they've come up with wonderfully novel ideas that other people MUST BE COPYING?
Let's take a moment and reflect on this. Your ideas are not original.
Nothing. is. original.
Do you want to know what happened to me the other day? I was trying to make a very simple ring out of 14g wire. Simple as in a band. 14g is thick and not very easy to work with. I was filing the ends so they would match and touch perfectly. If they do not touch, they will not solder.
I spent a good 1/2 hour trying to make this work. Out of frustration, I decided to scrap that idea and instead overlap them. This also didn't work. So I stuck a bezel in between and it now looks like it's being held between the 2 ends by tension. I decided to put a topaz in there. I haven't listed this ring yet because I had some issues setting the stone and haven't felt like messing with it.
Well, 2 days ago I found a jeweler on etsy who had the exact same design down to the color of the stone. The only difference? She used a faceted topaz, I used a cabachon.
She obviously didn't copy me, I obviously didn't copy her.
And, given the simplicity of the design, I bet there are many, many others on etsy alone.
There's one example.
Another one? In college I discovered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalena_Abakanowicz
and fell head over heals in love. I wanted to make life size burlap people, so I did. I created it out of chicken wire and sewed the burlap over it. Her name was Cecelia and her crumpled form now resides in my truck. Did she look anything like Magda's sculptures? Nope. But she was my inspiration. A picture of Cece for you:
Want to know what happened after that? The next year my art partner in crime used burlap "bodies" (he dipped strips of burlap in glue and put them over manakins to create hollow torsos) for his senior show. Yup, he discovered Magda too. And he used her as inspiration to create completely different burlap bodies than hers or mine.
I hear people saying things like, "if you're a painter go look at other painters and then forget everything you saw before you sit down at your canvas."
What the hell ever happened to inspiration and allowing yourself to be inspired by others? You can't be inspired and then be like "Oh wait I need to forget that."
Perhaps artists should be required to take some basic science and psychology classes. Because even if we do not seek to imitate or even incorporate those techniques, they are with us after we see them and we may end up doing it anyway. Flashes of brilliance? Probably not. It's probably just your brain remembering something you saw, but you don't remember seeing it so you think you are the most original creative person ever.
Aside from this, though, I think people just need to get over it and themselves. SO WHAT if an artist uses one of your techniques in their own work? SO WHAT if they admire your style and want to try something similar out? Unless they are outright TRYING to copy you down to the very last detail it's not going to look the same! Everyone is bringing their own experiences into their art. I may like a technique you use, but when I combine it with a technique I learned in high school...it's not the same. And if no one ever used techniques that other people came up with we wouldn't have gotten ANYWHERE. We'd be clubbing our food and cooking over fucking camp fires.
Everything we see and touch and feel and experience shapes us and therefore our art in some manner. We may not realize this while we're doing it, or even after the fact, but it is true.
I like to think of art today as paying homage to what came before us (without them we could not be doing what we are today, do you understand now?) and putting our own twist on it. That is what makes things "unique" or "original." It's what WE as individuals brings to the table. It's our own series of life events and experiences.
That's all I'm going to say on that for now since it's long-winded enough. For now. :o
So I'll try. If I don't start writing it all down I'm going to explode. But, bear in mind that it has been nearly 3 years since I've so much as thought about any of this on any sort of intellectual level. I'm dusting it off but I really do need to dig up my texts and notes and refresh myself in order to give accurate background.
First: True originality is impossible to obtain. (thank you, wikipedia, that was a very concise way of saying what I was taking a paragraph to say.)
The issue: Artists complaining (on sites such as etsy) about people "copying" their designs. Not only complaining, but attacking people who "stole" their ideas.
A touch of art history (under the cut):
Art absolutely EXPLODED in the 20th century. Prior to this it was fairly slow to progress. I'm not even touching pre-Impressionism, so we'll start there. We had a long (relatively speaking), beautiful period of impressionism followed by post-impressionism. Impressionists were rebels of their time. Everything up until now was based on realism and portraits and booooring. Impressionists began to pave the way. They painted outside! They painted with big, fat brushstrokes. They painted as they wanted to, not as they were supposed to. Post-impressionsts such as Cezanne began to push the envelope further. Perspective? Screw it!
Anyway, then the 1900s came. As did fauvism, expressionism, cubism, dada, surrealism, ab ex, pop art, photo realism...and that's all encompassed in the modern period, though many are considered post-modern despite when they occurred. That's nto even ALL of it, just the major movements.
And then the contemporary period, in which post-modernism is a part of. That time is now. So many things are happening at once, so many new concepts of art. Art, as a concept, was once very rigid. And then you had a whole slew of people who said fuck that, THIS is art. Please refer to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain." He was long before post-modernism but had very PM ideas. Many of the modern artists really pushed the envelope, and now people are pushing it even more.
I don't care if you hate modern art. I don't care if you think you can do it, or think it's shit, or don't agree that it's "art." That doesn't matter. This is a part of art history and that you cannot argue with.
Once the definition of art changed it opened up so many doors for so many people. Anyone and everyone can be an artist. We have street artists, installation artists, video artists, metal artists, mixed media artists. We have people creating art out of plastic bags and burlap. What is art? It's completely left up to to viewer.
But that's not really what I'm trying to get into. Let's try and go back to "the issue."
If you look at HOW MUCH has been done over time, what the artists of the past have done (and these are just the BIG names), what the artists of the present are doing...how anyone can think they've come up with wonderfully novel ideas that other people MUST BE COPYING?
Let's take a moment and reflect on this. Your ideas are not original.
Nothing. is. original.
Do you want to know what happened to me the other day? I was trying to make a very simple ring out of 14g wire. Simple as in a band. 14g is thick and not very easy to work with. I was filing the ends so they would match and touch perfectly. If they do not touch, they will not solder.
I spent a good 1/2 hour trying to make this work. Out of frustration, I decided to scrap that idea and instead overlap them. This also didn't work. So I stuck a bezel in between and it now looks like it's being held between the 2 ends by tension. I decided to put a topaz in there. I haven't listed this ring yet because I had some issues setting the stone and haven't felt like messing with it.
Well, 2 days ago I found a jeweler on etsy who had the exact same design down to the color of the stone. The only difference? She used a faceted topaz, I used a cabachon.
She obviously didn't copy me, I obviously didn't copy her.
And, given the simplicity of the design, I bet there are many, many others on etsy alone.
There's one example.
Another one? In college I discovered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalena_Abakanowicz
and fell head over heals in love. I wanted to make life size burlap people, so I did. I created it out of chicken wire and sewed the burlap over it. Her name was Cecelia and her crumpled form now resides in my truck. Did she look anything like Magda's sculptures? Nope. But she was my inspiration. A picture of Cece for you:
Want to know what happened after that? The next year my art partner in crime used burlap "bodies" (he dipped strips of burlap in glue and put them over manakins to create hollow torsos) for his senior show. Yup, he discovered Magda too. And he used her as inspiration to create completely different burlap bodies than hers or mine.
I hear people saying things like, "if you're a painter go look at other painters and then forget everything you saw before you sit down at your canvas."
What the hell ever happened to inspiration and allowing yourself to be inspired by others? You can't be inspired and then be like "Oh wait I need to forget that."
Perhaps artists should be required to take some basic science and psychology classes. Because even if we do not seek to imitate or even incorporate those techniques, they are with us after we see them and we may end up doing it anyway. Flashes of brilliance? Probably not. It's probably just your brain remembering something you saw, but you don't remember seeing it so you think you are the most original creative person ever.
Aside from this, though, I think people just need to get over it and themselves. SO WHAT if an artist uses one of your techniques in their own work? SO WHAT if they admire your style and want to try something similar out? Unless they are outright TRYING to copy you down to the very last detail it's not going to look the same! Everyone is bringing their own experiences into their art. I may like a technique you use, but when I combine it with a technique I learned in high school...it's not the same. And if no one ever used techniques that other people came up with we wouldn't have gotten ANYWHERE. We'd be clubbing our food and cooking over fucking camp fires.
Everything we see and touch and feel and experience shapes us and therefore our art in some manner. We may not realize this while we're doing it, or even after the fact, but it is true.
I like to think of art today as paying homage to what came before us (without them we could not be doing what we are today, do you understand now?) and putting our own twist on it. That is what makes things "unique" or "original." It's what WE as individuals brings to the table. It's our own series of life events and experiences.
That's all I'm going to say on that for now since it's long-winded enough. For now. :o