Inspiration

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Tony Smith
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Post by Tony Smith »

I've been following this thread with interest as it has similarities to a topical discussion that I started months ago. I have to admit the Doctac's outburst caught me off guard... if his intention was to be uncivil, then please be uncivil somewhere else. :evil:

Tony
The tightrope between being strange and being creative is too narrow to walk without occasionally landing on both sides..." Scott Berkun
Tony Smith
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Re: ?

Post by Tony Smith »

Jack Bowman wrote:Black and white combings may become part of a style that I incorporate in the future but I certainly wouldn't claim it as "mine".

That, and much more, is what I think this thread is about.

Jack
So far, the direction this thread has taken is toward ideal behaviour... taking bits and pieces of techniques that we have learned or developed and bringing them all together to create our own style. That's the ideal. What about the opposite. Where someone develops a very distinctive look whether it's a piece or a series of pieces and someone just plain copies it... they study it and dissect it and do an exact copy using similar (or the same) colors, textures and shapes and claim it as their own? Unethical? Yes, but why? People here have already argued that techniques aren't art. So why would this be unacceptable?

Tony
The tightrope between being strange and being creative is too narrow to walk without occasionally landing on both sides..." Scott Berkun
Jackie Beckman
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Re: ?

Post by Jackie Beckman »

Tony Smith wrote:
Jack Bowman wrote:Black and white combings may become part of a style that I incorporate in the future but I certainly wouldn't claim it as "mine".

That, and much more, is what I think this thread is about.

Jack
So far, the direction this thread has taken is toward ideal behaviour... taking bits and pieces of techniques that we have learned or developed and bringing them all together to create our own style. That's the ideal. What about the opposite. Where someone develops a very distinctive look whether it's a piece or a series of pieces and someone just plain copies it... they study it and dissect it and do an exact copy using similar (or the same) colors, textures and shapes and claim it as their own? Unethical? Yes, but why? People here have already argued that techniques aren't art. So why would this be unacceptable?

Tony
It's unethical because the art is the sum of the parts. The way one chooses and compiles from the endless options and realizes the final piece is the art. The art is not the combing, or the pattern bar, or the pallete alone - it's the end product and the way each of us chooses to assemble from our "toolbag" so to speak. That's what I've been trying to get across. We all have the same set of "crayons" or have access to them at least, but it's what we make with them that makes it our own.

Hmm . . .usually I can find the words to get a point from my mind to my mouth, but I'm really having a hard time expressing myself for some reason. It seems so clear to me, yet to try to express it in words, it just reads like blah . . blah . . .

It'll come to me - I'll figure out how to say what's in my mind :-k
Amy Schleif-Mohr
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Post by Amy Schleif-Mohr »

It's almost like why would you want to use someone else's language when one's own voice can be heard? It just seems, to me atleast, that it takes a whole hell of a lot more effort to use someone else's language when your own voice is right there trying to sing.

Amy
Phil Hoppes
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Post by Phil Hoppes »

Hmm......This thread has taken a directional discussion again of technique vs art vs ownership but seems to me Jackie started it originally on asking where does our inspiration come from. Maybe to take things back to there I'll put in my 2cents on a current commission.

I was asked to make a pair of custom sinks by a couple up north. I always like to interview people and learn more about them and try to discover what really interests them, what do they like, what colors do the like/dislike, what is their design motif, etc. In all things like this, you don't get all of your answers in one conversation. I'll cut to the chase of where I'm going, after many discussions and meetings the things I got that were most important to this client was "earth tones and mosaic". Now my challenge is to CREATE something given these conditions that is esteticly pleasing to my client and to me, satisfies my artistic creativity and gives me a chance to speak through my art. I could just throw a bunch of colored glass in the air, pick them up where they fall and slap it together but at least to me, that is not art since there was no soul in the creation, and that is the question I believe Jackie is talking about/asking. For me, to solve this challenge, I'm thinking about all kinds of design. It has started me on a quest in particular looking at native american art, mostly historical, to look for symbols and meanings that I can put together a cohesive message with my work. I got a number of ideas in my head that to me are very exciting and I'm working on a number of concepts. Will the client like them, I don't know but the point is, there is a message or story I'm looking to tell. I think inspiration is what drives you to go the extra mile, look around your world, do something different, speak to your little world (an maybe someday to a bigger world) with a voice of what you want to say. I don't know if I've found my "voice" as others but I will someday and until that day arrives, I guess I'm just kind of shooting my mouth off, but I'm enjoying the dickens out of the journey.

Phil
Lisa Allen
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Post by Lisa Allen »

Amy Schleif-Mohr wrote:It's almost like why would you want to use someone else's language when one's own voice can be heard? It just seems, to me atleast, that it takes a whole hell of a lot more effort to use someone else's language when your own voice is right there trying to sing.

Amy
I like what Amy is saying. My opinion on this is go ahead and copy me if you want to take the time to learn to do what I do, but then find your own way to make your voice come through it and make it yours. Don't copy my designs to a t and create a whole body of work that screams Lisa, and propose to call it your own. To me, a person is doing a great dis-service to themselves when they spend so much time copying that they never have an opening for their own voice to come through.

Lisa
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Jack Bowman
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Post by Jack Bowman »

Lisa Allen wrote:
Amy Schleif-Mohr wrote:It's almost like why would you want to use someone else's language when one's own voice can be heard? It just seems, to me atleast, that it takes a whole hell of a lot more effort to use someone else's language when your own voice is right there trying to sing.

Amy
I like what Amy is saying. My opinion on this is go ahead and copy me if you want to take the time to learn to do what I do, but then find your own way to make your voice come through it and make it yours. Don't copy my designs to a t and create a whole body of work that screams Lisa, and propose to call it your own. To me, a person is doing a great dis-service to themselves when they spend so much time copying that they never have an opening for their own voice to come through.

Lisa
Well said. Both of yoos.

Jack
Ron Coleman
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Post by Ron Coleman »

Maybe they don't have a voice to shine through.

Maybe the people that pray on the designs of others just lack the ability to create on their own. Lack might be a little harsh, probably just lazy and find it's easier to let someone else do the work.

I would imagine most of the design thieves have good technical skills but just don't have the initiative to do their own work or have never tried.
Brock
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Post by Brock »

Ron Coleman wrote:Maybe they don't have a voice to shine through.

Maybe the people that pray on the designs of others just lack the ability to create on their own. Lack might be a little harsh, probably just lazy and find it's easier to let someone else do the work.

I would imagine most of the design thieves have good technical skills but just don't have the initiative to do their own work or have never tried.

This hearkens back to MANY contentious discussions on the SG boards. I think the only time fusing pattern books were mentioned here, they were dissed harshly. Everyone has a voice, but not everyone finds it.
My memory is so good, I can't remember the last time I forgot something . . .
Carla Fox
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Post by Carla Fox »

This discussion brings up many feelings and thoughts for me.

I have a former friend who not only adopted many of my designs (in jewelry) but also bought similar items to display her jewelry on. It became so confusing people couldn't tell our displays apart. I finally separated from her permanently denying her access to my work. Some felt I over-reacted, some understood. The ones who understood had had a similar experience.

Yet, as an artist I often find another artist's work inspiring and will try to duplicate a techique or look, to see how it "feels" I always feel very quilty about this and never sell the piece. But instead I use the making of it as a tool to help my own creativeness.

I find it is a useful too, as sometime a new technique inspires new creative thoughts in me and sends me off in new directions. I also note that when one artist starts to appropriate and copy (in it's entirety) another artist's work, it often is flat, lacking, less then the original. I attribute this to the fact the "copying" artist does not have the original inspiration, drive, the soul....to put into the copy.

When someone shares a technique or I share a technique I always expect it to be altered by the new artist's "voice." I love sharing ideas & techniques and being shared with. I do not like to see my work in another person's case.

Art is hard work. Not all want to work hard at it.

This is a great thread. Thanks.

Carla
Brock
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Re: ?

Post by Brock »

Tony Smith wrote:
Jack Bowman wrote:Black and white combings may become part of a style that I incorporate in the future but I certainly wouldn't claim it as "mine".

That, and much more, is what I think this thread is about.

Jack
So far, the direction this thread has taken is toward ideal behaviour... taking bits and pieces of techniques that we have learned or developed and bringing them all together to create our own style. That's the ideal. What about the opposite. Where someone develops a very distinctive look whether it's a piece or a series of pieces and someone just plain copies it... they study it and dissect it and do an exact copy using similar (or the same) colors, textures and shapes and claim it as their own? Unethical? Yes, but why? People here have already argued that techniques aren't art. So why would this be unacceptable?

Tony
We are all constrained by the limits of the materials we employ. This is true in any medium. If you take the kernel of creativity contained therein and merely reproduce it . . . at best, you are unimaginative.

In my opinion, no one has ever made better masks than Ruth Brockmann, and no one has made better stringer bowls than Toots Zynsky. Many, many, people have tried. There is a certain verity, gravitas, I don't know, TRUTH, inherent in the work of an artist in the throes of creativity, that no manner of aping drone can ever hope to match. Good work, that grows and evolves, is it's own defence. Brock
My memory is so good, I can't remember the last time I forgot something . . .
Paul Tarlow
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Post by Paul Tarlow »

After the past few years working with glass I am finally starting to hear my own voice emerge from from din of "inspiration" So many things inspire me that little of what I created has a coherent voice I feel is my own.

When I mentioned this to someone they asked what I meant by "voice". I gave my best shot at explaining and they said "so you want all your work to look the same??"

I'm sending them the URL to the site you mention below Lani. In this case a lot of pictures are worth...well...a whole lot of words and shows voice as well as anything I've seen.

Btw, I am also facinated by technique -- and based on your assertion that these images are not digital I'd sure love to know the technique for setting your subject's head on fire :-)

- Paul


[quote="Lani McGregor"]Jackie, good thread you started. But everyone is talking about TECHNIQUE here. Technique is not inspiration. It is just technique.

I love technique (I also love “craftâ€
Paul Tarlow
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Post by Paul Tarlow »

Lani McGregor wrote:
<snip>

Incidentally, the images are not digitals.

<snip>
This leads to a related question. Should technique impact value (price)?

Creating a darkroom composite is a more difficult thing than doing it in Photoshop. If two techniques yield indecernable results then should/could the artist price the work higher for the method that is more difficult?

?

- Paul
Barbara Muth
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Post by Barbara Muth »

Paul Tarlow wrote:
Lani McGregor wrote:
<snip>

Incidentally, the images are not digitals.

<snip>
This leads to a related question. Should technique impact value (price)?

Creating a darkroom composite is a more difficult thing than doing it in Photoshop. If two techniques yield indecernable results then should/could the artist price the work higher for the method that is more difficult?

?

- Paul
As a consumer, how it is made is not likely to influence me as much as how I respond to it (or how it will look on my walls. Therefore, given two identical looking images I am more likely to purchase the less expensive one.

my 2 pesos

Barbara
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Kevin Midgley
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Post by Kevin Midgley »

Lani and Jackie made comments on page three of this post that are right on. Jackie's comments on the "3" levels of inspiration and Lani's on the art vs craft. As I see it, most of my work in my studio is craft. I get artsy when I start embellishing my basic designs in a non mass production mode. (sorry, not on that website) My inspiration in these pieces is to make a simple striking design just as the Romans and Greeks did centuries ago or the photographer Lani directed us to does today. Craft is where an artist makes a living. Art is when you have fun, play and experiment with your basic designs.

When someone takes your basic premise, your style of craft, that which you make your living by, and then pumps it out in your market place, that is not nice we all agree. The debate hinges on at what point does the copier no longer copy and gets their own voice. How much does the copier have to change the basic concept? When can someone working with masks or stringers or foils etc. say they have their own voice?

A lawyer would probably say not much change is needed but that is something an artist doing his production craft would not like to hear.

Inspiration is sometimes hard to formulate and put into action. We all need more hours in a day to organize our studios and time so that we can act on our inspirations.
Kevin
Lani McGregor
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Post by Lani McGregor »

I keep going back to Tony’s remark that it’s not “ethicalâ€
Amy Schleif-Mohr
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Post by Amy Schleif-Mohr »

Very flatterd :wink:

Amy
Bert Weiss
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Post by Bert Weiss »

[quote="Lani McGregor"]A sadder anecdote I heard recently was from an artist who lectured in Asia. One of the questions asked from the audience; “How do you get an idea?â€
Bert

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Jackie Beckman
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Post by Jackie Beckman »

[quote][quote="Lani McGregor"] Copying a master is often seen as complimenting him (occasionally “herâ€
Lani McGregor
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Post by Lani McGregor »

Jackie Beckman wrote: What about when you're NOT a "Master"? I have to say, personally - I adore compliments, but I have yet to develop a taste for this particular sort.
Then I guess, like Bert says, you just need to run like hell and stay ahead of the pack.

(from one who works for a company with shin splints)
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