Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Guestbook Sniper!

Today I got the following entry in my guestbook (now deleted):

Guestbook Entry: Sadly your art reflects no originality. Unfortunately all I see here are graphics you have gathered from sources on the web (i.e. google and yahoo images) and have added bits of clipart and color too, and attempted to pass off as your own creations. Your "Summer King" is a well known picture originally entitled "The Oak King". You should be ashamed.
-Artista
(5/3/05)

No email address was given (of course), but my guestbook stamped it as being posted from 67.168.154.89, which seems to have originated from a Comcast address somewhere near Seattle, WA

My response: I was only half upset at reading this today. Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion, but the charge that I have collected other people's work and passed it off as my own is simply false. Interestingly enough they specifically mention "The Summer King", saying that it is someone else's artpiece that I simply re-titled... weird. The model in this piece is a friend of mine (just as ALL of my models are... I have all the original pictures from the photoshoots, copies of their IDs, and signed model releases for each of them). Even the flowers and scenery are either pictures from my own backyard, or from one of my trips. Admittedly, the stag head is a picture I found on the web, but it has been so re-worked as to be completly unrecognizable when compared to its original form. I suppose it is possible that someone else has stolen this piece from me and is now passing it off as "The Oak King" (I've caught three or four people stealing my art before) but I find it tiresome that someone might see this and then fly off the handle and accuse me of artistic plagiarism with no real knowledge to back it up. For the record: The vast majority of the photo components that I use are my own original pieces, and while it is true that I may from time to time use a publicly available image as a part of a larger composition (animals, plants, historical sites and statuary, etc.) I make a concerted effort to change them so that they are unique to the piece that I am creating. Could this be what they are referring to? I certainly do more than just “add bits of clipart and color” to my pieces.

So... Artista... if you are out there reading this... calm down and think next time before you accuse someone of wrong doing. Do some research. Make sure you know what you are talking about. Don't waste your time being ashamed... just use your energy to better yourself. Or at the very least refrain from signing my guestbook!

8 comments:

f8 said...

I would also add a big "So fuck you."

yezida said...

Sheesh!
Your response is good, solid, and well reasoned. Good for you. The comment reminds me of the bad Amazon review I recently recieved. Here it is, it is so ridiculous I have to laugh:
This is disturbing.., April 7, 2005
Reviewer:Katrina Stone (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
That so many people gave this book five stars really concerns me. Luckily, I bought this book used, otherwise I might be kicking myself for paying full price. Between her utterly uninspired "devotional dances" to things such as sex, wisdom, and the "Sticky One" (a term she made up for the astral body), and her constant blabber about masturbation and rubbing your juices all over everything to "anoint" it, I was unimpressed, to say the least. However, driving on a trip a friend and I got a lot of laughs out of flipping through this book. It's very, very amusing if you don't take it seriously. The thing that makes me sad is that she's just using her sexuality to sell a feel good waste of paper with absolutely no depth. There's nothing evolutionary about it, unless you consider being a wanton, idiotic freak "evolutionary". If this is what humanity is evolving into, I am frightend.

carnivalia said...

OMG, that is a bad review.
She makes it sound like your book was all about sex, sex and only sex. Although her comment about 'rubbing your juices all over everything' made me laugh even as I shook my head.
That she saw nothing beyond the sex says much more about her particular hang-ups than it does about your work.

ogam said...

You are so right, Chas.
Most regrettably, that wretch chose yezida's good work to use for her Rorschach Test stimulus. *sigh*
Blessings on and hugs to you, Storm, and yezida, all three.

culfinglin said...

that's a much more polite response than i'd have given her!
some people can't create anything original on their own, so they can't conceive of others creating anything either.

iamthespark said...

Artista's comment is laughable, which explains what I did when I read it - laughed!
I think some people forget that just because they can post a rude comment anonymously does not make them any less of a jerk for doing it. In this case it was a potentially libelous comment, being that she was attacking your livelihood. Shame on Artista! Flamers should stick to the flaming boards where they can take cheap shots at other's expenses in the appropriate context.
Anyway, being one of your models, I can vouch for your artistic integrity. If she's seen my wiener anywhere else, it was a copy of your original work!

iamthespark said...

So what was she doing looking at a Witchcraft book if she is squeamish about juices, anyway?

faerywolf said...

Wowzers! That is a bad review... at least in the sense of being badly written. ;) Thanks for sharing it here... a good reminder that no matter what there is always someone out there who is ready to try to tear you down for what you do... it challenges us to remain true to ourselves in the face of a threatened ego.
Thank you, Goddess, for keeping me real! :)