I think we can all agree that hardly anything is black and white, but I mean.. the world is in color, boundaries will bleed into each other. It's just sort of how it goes. But this makes rules so much harder to follow, especially in art, where it's believed that there are no rules. Nothing is off limits to creativity.. Sort of. For an artist, where is the line drawn between stealing and copying, is it all just taking inspiration from something or is it plagiarism?
This unit was sort of strange because stealing and copying have such negative connotations, but do their meanings change when applied to art? I think that in the beginning I thought that they were the same, neither was good, if you ever want to make good art it needs to be completely original and different for it to be good. But, in 2014, a lot of art has been done before. Almost everyone, especially beginning artists, will have a similar style to another and want to incorporate art that they enjoy into their work. I would say that this is stealing an idea, which I no longer think is horrible in the sense of taking an idea and still transforming it into something that is your own. Sort of morphing it and adding in your unique style and transforming the meaning and really just making it your own and just having it stem from someone else's work. I think that what started out as something stolen, became more of something that was given. Most artists want to inspire their audience, they WANT you to take something, you aren't necessarily stealing their idea when they are putting it out for you. Artists stealing isn't the book definition of stealing, it's just taking a concept and changing it, technically artists steal in the beginning but they transform and they create something new.
Copying, I don't believe is okay, in any situation. It's unoriginal, if you just take a piece of art and do the exact same thing, you don't add anything to it and you don't make it yours than it's not yours, it's someone else's. Stealing an idea and then creating something from it, or stealing a technique or a bit of another person's style is different than just recreating another person's art and then selling it or simply displaying it as you own. That's just... not cool.
This unit was sort of strange because stealing and copying have such negative connotations, but do their meanings change when applied to art? I think that in the beginning I thought that they were the same, neither was good, if you ever want to make good art it needs to be completely original and different for it to be good. But, in 2014, a lot of art has been done before. Almost everyone, especially beginning artists, will have a similar style to another and want to incorporate art that they enjoy into their work. I would say that this is stealing an idea, which I no longer think is horrible in the sense of taking an idea and still transforming it into something that is your own. Sort of morphing it and adding in your unique style and transforming the meaning and really just making it your own and just having it stem from someone else's work. I think that what started out as something stolen, became more of something that was given. Most artists want to inspire their audience, they WANT you to take something, you aren't necessarily stealing their idea when they are putting it out for you. Artists stealing isn't the book definition of stealing, it's just taking a concept and changing it, technically artists steal in the beginning but they transform and they create something new.
Copying, I don't believe is okay, in any situation. It's unoriginal, if you just take a piece of art and do the exact same thing, you don't add anything to it and you don't make it yours than it's not yours, it's someone else's. Stealing an idea and then creating something from it, or stealing a technique or a bit of another person's style is different than just recreating another person's art and then selling it or simply displaying it as you own. That's just... not cool.
 | As you can see by the image on the left.. I was unsure on some of his features. The right is my completed remix! Ta-da! |  |
For my remix project I chose to transform the rat character, Remy (From Ratatouille), into his human friend, Alfredo Linguini. I first sketched out Remy, in his usual rat form, just to get a feel for his figure and his expression. I then printed out a picture of Linguini, traced this onto a piece of paper, and began to change Linguini bit by bit create a human Remy that followed the same Disney style as the other characters. I was fairly proud of how this turned out, I've never been very good with drawing cartoon characters and I was especially nervous to paint him... I think I may have messed up on that a bit. I also was sort of unsure on how to make his features appear human... But after a bit of struggling, I was pretty proud of this, I really just wanted to represent one of my favorite Disney
films of all time. It also sort of correlates with my next project... Considering the film was about accepting who you were and that you couldn't change, then I changed Remy into a human, which would of made his struggles so much easier. In my final project, I also did some changing... Ooo suspense....
films of all time. It also sort of correlates with my next project... Considering the film was about accepting who you were and that you couldn't change, then I changed Remy into a human, which would of made his struggles so much easier. In my final project, I also did some changing... Ooo suspense....
 |  |
Finally! My final project... I entitled this Make Me Beautiful and it was based off of Esther Honig's Before and After experiment. What she did was she took a photo of herself, sent it to different countries and said "Make Me Beautiful" (Thus, the title of my project :). The results of this project she found to be incredibly revealing of our world's culture and what she believed to be a shocking example of globalization because she thought it was representing Eurocentrism in that in many photos her skin had been whitened and only in two had it been darkened. I'm not sure I agree with her on this, it is interesting that in most it was lightened, and it is possible that it stems from the powerful European empires leading into colonial times where fair skin was thought of as the more beautiful complexion. However, I think this could actually be representing the transition, because I think that many countries are beginning to favor darker skin and this could become the more "beautiful complexion" at least in the eyes of society.
So I stole/took this idea of transforming a person and representing different cultures on their faces... Which were my canvases for this unit. I chose makeup as my medium, partly because photoshop and computer based art sort of intimidate me and partly because I had wanted to use makeup as my medium for a while and I saw this as the perfect opportunity for doing just that. So I took four girls, and I took a photo of them with little to no makeup, just their normal/daily look and then I proceeded to apply four of the styles from different countries onto them. I looked at Esther Honig's project and took the makeup inspiration from the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Germany and the Philippines. This project was time consuming and I had to do a lot of lugging around of supplies, but I was extremely happy with the results (and the fact I got to also do some photography and hopefully maybe some paint in the future as I still need to complete this project..) and it would not have been possible without the help and support of my art friends so THANK YOU to them:)
On a final note, the merit of my project, or the value that I added was I think the most important thing...
I gave it a more personal meaning and a more striking message.
I feel that Honig did this project out of interest of different cultures, just for research and to see the different beauty norms across the globe. But with mine, I was really trying to show the uniformity that society can create and how four very ethnically different girls can all conform to that one "Beautiful look" I think that all people should embrace and accept themselves, their "flaws" are what make them individuals and unique and different and those are the things that make them interesting. I'm not saying wearing makeup is bad, but I am a true believer in only wearing makeup to enhance your beauty to draw attention to your naturally striking features. You should never use makeup as an avoidance mechanism, well strike that, you can do whatever you want and you always have the right to feel confident. But I'm just trying to say that you don't have to use makeup as a mask. One thing that really struck me was a statistic I learned from doing this project: "In one survey 60% of people said that inner beauty counted the most"
That's it? That's so sad.. That's just terrible! What's sad is that.. in our world inner beauty isn't always what counts the most, even though it should. I think it is crucial that we stand up to social norms and to conforming and to standards. And I think that leading through example and creating and innovating and self expression (LIke making art) are really good ways to fight those things. Just be you, the true you.
Here is a video of Esther's project. See it for yourself! :)
So I stole/took this idea of transforming a person and representing different cultures on their faces... Which were my canvases for this unit. I chose makeup as my medium, partly because photoshop and computer based art sort of intimidate me and partly because I had wanted to use makeup as my medium for a while and I saw this as the perfect opportunity for doing just that. So I took four girls, and I took a photo of them with little to no makeup, just their normal/daily look and then I proceeded to apply four of the styles from different countries onto them. I looked at Esther Honig's project and took the makeup inspiration from the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Germany and the Philippines. This project was time consuming and I had to do a lot of lugging around of supplies, but I was extremely happy with the results (and the fact I got to also do some photography and hopefully maybe some paint in the future as I still need to complete this project..) and it would not have been possible without the help and support of my art friends so THANK YOU to them:)
On a final note, the merit of my project, or the value that I added was I think the most important thing...
I gave it a more personal meaning and a more striking message.
I feel that Honig did this project out of interest of different cultures, just for research and to see the different beauty norms across the globe. But with mine, I was really trying to show the uniformity that society can create and how four very ethnically different girls can all conform to that one "Beautiful look" I think that all people should embrace and accept themselves, their "flaws" are what make them individuals and unique and different and those are the things that make them interesting. I'm not saying wearing makeup is bad, but I am a true believer in only wearing makeup to enhance your beauty to draw attention to your naturally striking features. You should never use makeup as an avoidance mechanism, well strike that, you can do whatever you want and you always have the right to feel confident. But I'm just trying to say that you don't have to use makeup as a mask. One thing that really struck me was a statistic I learned from doing this project: "In one survey 60% of people said that inner beauty counted the most"
That's it? That's so sad.. That's just terrible! What's sad is that.. in our world inner beauty isn't always what counts the most, even though it should. I think it is crucial that we stand up to social norms and to conforming and to standards. And I think that leading through example and creating and innovating and self expression (LIke making art) are really good ways to fight those things. Just be you, the true you.
Here is a video of Esther's project. See it for yourself! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT9FmDBrewA
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