I first started to think about this on the first evening of our holiday as I sat piecing my first patchwork block.
Although I’ve never been particularly interested in paper pieced patchwork before, I love the work of Karen Turner, who used to blog as Stitching Life but has now retired from the world of blogging and left it poorer for her absence.
It was following Karen’s blog and being so inspired by her work that led me to buying some of her hand dyed fabrics and deciding to have a go at paper piecing.
But as I sat there with fabrics Karen had dyed, piecing them in the way I’d seen so often on her blog, intending to stitch into the surface afterwards as she does, a horrible thought struck me.
Was this copying?
In a world where intellectual and actual copyright seems increasingly difficult to protect, was I breaching someone else’s copyright? When does admiration and inspiration step over that line?
It almost stopped me making the blocks I’ve just finished documenting on this blog. As a writer, I do understand about copyright and I respect the rights of anyone who makes their living through the original work they produce to not be copied. So how could I reasonably continue? I argued, the block lying abandoned in my lap.
I wasn’t trying to copy Karen’s work, just trying out some of her techniques. And I certainly wasn’t trying to make money out of the results. Can any of us ‘own’ the techniques we use in our work? Is this any different to the results people get from following projects in books and magazines; in online or face-to-face workshops and courses?
Still without any defintive answers, I continued with the blocks, hoping that they ended up as ‘my’ work, whatever that is. Paper piecing, I’ve decided, is not my medium, interesting though it was for a limited time. I’m glad I tried it out; I like the results, but my magpie mind is already looking elsewhere.
One of the things that interested me about stitching on the surface of a patchworked block was how the colours of the fabric alters your preception of the stitches. I wanted to explore that a bit more without the constraints of the holiday journal and when I found Karen was selling a bag of scrappy offcuts, including some oddments of her patchwork, I couldn’t resist.
So this is one of my current fragment experiments – my stitching in space-dyed silk thread on patchwork that I didn’t even piece.
Whose work?
I can understand why you would be concerned, but I believe that you’re well on the right side of the line, and I’m sure Karen would encourage you to continue playing!
I agree – I’m sure she would be really pleased but it did get me wondering about the whole grey area.
Yes I miss karens chatter too but do wish her well with her studies!
And its an interesting concern isnt it, are we plagerising a design concept or not.
Take Jude Hill for example, there are so many of us who follow her thought processes and imitate her as we stitch. I too have tried to make fantastical animals in her style for example…though mine look somewhat less FANTastical lol
And how thrilled was I, to find that I have been a Boro enthusiast since the 1960s when I first ever patched my jeans( – with floral cottons back then)……….but hadnt known that I was!
I think of this not quite copying, as a form of showing admiration of someones work and my trying to create in their style, is a method of learning from their tuition …Ive taken many workshops, in person and online, just so I can learn particular techniques and am so grateful for the various skills that Ive been taught.
It doesnt hurt for us to think seriously though about what we are dfoing and how we arrived at the idea. Its a responsible way to be I reckon.
Thanks so much, Lyn, for your interesting and considered response – that’s very much how I was starting to view it, but I was interested to see what other people’s take on the whole question was. And the effect Jude Hill’s work has had on other people was actually one of the things I had in mind when I was writing the post. It’s good to know I’m aiming in the right direction!
This is such an interesting topic and especially now that we have the Internet and access to so many ideas, pictures, techniques than we ever had before. Some say there are no ‘new’ ideas and if you look up any one thing online you might certainly believe that. To take someone’s ‘idea’ and make it up exactly as they did and say it is an original, solely of your own design, would be false and wrong. However if you are doing patchwork or pretty much any other stitchery that has been done before but using fabrics YOU choose or the stitches placed where YOU want them or the theme YOU’VE chosen as you work your needle and thread I don’t think that is copying. As long as everyone has access to everything there are going to be straight out copycats – there is no way to avoid it. But we can hope that someone who copies the first time, once getting a feel for the work, will come up with their own designs and colors and combinations and will thus grow.
Like walking a mile in another person’s shoes, I guess. I wrote a lot of imitations of various writers when I first went to university and it gave me the most wonderful insight into how great writers actually construct their work and shaped my own written style without ever making me a pale imitator of any one writer. As you’ve said, that has parallels with any sort of creative activity. We practice by copying in order to become our own person. We hope!
there are no longer any ‘unique’ techniques or very few anyway. I don’t think anything constitutes copying until you try and replicate an item. We all take a technique and use it in our own way…putting something of our self in there.