Category: Uncategorized

This may belong in the Pit of Geek, but Bah! I’m on a roll over here at FYTH tonight!

So, this comic over at Something Positive (the comic for July 10th, when the link goes bad in a day or two) reminded me of something. Reminded me of just how geeky I am.

I’ve been saying I’ve been using computers since I was 6, since that’s when I first started programming in BASIC on a TI99/4A. But then the comic reminded me about logo. I remember programming in logo. Here in Pine. I must have been 3, or 4 years old when I started using computers, and started ‘programming’. I know I was reading at 3. And that I moved to Phoenix from Pine at the age of … 6? So maybe I was up to 5 when I was programming. Maybe dad remembers. But, wow. I’m such a geek.

Okay, in Mac OS X Jaguar, when you ‘minimize’ something, it shrinks down in a neat-o visual effect, and a miniature version of it sits in the ‘Dock’ at the bottom of the screen. To identify for you what application each mini-window is from (in case you have a lot of windows shrunk down there that look alike, I guess), Mac OS X puts a little icon of the application over the corner of the mini-window. I just noticed that my Dock has a mini-window, which is odd, because I don’t often minimize things. It was the calculator. Here’s what the mini-calculator window looks like:

I assume they put that micro-mini-calculator in the corner so you would know you were looking at a mini-calculator. Tee hee.

So, I run this ‘store’ up here for my grandparents every weekend. The bulk of the ‘stuff’ in the ‘store’ is just that; stuff. Some of it is very old and some of it is collectible, and some of it is just interesting, and some of it is plain junk or totally unidentifiable. And as I have mentioned here before, one entire wall is consumed by my art. There are currently … 21 works for sale there (25 canvases; two are triptychs: 1 2 ) I believe. More in the works. One that is available there but which I certainly shall not hang on the wall there any time soon, perhaps not ever. Ooh, plus that one I mentioned in the post I just made, which I will have for sale online and at the con (and if it doesn’t sell right away, in the store) next week or after.

But mostly right now the store still stocks all the stuff my grandparents have collected over the years. There’s quite a bit of very nice stuff. Hand-crafted sterling silver and turquoise jewelry, plus a variety of rugs, all made by native americans my grandfather knew personally. The remainder of a carousel collection that has been selling nicely, piece by piece. Hand-made ceramics. Coins from all over the world. And more and more and it’s a wonder anyone ever brought such diversity into one little shop.

And my grandparents own an acre up here, right on the highway (87), and we rent out shop space to other people, too. And I believe that right now every shop has a sign out front proclaiming their existence (and more generally, what they are offering) for all to see… except ours.

So I’ve been working on re-conditioning a sign left behind by one of our old renters (he left the beaten-up sign along with over five dumpsters full of garbage and quite a large bit of possibly-useful wood, plus assorted other mess) to use above the store. Sanding and painting and varnishing it… It’s not perfect, by far, but it’ll do well enough from a distance. And I was about to the part where I wanted to stencil on the actual lettering tonight. And I had the time and energy, and plenty of light where I was working, so I got out the stencils and started looking at the layout… when I discovered that the largest stencils we have are 6 inches tall. And the sign I’m working on is about 36 inches tall and 71 inches wide. And all I’m putting on it is “The Old Settlers Gallery”. I worked the other day on a layout for that, and I plan on making it three and a half lines tall. (‘The’ half a line above ‘Old’, but the rest on individual lines with visually pleasing alignment.) But… That sure would look odd floating in the middle of such a large space.

So I picked up the stencils, switched off the light, and came back up to my room. I’ll just have to do it all by hand, or create custom stencils with my computer. Which actually, I seem to be doing quite a bit more of these days. I was thinking a few months back, wondering about how I could integrate digital and physical artwork, and I had some ideas (I’d already done the one with the penguin, taking a digital comic and portraitizing it on the canvas, and I did get the idea to try to get the Creative Rights Management/Digital Rights Management issue out onto the canvas, but hadn’t fully realized it by then), but nothing concrete. I couldn’t work out how to integrate the digital realm and my paintings so that they worked together, serving my artistic vision instead of being forced to work together in place of vision. And I didn’t notice as I began creating images on my computer, stylizing them the way I wanted, printing them out and creating stencils and transfers from them to get the concepts begun on the computer, out onto the canvas, that I’d begun doing exactly what I’d hoped to. So, probably that’s what’ll happen. I’ll make a 36″x71″ workspace in Photoshop, create the sign, break it up into manageable/printable peices, and transmit it from the digital realm onto the sign. Likely, the lettering and overall appearance will be much nicer than the plain block letters would have turned out to be.

Oh, and the name… My original (admittedly vague) plan was to just say “Old Settlers” on the sign, but when my grandfather brought it up last week and I mentioned that, he said “I thought you were going to put ‘Old Settlers Gallery’.” Because the ‘stuff’ is really only temporary, until it sells out or we have enough other merchandise to replace/displace it. I’ve got my art there (an increasing amount; I’m painting more than ever now), and my father will be, before too long, hand-making furniture at least part time. Eventually full time, we all hope. Plus, I already have three sculptures in there he’s created at one time or another in the past, so his art is already present. So really it is gradually transforming into a gallery. That makes me feel pretty good. For a while I had a nagging feeling I was selling my art in a junk shop. It turns out my art is helping upgrade the junk shop into a proper gallery.

Strange thing: This will be the fourth (I think there are only four) ‘art gallery’ in Pine. Pine, population under ~1000, art galleries: 4

I have now created a work of art where the subject is freedom of expression itself, and the boundaries of inspiration. I selected a fellow artist whom I know has created and profited from the creation of derivative art in the past, but who was now making enough money from his creations that his attitude about derivative works had changed. I contacted him, surreptitiously asking for license to create a unique stylized portrait of one of his characters, a la Andy Warhol’s portraits of celebrities, knowing I would be refused. I was refused. I offered him the painting itself, I offered him 100% of the proceeds from the potential sale of the painting, and I tried reasonably negotiating with him as though I believed it would do any good. It did not; he refused all forms of negotiation or compromise as I had expected he would. He even refered to himself as being a ‘pain in the ass’ about the whole thing.

I then proceeded with my original vision of the painting, which was to make it appear that a derivative work created in good faith and a playful spirit had been forced to be ‘un-created’ or defaced because the originator of the idea was being unreasonable and restricting my freedom of expression. Thus, yesterday I got to the point where it appeared to be simply a partially derivative work (would you know what the subject was if I did not spell it out?), and I contacted the original creator one last time, to give him one last chance to allow the work, or accept the offer of 100% of the proceeds, or to work something out. Again he refused to negotiate, this time saying (this is a direct quote) “I don’t give a shit what you do with the painting, but I don’t want it, I don’t want the proceeds from its sale…” thus giving me excellent ground should he try to take legal action againt my now entirely unactionable position. Thanks, man.

Anyway, the final work really doesn’t depict any character or creation of his, and any part of it that resembles a creation of his is coincidental to my desire to have a factual basis for the actual point of the peice. Which is that if I had not coerced the above quote out of him, and had actually created something that had more than a vague resemblance to a creation of his, I could have faced legal action.

Legal action.

For painting a picture of a chicken.

There is something wrong with the way copyright law is handled in America, and it is not simply with the ridiculous term of each copyright (now 90 years beyond the death of the creator), but also in the way creators have come to behave with regards to their creations. There is no way this one painting could topple the ’empire’ the original creator is building around the actual character he believes it was intended to depict, let alone degrade the value of the character. (At my current going rate for a painting of this size and complexity, I could easily get several hundred dollars, while he gives away an infinite number of depictions of the character in question on his website every day for free.) Yet the creator feels so compelled to totally control the character in question that when anything is created even vaguely or coincidentally resmbling one of his creations, he reacts by trying to stomp it out. If he were to maintain this attitude about his work, it would extend 90 years beyond his death, which itself may be 90 years away, and anyone wanting to draw, paint, or otherwise depict a talking chicken would have to either wait a century or two or proceed with their creation with the fear that they may next be targeted by this creator, who has apparently copyrighted the idea of the talking chicken.

I understand that there should be a certain level of protection for creators, as I am myself a creator, but the current laws and attitudes are too far gone. I certainly don’t need protection of my works more than a year after my death, and corporations (non-entities, as far as I am concerned) should only be allowed use of individual creators’ copyrights for as long as the individual agrees, and for one year beyond the term of their life. Not longer, and not without the permission of the actual person or persons who created the work. Copyright law should not be able to stop individual creators from expressing themselves, but only to stop those who make money from copyright violations from not giving a fair share of any profits to the copyright holder, up to 100% of the profits. Copyright protections are supposed to be there to allow the people who come up with the ideas to make the money off them without having to worry about not getting their fair share if/when someone else uses their idea.

If someone takes your idea and copies it exactly and gives it away for free, it isn’t stealing, it’s free advertising. If someone takes your idea and copies it exactly and sells it, it still isn’t stealing, but you deserve at least a portion of their profits. If someone takes your idea and runs with it and creates something merely ‘inspired by’ it, and sells it, there is a small chance you deserve a portion of their profits, but since they aren’t selling something you’ve created, but an entirely new work, it isn’t actually your idea anymore, and what you deserve there is questionable.

Personally, if I created something that inspired someone to create a new something that had grown out of my own creation, and that it was so popular or valuable that they were able to make money by its sale, I would probably want to congratulate them, and perhaps collaborate with them on future works. In a few years when I’m making more money off this stuff and someone tries to make money from something derivative, see if I don’t hold to my word. It isn’t about this situation, and it isn’t just about ‘inspired’ or ‘derivative’ works, it’s about the whole copyright issue. It’s about the fools in the music industry who believe people getting free copies of their music over the internet is stealing, but will gladly give away free copies of the same music over the radio and in stores on free promotional CDs and consider it ‘advertising’. It’s about the fact that Mickey Mouse is 70 years old and I’m still not allowed to draw him without permission I could never afford to get. It’s about the fact that all the ‘fan art’ anyone has ever drawn (usually among the first things any artist ever draws) could be stopped at any moment by whomever owns the individual copyrights on the inspiring images and characters being depicted.

It’s about freedom of expression.

I give you my new painting (I will have a better photo online next week), which will be available for sale online at Modern Evil and in person at the San Diego Comic-Con 2003 next week,

freedom of expression:

(half-size, pre-loaded: click to pop up full size)

Tomorrow, Flagstaff.

My grandfather is buying a compressor from a friend of his, and they are meeting in Flagstaff. He needs my help to move the thing from one truck to the other. So I’m going to Flagstaff with my grandparents tomorrow.

My sister is coming up to run the store for the day; hopefully people will come in with money, looking to buy. We hardly had a person come in after lunch today. I spent some time marking a few more prices on things for her. She worries about making up prices for things on the spur of the moment. So do I, frankly, but I’m getting used to it.

My father and brother are also coming up tomorrow. I don’t know what they’ll do, exactly. There are rumblings of my brother accompanying us to Flagstaff, but since we’re going in the truck, I don’t think there’ll be room. Unless grandpa thinks it’s safe for one o fus to ride in back. I never know.

Feeling a bit better today. Going to go to bed early again. See about trying to be well by the time the convention rolls around. I need to figure out if there’s a way for me to pack a couple of paintings to safely check them with the airline. I wanted to have three particular paintings on-hand. One is ‘please’; I wanted to have it on hand because I’ll be signing and handing out mini-prints of it, and maybe someone there will want to buy the real thing. The other two are the two online-comic-inspired paintings. I was trying to do for comics something new, stylizing and portraitizing particular online comics characters in a pair of paintings that are interesting on their own and that work together side by side as well. One of them I have recently lost the rights to create, so while I will (perhaps temporarily) have a photo of the painting as I “wanted” it to be here on the site, I will shortly be permanently defacing it in a way that calls out the ridiculousness of the person who owns the rights to the character. There will be photos of that online soon, as well.

(half-size, click to pop up full resolution)