Paintings With Soul

Clinker was one of the 20 illegally copied images of my paintings I discovered on ebay yesterday, thanks to a heads up from a colleague and friend who found the same "Artist" copying her work and that of other daily painters. Ebay has been notified and is taking appropriate action. I suspect Karma will be making a house call shortly as well. In the light of yesterday's situation , I got many emails and messages asking how one learns of copyright violations. Here are a couple suggestions: Become a watchdog on the sites you frequent. Don't hesitate to let the originating artist know if you see a copy of their work elsewhere - send them the webaddress and suspected infringer's name. If you come across copies in person, collect the infringer's name and contact information along with the painting's title and pass that along to the originating artist. Set up google alerts for keywords pertaining to your own work, like your name, your st...

Betcha you thought you'de never see that blog header! For starters, after 10 rather agonizing days, I've finally passed my kidney stone. There was much celebration this morning. But now I have another headache to deal with. Yup. Another copyright thief. Seems like a certain "Artist" has been paying honor to those who's work she likes by painting copies. Then this certain "Artist" sells these copies as their own on ebay. 1300 sales to their name over the course of the years with 100% satisfaction. Because they ship on time. Too bad there isn't an ebay rating for originality and integrity. So after celebrating The Passing of My Stone, I spent my morning filling out forms and doing the legal paperwork so that ebay removes the listings from their site. Keep in mind these are sales which were already completed. The "Artist" has her money. Nothing will really happen to her. This sort of thing drives me absolutely mad. This ...

I didn't post yesterday, but not because I wasn't working. I was painting like a mad woman (and posting regular updates to  the studio's Facebook page ) but also pondering.     Inspiration vs imitation?  Where does one end and the other start? How do we identify the boundaries of an idea and see how it's propigated? And what ideas are fresh? Is there even such a thing as a fresh or new idea?   I got to thinking how no one can own a style or approach or even a compositional idea, and isn't it amazing how the same spark of inspiration can send different brains in different directions.   Inspiration comes in all forms. I am not the first - or last - artist to paint a particular perspective or silhouette.   But where does inspiration fall by the wayside? When does inspiration become a crutch, leading directly to imitation?   This was precipated by my discovery yesterday of a daily painter like myself, one who enjoys painting animals too. And one...

Pinterest has been a topic of great contention the last couple months, and the roar is getting louder. For those who've been in a cave and missed all the hoopla,  Pinterest  is a free website that allows users to "pin" images found on the internet into folders/categories that they design. So what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is that the majority of content on the internet is copyright protected. It's not free for the taking, even if one is only filing it on a website for future inspiration.  Additionally, many Pinterest users don't pay attention to the source from which they are pinning. This can mis-attribute something (like a fabulous tutorial being credited to - and generating income for - a Chinese knock-off site  instead of the independant artist who created it ) ( here's a link to Pin Etiquette ). Pinterest's  Terms of Service Agreement requires users only pin content they own themselves or have express permission to use. How does on...