How Not to Get Ripped Off - Online

This is really great advice from Gwenn Seemel and food for thought regarding orginality, ideas, technique and creative process.

1) Be original. I aim to make art so original that no one will question who made it.

2) Sell only live art. I've given up on the idea that art in reproduction is for sale and I focus on making work that is better in person than in reproduction.

3) Pursue credit in innovative ways. No one has ever claimed a reproduction of my work as their own, but when I've known about images of my work being used without any mention of my name I've approached the situation as a teaching opportunity or used it as an illustrative point.

4) Embrace the copying of style. Lots of people make originals that resemble mine somewhat, and it makes me feel pretty good about my work.

5) Don't assume that anyone is copying style. It's usually pretty difficult to be sure that anyone is copying anyone else. That said, if another artist was making and selling works that I was certain were copies of my paintings, I would probably talk about them on my blog. It would drive Internet traffic looking for them to me.

6) Be clear about what you want from the world and from the Internet. I make sure everyone knows where I stand with regards to copyright. At the bottom of every page of my site, there's a smiley face instead of a ©. Click on the face and it takes you to a page that fully explains my beliefs.

h/t Boing Boing

Trusting the Muse

As an art instructor I oftentimes deal with student fears about making art. Young artists, of any age, sometimes find it difficult to trust their ideas. I respond by telling them not to question but to follow where the muse leads. Learning to trust and to follow ones personal muse sometimes requires behavior that others may view as eccentric. This leads to another often asked question: why are artists always so eccentric? These two concepts are really bookends to the pursuit of an artistic path. One is the beginning: trusting the muse and the other is the result of this trust in oneself as an artist.

When I was a kid, I collaged my entire bedroom floor to ceiling because I didn’t like the wallpaper. This idea came naturally and there was no anxiety because I was not trying to be an artist, it was just awful wallpaper. When I began to study art, whenever it was possible to cut and paste fragments of images together that was how I would solve the problem. Now I consider myself a collagist, and photography is my primary medium.

One of the things that I was struck by in the next episode of Art:21 is how the early work of each artist led to a lifetime of images. The footage of Paul McCarthy dragging his young body through white paint reminded me of early William Wegman films of his dog Man Ray drinking milk poured on the floor. Both of these films are silly, and for me, far more interesting for where they lead the artist. Wegman’s dog would not stay out of his films or photographs and so in frustration he lets the dog take the leading role. This eventually leads to a contract with Sesame Street. But can you imagine Wegman telling his parents that when he grows up he wants to make dog portraits? No doubt, they would have suggested something more practical.

Cindy Sherman, another featured artist, never stopped playing dress up and was always enamored with her image on film. I love the little scrapbook where she would circle herself in the picture and write below “That’s me!” Through her love of play acting she has deconstructed stereotypes of women and built a career out of self-portraiture. The history of self-portraits goes back to the refinement of the mirror during the Baroque era with Salvator Rosa and Rembrandt being two of the earliest to explore this genre. It could also be argued that it is an ancient theme dating back to the Greek myth of Narcissus. It has been a genre of photography since the inception but no one has produced a larger body of work than Sherman. Of course now with social networking sites and digital cameras she probably has a few rivals with their cameras at arms length in what I call the My Space point of view.

Albert Einstein once said, "If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." The artists mentioned may be considered eccentric; they are known for pushing art in new directions and for challenging the status quo. What they have in common is that they trusted the muse to guide them. Watch Art:21 this week and get inspired.

This article was original posted at Art21 on KACV blog.