Thursday 29 January 2009

i'm your greatest fan


Another day in the oven.
The last two days were ok, I can deal with dry heat but today was just a little to humid and the studio has become a hot box. As soon as I moved away from the fan, the heat became unbearable.
I was hoping to get more done this week. Haha. There are new tea-cosies in store tomorrow and I was planning to get a few ric-rac tops finished...... well almost...... maybe I'll go into the studio and finish them off before being shop-girl tomorrow.....




On the subject of 'I'm your greatest fan', I've been struggling with a whole spate of being copied and ripped-off lately. There was the newspaper bag issue, the tea-cup candles, a swag of tea towel stuff and, sadly, the doily magnolia tree. Many things I work on have a 'zeitgeist' feel, that there are many people working on similar things or designs of a certain concept at the same time. This is inevitable, and often not a problem, but it's been getting a little sad and depressing lately as so much of it has been close to home and, worst of all, badly done. I, too, sometimes use other people's work as inspiration but I try as hard as possible to make my work individual and to make it to a very high standard. When the Magnolia Collective did the doily tree I was open about the inspiration coming from a piece of work by Janet Morton. Our work took on a life of its own and the tree is very different from Janet's excellent and monumental tree. Sadly the NZ artist who has doilied a magnolia (!) in Wellington has sadly copied some of the things I wrote about our tree in her artist's statement.
This is probably the thing I hate most about the internet and the blogging world, the world is smaller and faster in the dissemination of information. I sometimes feel that there are things that I can not share with the blogverse because I can not trust it to respect my copyright and integrity. Remember that if you have seen or read something on the internet you are not the only one, someone else will recognise the source. To me craft isn't all cupcakes and frilly aprons (let's not go back to the 50s!), it should be about skill and creativity, on-going development and, most of all, the fusing of tradition and innovation.

*And if you think this is snitchy then blame it on the heat.......... I've just eaten a container of ice cream and now feel thoroughly sick.............




7 comments:

  1. I know how you feel. {I'm about to rant}.... After producing and selling some of my {what I thought incredibly original} paper jewellery works, I discovered the same shaped works from ceramics presented at Craft Vic recently. Mind you, they were black and massive.
    AND THEN- Three days ago I discovered the work of a window featured artist at e.g. etal, whose philosophy of thought was a freakish resemblance to my honours year thesis!
    Sometimes I think human brains connect in subconscious ways a little too often.
    So anyway, I totally empathise with your frustration of feeling like an original idea isn't so original.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Boo to extreme heat. If you wouldn't mind though I'd be most appreciative if you contained it down there below the border please?

    And double boo to copy cats.

    ReplyDelete
  3. we like to share!
    (if we are sweltering then everyone else should be as well!)
    (or..... 'misery loves company'- haha)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This one's good, though. Bobby went camping, and can't keep her hands still to save her life.

    http://robynefmelia.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-contribution.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. crikey. I've just returned to blogland and read this. am going to be intrigued to follow the links etc. the person that 'copies' is of course hindering any chance they have of personally developing. the person working through stuff will be the one to move forward. there's a real collective consciousness now because of the www. doilies are massive, crochet and all that. I'll have to re-read your entry and follow the links. you know i'm with you on the cupcake stuff. hey ho. more to the point. those tops you've made are stunning, really edible. great to get back to reading your blog 'n all. snow-covered wishes from blighty xx

    ReplyDelete
  6. ps; your tree project had a lovely 'community' angle on it which is the part I've always been particularly fond of.

    ReplyDelete
  7. you may be inspired by this beautiful quote from the awesome Jim Jarmusch:

    http://swissmiss.typepad.com/weblog/2009/01/nothing-is-original.html

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a message for me.
I like getting mail!