What Your Customers Are Buying

Edit to Post:

It’s almost funny how the posted quote image here not only highlights the issue of copying but is, as it turns out, a derivation of someone’s words (unattributed in the image as you might note.) I was able to find someone who gave Rebekah Joy Plett the credit for the quote so I could give credit but then Tracy Holmes sent me a Facebook post she found from the artist on this and the original words. I am posting Rebekah’s original words here but am not taking the prior quote image down because it is the link to this post for the email notifications (which will allow people to come here and see the correction) and so that you can help notify others of the misappropriation. If you see the second image below, please let the post person know about the original quote posted by Rebekah here: http://goo.gl/kRCxD7.

Okay here is the actual original quote:

And here is my original post:

I was going to make this a short and sweet post today, just a good quote to give you a little something to consider. But there has been quite the conversation online about a subject that this quote poignantly highlights. So first, read this nice little letter to the potential customer. The sentiment is fantastic.

Words by artist Rebekah Joy Plett … “You are buying a piece of heart, a part of a soul …” Great words, not just for the buyer to hear but for the creator to consider as well. Are you actually selling part of your heart or soul? Or are you selling someone else’s?

Yes, we are touching on the subject of copying here as well as giving credit. Over at the “Ask Harriete” blog, there is quite the conversation going on the subject and I have had several people ask me where I stand or what I think about it. Since I too have been having a lot of conversations concerning this subject in the last couple months, I actually have quite a bit to say but not in the same vein as what Harriete is discussing.

My conversations have primarily revolved around how to clarify what is stealing due to the upcoming release of an article in the Spring 2014 issue of The Polymer Arts. The article is titled “Stealing Talent”. Linda Stiles Smith bravely agreed to interview a number of artists for me , artists who teach and/or publish and regularly have their ideas appropriated–sometimes copied, sometimes worked by others into their own original pieces.  In an effort to try and clarify what it means to copy and how to properly use what we learn from each other, we created a summary of what the artists interviewed said. Here’s a bit of a sneak peek that will also give you a chance to chime in on the subject since there isn’t a response option in a magazine:

Rules for Giving Credit
1. Do not teach a class or tutorial that someone else has developed presenting it as your own.
2. Do not directly copy someone’s design and call it your own – for any reason.
3. Do not copy and sell printed images or materials, tutorials, books, techniques of another artist.

I also chimed in with a few thoughts of my own. Here is the abbreviated version:

As for when to give credit, consider whether what you are using is design or technique.

Design is the art. It belongs to the creator.
This includes the choices one makes about form, color combinations, line, pattern, etc., as well as the combination of these choices. So, you do not copy someone’s designs—that is their art and their voice as an artist.

Techniques are like tools in your tool box.
This is the how-to aspect of working in the material. You don’t need to list where your ‘tools’ originated when you sell something, but if you are teaching or posting your work you have an obligation to say where you your ‘technique tools’ came from. It would be unfair to keep aspiring clayers from being able to access the original source and it repays that artist for giving you the tool to work with.

I know this last paragraph has the potential to create some controversy because I do not say you do not have the right to teach or use a technique that another person has created. In the legal sense, you can. There is no copyright on technique (See rules 1 & 3 above as well). The gray areas comes not with someone using a technique but in HOW they use.

If an artist develops a technique and always applies it to a flat round pendant, someone making a square pendant would still be copying. However, if you see an artist apply the technique only to round beads and someone else uses the technique but creates square beads, most of us would recognize that it’s not quite stealing the design. Why? Because we recognize that creating a round bead requires a different technique than creating a square one and would likely require a variation on the application of the original artist’s technique, requiring different design and aesthetic choices. This doesn’t work for the pendant application because there is no difference in how the technique would be applied if all you are doing is choosing another shaped cutter.

Now, I in no way advocate taking someone’s work and just changing one aspect so you can call it your own. It doesn’t work that way–its still not your own. Read the quote above again if this concept of when it is not copying is unclear. If you are not making something that is of you–if all you are doing is borrowing from others–you aren’t making art, you are just reproducing and what you create is not that much different than any commercial product. If you are not making your own work, you are not giving your buyers the one thing that makes your work so much more valuable than a mass produced product … that little bit of yourself that imbues an object with meaning and personal connection. That is what buyers are paying for when buying art and handmade work. Don’t cheat your buyers. And just as important, don’t cheat yourself.

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.