Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Compliment-ary Copy


When the March/April 2012 issue of Pottery Making Illustrated arrived back in February, I was surprised. We hadn't had a subscription for probably at least three years. So I opened it up, assuming it was a promotional device, hoping I would come back. Got to the next-to-last page and saw these wonderful drawings of pitcher forms.  As I quickly scanned the page, I thought about how back when I first started making pitchers these were exactly the images I drew my inspiration from... well... except for the folks who weren't even making pots back then (youngsters, lol)....

And as I reached the bottom of the page, I saw our beaked pitcher from way back when. Probably made that blue pitcher back in 2008. I had planned to make a whole series of them. It just never happened. Between a series of rotten shows, health issues and then the coma, they were put on the back burner.

On one hand I am honored to have my pitcher show up in the magazine. On the other hand, no one called or wrote to ask my permission for inclusion in the magazine. Not sure how I feel about that. Seems like a pretty obvious issue of copyright infringement.... but at the same time, I am honored. Such a conundrum. How would you feel seeing your work show up in a magazine, without your foreknowledge?

3 comments:

cookingwithgas said...

interesting thoughts. I am with you that I might be pleased but also a bit put out.
I recently had a historical piece I loand to a local museum put siad piece in a show and catalog without getting in touch with me. I was a bit put out that they would do this and think it was okay. Plus the guy who put the show together and should know his stuff had the history of the piece wrong. Had he asked, looked me up I could have filled him in.
THey are offering me a free, no charge catalog- I wanted to tell them where to place it...

Alex Solla said...

This is exactly what I mean Meredith. If all they had done was communicate, shown the tiniest bit of respect, I would have been overjoyed, honored... you name it. But finding it out AFTER the fact... makes it feel kinda lame... sort of dirty even. Odd, for sure. Makes me more aware of how I have appropriated people's images, photos or blog posts... and in some cases, I am going back and asking for permission NOW, and if folks aren't happy, PULLING those old blog posts. So far, so good. Makes me MUCH more aware of how communication at the outset makes all the difference in attitude.

cookingwithgas said...

real food for thought here- would make an interesting post.