Post #7433 by thecardcheat on Mon, Sep 2, 2002 1:31 PM

Okay, Easy, easy.......

Let's start with you're right. I'd never give someone a hard time for trying. Never.
And this guy might be a really nice guy. I'm sure he is.
I'm kinda new here, so if you already talked about this sorry to bring it up again. But it's something that really bugs me.
It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't make a living as an artist, but let me try.
You say imitation is a great form of flattery?
Okay, you work for a company, you're working on a project, working on numbers, retail? anything. You figure out a new way to do something. You have a great original thought that's really gonna help out you're company. Save money , increase quality, sell more stuff, etc. You show it to a co-worker, or someone sees you're proposal on you're desk. They go and tell the boss you're ideas, and put thier name on it! They get a big raise? Promotion? Would you be flattered?

You're right, copying someones work is a great way to learn. I've been so excited by techniques that other artists have come up with that I will sit and study and copy, until I figure out how they did it. Then I will incorporate it into what "I" do.
Hey, if you copy someones stuff, and keep it for yourself, cause you really dig it, cool! Maybe give it as a gift, give it too the artist, or show it to them, they may be really flattered. But when you put your name on it, and run a buisness selling it, not cool.

Big difference between inspiration, and copying. You mention shag. Shag has some very obvious inspirations. He'll tell you who they are. Yet he takes what they've done and makes it his. Look at Wayne Coombs, Shag, Crazy Al, Bosko. They all do tiki, they all have seen the same traditional tiki we all have seen. Yet all thier carvings are different. When we see them, we know who did them. Our friend Jaksin, I believe is the guy who does Kreepy Tiki. When I see his stuff, It's brightly colored, airbrushed. He's from Miami, I assume he's into cars. He took himself and his environment and brought it into his tiki.
There is so much room for personal interpitation in tiki. It's so easy. Maybe that's why I say this gut isn't trying. If you were gonna take the time to learn the carving techniques, wouldn't you eventually want to do your own work?
To take something as you say "has already proven sucessful" To make your living. Well what the heck! sell some Disney stuff, put Mickey Mouse on your sign. Do your own Disney sculptures, with your name on them of course. They sell good! Hey , invest in a CD burner, sell some bootlegged Brittany Spears CD's. Put your picture on the cover! They've proven to be big sellers! Get it? You can't do that.
And what about the guy you're stealing from? That's how he makes his living! His creativeness,skills,and ideas, are the tools of his trade.
You Say you are jealous of the skills these people have, artistically. They got these skills from endless hours of learning, practice, experimenting, etc. That's the hard part. It's easy to take after someone else has figured it out.

As for me doing it because " certainly I would do a better job because I would at least try". I do make a living as an artist. And I do try very hard! I spend a lot of time coming up with creative solutions, and yes something original.
I don't carve tikis, but I will tell you 100% that if I "tried", when I was ready to put my name on them, and sell them, They would be unmistakenly ( is that a word?) mine.
When you stop to tell me they're lame,at least I'll know I did the work. And I'll be proud of it.

Sorry to ramble on, but this is something that goes on in the artworld, and makes it even harder to make a living at it.

This guy seems to be a friend of yours 75, so I'm sorry if I offended you or him. A great way to support your friend would be to go to him, and tell him you think he is a very talented carver, and you would like to buy an "original" of "his"! Something that he totally came up with! I bet he'd be pretty stoked!

Hope no hard feelings,

TheCardCheat