The Copying Issue ~ A Crafting Nightmare

Every day I dedicate time to reading blogs, looking at forums and selling sites and  marvelling at the amazing work of crafters.  Occassionally I have seen someone working in a media and decided to have a go myself.  I took up lino printing after seeing a tutorial featured on a blog somewhere.  In the past my forray in the world of polymer clay was inspired by seeing the work of other people and more recently, I took up making sock creatures when I was unable to locate a rainbow design one for my daughter, having seen some truely amazing designs.

In all these persuits though, I never once had an example or photo sittig in front of me, I never used patterns and developed the idea myself, making sure that I never took someones trademark or signature design.  Infact, I steered right away from it.  It's so sad to see a blatent copy, to recognise someone elses work an artists piece.

I have seen examples that are clearly copies.  Chickens spring to mind, and more recently the work of a designer copied and mass produced by a high street store.

A couple of years ago a designer called Eni Oaken was very popular aoround the jewellery forums. She had a wonderful way of wire wrapping and had a style very much her own.  She provided tutorials etc and it spawned a whole load of beautiful work by other designers, but as often as not it was called Eni Oaken STYLE.  This showed that the inspiration came from her. 

I myself, was once accused of coping another designer, I was lucky to be able to proove that I'd actually first made the product when I must have been about 8 or 9 years old.  The shock of being accused filled me with horror. It took some getting over and even though I knew that it had been a case of error on the accusers part, it bashed my confidence.  I think it has in the long term made me more determind to make sure that inspiration and application are two totally different things.