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puppetmaker) wrote2011-02-02 09:59 am
puppetmaker) wrote2011-02-02 09:59 am
Lj Idol Season 7 Week 12: The sincerest form of flattery?
Years ago I was walking through an art show at Chattacon. I noticed that several artists had done pictures of cats with wings. Before that I had noticed a dragon trend so I figured that unicorns would be next rapidly followed by fairies. These sorts of art themes seem to run in an almost cyclical. But each time the cycle would go around, I would hear rumblings of one artist ripping off another artist or trying to make money off of another’s idea.
There is an artist I admire who does lovely painting of animals both real and mythical on feathers and rocks. Her work is very reasonably priced and she does well at all sorts of conventions. There is another artist who does the same thing but tends not to send out original work but limited edition prints. Artist number 2 started show about 3 years after Artist number 1 was well established. Artist 2 does pretty well for themselves. Personally I prefer Artist 1’s work in terms of look. Artist 2’s work looks pretty derivative of Artist 1 and both sell pretty well but I wonder if Artist 2 is cutting into Artist 1’s sales.
In the world of cloth dolls there is an underbelly that is backbiting and rather nasty. And it had to do with the profitable part of the business of selling dolls but more importantly patterns. Doll shows spell out very carefully in the paperwork how credit has to be given for patterns. Pattern makers write out very carefully whether you can sell the dolls that you make from the pattern or how many dolls you can make and sell from the pattern. Dolls have been pulled from shows after the artist didn’t list the pattern she used for part of the doll. Doll Magazines have published apologies to the creators of patterns that were proven to be used in the construction of dolls that they have in their pages credited to others. Recently a doll magazine got the money back from one doll maker for an article and paid the original pattern maker for the use of her pattern in their magazine without her permission. The doll was featured on the cover and within 24 hours of the magazine seeing print, they had a deluge of e-mail from doll makers tell them that the doll was really created by so and so.
My dolls have elements to them that I always give credit to Wendy Froud for since she taught me how to make dolls the way that she has made them over the years. She taught me some great armature tricks and how to make hands looks realistic. She is a very good teacher and very generous in passing on the tips and tricks that she has learned over time. I would never try to make a Froud Fairy because those are hers and Brian’s work. Are there some Froudian elements in my dolls, yes because that’s who taught me how to make these kinds of dolls.
Most puppet builders are pretty free with given information to each other to help build puppets. They use to be much more secretive but now with fewer of us around and many of us getting up there, there is a need to pass on information. I am willing to teach just about anyone how to build a puppet. I have learned how to build many kinds of puppets from other puppeteers, books, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and a lot of trial and error. I know how many of the Muppets are put together from either handling the puppets or from people who have worked for Henson over the years. However I would never build and sell a replica of a Muppet. I have build a couple over the years for me and as gifts for friends but I have never made a profit off of them. There was (is probably) a company (and I use the term loosely) that has been removed from Ebay more than once for selling “Muppets”. They keep changing their name but they are found and removed. They have all kinds of rationalizations why they should be able to do this. Now they are no longer blatantly selling replicas because they have Disney breathing down their neck so the photos of the Replica Muppets are still up on their site but any sales are under the table.
The world of publishing is a whole other can of worms. One person makes a ton of money writing about Zombies and as an editor you find about twenty zombie scripts showing up on your desk. Vampires have played out for the most part. Werewolf stories are on the rise. But again like art work, it goes in cycles. We’ll soon be back to cats with wings and ghost stories.
This was my entry for this week for the LJ Idol. This was my third full essay on the topic at hand. I had three ideas from the prompt but went for this one.
There is an artist I admire who does lovely painting of animals both real and mythical on feathers and rocks. Her work is very reasonably priced and she does well at all sorts of conventions. There is another artist who does the same thing but tends not to send out original work but limited edition prints. Artist number 2 started show about 3 years after Artist number 1 was well established. Artist 2 does pretty well for themselves. Personally I prefer Artist 1’s work in terms of look. Artist 2’s work looks pretty derivative of Artist 1 and both sell pretty well but I wonder if Artist 2 is cutting into Artist 1’s sales.
In the world of cloth dolls there is an underbelly that is backbiting and rather nasty. And it had to do with the profitable part of the business of selling dolls but more importantly patterns. Doll shows spell out very carefully in the paperwork how credit has to be given for patterns. Pattern makers write out very carefully whether you can sell the dolls that you make from the pattern or how many dolls you can make and sell from the pattern. Dolls have been pulled from shows after the artist didn’t list the pattern she used for part of the doll. Doll Magazines have published apologies to the creators of patterns that were proven to be used in the construction of dolls that they have in their pages credited to others. Recently a doll magazine got the money back from one doll maker for an article and paid the original pattern maker for the use of her pattern in their magazine without her permission. The doll was featured on the cover and within 24 hours of the magazine seeing print, they had a deluge of e-mail from doll makers tell them that the doll was really created by so and so.
My dolls have elements to them that I always give credit to Wendy Froud for since she taught me how to make dolls the way that she has made them over the years. She taught me some great armature tricks and how to make hands looks realistic. She is a very good teacher and very generous in passing on the tips and tricks that she has learned over time. I would never try to make a Froud Fairy because those are hers and Brian’s work. Are there some Froudian elements in my dolls, yes because that’s who taught me how to make these kinds of dolls.
Most puppet builders are pretty free with given information to each other to help build puppets. They use to be much more secretive but now with fewer of us around and many of us getting up there, there is a need to pass on information. I am willing to teach just about anyone how to build a puppet. I have learned how to build many kinds of puppets from other puppeteers, books, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and a lot of trial and error. I know how many of the Muppets are put together from either handling the puppets or from people who have worked for Henson over the years. However I would never build and sell a replica of a Muppet. I have build a couple over the years for me and as gifts for friends but I have never made a profit off of them. There was (is probably) a company (and I use the term loosely) that has been removed from Ebay more than once for selling “Muppets”. They keep changing their name but they are found and removed. They have all kinds of rationalizations why they should be able to do this. Now they are no longer blatantly selling replicas because they have Disney breathing down their neck so the photos of the Replica Muppets are still up on their site but any sales are under the table.
The world of publishing is a whole other can of worms. One person makes a ton of money writing about Zombies and as an editor you find about twenty zombie scripts showing up on your desk. Vampires have played out for the most part. Werewolf stories are on the rise. But again like art work, it goes in cycles. We’ll soon be back to cats with wings and ghost stories.
This was my entry for this week for the LJ Idol. This was my third full essay on the topic at hand. I had three ideas from the prompt but went for this one.
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I think that we'll always have some ties to our teacher in our work, but it's like being a child of the style, not a clone. That's the joy of being a teacher.
But stealing work destroys that precious relationship. It makes teachers less likely to teach, which is a tragedy.
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*applauds*
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You proved this quite well.
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It seems that no matter the medium there will always be those trying to leech off others, even more so when money's involved.
Since I've taken up knitting I've found that a lot of patterns are free but there are just as many that are not and those always come with a request to not sell any finished items but to give them as gifts.
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I would love to see photos of your puppets!:)
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The challenge is, when you're improvising, you can't let that sort of concern dominate your thinking or it will control you and short out your ability to perform. There's kind of an understanding we have that when you're improvising, you just have to roll with the scene and trust that if something pops out of your mouth, its fine, no matter what it is.
Since that's the case, when somebody else uses a line you used or gets a laugh doing something you did - unless it a habitual thing - you usually give them a hard time about it and you both laugh it off. They took something you said, but you know damn well that you're going to take something they said later.
Its like a creativity "give a penny, take a penny" thing.
Anyhow, I know its different when you're working with something tangible and cit-able, and am a firm believer in giving credit whenever possible. But with creative projects, its sometimes hard to recognize that the song you just made was actually a song by a band you really liked that they wrote 30 years ago, you know?
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