a blog I wrote for F/stop Poetry

http://www.fstoppoetry.blogspot.com/

Creativity.

In art it seems like one of those things you are “just born with.” I have come to realize that not everyone gets handed wild imaginations and that for the rest of us that aren’t struck with 8 brilliant ideas before breakfast, we can painstakingly learn the rules so we can figure out the best ways to break them.

I read somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun. And I believe this, everything we do as artists have already been done, but I love that Picasso said “bad artist copy, Good artists steal.”

I remember growing up I would get a hello kitty lunch box and then my annoying next door neighbor Bethany would do the same.  Or I would order a Chicken McNugget happy mean with a High C for lunch and then Bethany would do the same. This is infuriating even as an 8 year old.

Now that I am 24 it still feels just as infuriating and just as infantile. Not that what I do is too terribly creative, I envy the seemingly effortless creativity of a lot of my peers, but when you scrape to find a way of doing things and a visual voice and then the next week someone who has seen your work does the same- It can be awfully discouraging and even more annoying.

Erin and I have had many conversations about this. About branding, copying, stealing and honoring.

Plagiarism is so easy these days,

Why take the time to go on a journey of self discovery and struggle through writing a book that moves people when you can just regurgitate someone elses cool blog.

Why take the time to figure out who you are and what you think and how to convey that in your work when you can just compose your image the same way as someone else?

To quote cursive- art is hard.

And it’s a slippery slope that every artist faces: when to borrow from an inspiration and when to just rip it off completely.

I say for all of us artists out there lets do some soul searching. Lets ask why with our work.

Why do we make the work we do?

Why do we care about it?

Why is it important?

Why is this representational of us and of the subject and of the concept we are trying to convey.

Why do I have to make this work

Why should any one else care.

I bet if we all started looking at our work that way we would already be well on our way to being better artists and using visual language in our own words instead of eating someone elses.