I probably wouldn't have even posted today had Bill not sent me this picture from the current Artful Home catalog asking if it reminded me of anything. While no one could ever say it is a copied design, the similarities are striking enough to me that I thought I'd put the work out there for comment. What do you think? Did someone see our Balance piece and say, "Hey, I like that shape! I want to do something like that and call it mine!"?
Today is the ante penultimate day at the beach. Spring break is almost over and we will have to return home to our lives. I have used the time here very productively... to sleep. Yep, I've managed at least 11 hours a day of sleep since we got here last Sunday. I've done a bit of planning and web design work, caught up on date night photo issues and started preparing the next newsletter (already a week late), but mostly I've slept. And as I've slept, I've dreamed. In my dreams I have felt the stirrings of ideas for new designs and a build-up of the energy necessary to realize them. The goal when I get back to the real world (also known as the studio) is to hoard this energy and use it slowly and wisely--no more 17-hour studio days.Of course, I look at my list of the projects I have awaiting me there and it's depressingly long and diverse--nothing sucks up energy more than a bunch of little to medium projects all requiring development of new skills or reawakening of rusty ones. Give me one or two big projects any day. I have to learn to say "No" to little repairs--especially stained glass ones. I don't even work in stained glass anymore and I am way out of practice.
But worrying about the little things is for after the ultimate (in the sense of last) day at the beach. I'll grumble more next week.
Postscript
:I went a little ways further through the Artful Home catalog and found the work below (the pieces at right are mine). Even more depressing is that this is someone I mentored at the BMAC a few years ago and encourage every time I see him. There were many times he could have said, "Gee, I really like your Pop Art series, I think I'll do something like it!". Am I wrong or petty for thinking he should have?
6 comments:
Not being an artist, I can't say, but I've mentored a number of medical students and PA students in my day, and only two or three have ever come back and thanked me for my time spent. I think it's just a lack of awareness in most people of the effects of their teachers/professors/mentors/parents on their skills and creations.
Bill I guess what I am looking for is less a "Thank you for helping me" and more a "I like your work, that's why I copied it". Of course if no one else thinks it looks like copying then I'm just being territorial. :-)
sigh..... i hear you. i know the glass artist also, and it is your style just slumped over custom molds. as for the metal form, yup, same shape, different material and accents....
that's why we need to keep doing new things to stay ahead of the galloping hordes....
That stand for the top image is great. Good stuff Brenda!
Thanks Robert! It was designed and created by Bill Snell at Black Cat ArtWorks in Easley, SC.
The transformative imitation is obvious in the pop art, not the clock. In fact, when I first saw your "model" for that I thought you were evoking Gehry's architecture.
Just remember "picture worth a thousand words," "imitation sincerest form of flattery" etc are aphorisms for a reason.
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