OmegaMom

I like my blog.  It’s a nice, cozy place, where I get to rant and rave and philosophize about whatever I want, and inflict pictures of my darling dotter or other members of the family on The Public.  It skeeves me out that blog scrapers come by on a regular basis, grab a paragraph and a link, and then slap it up on a blog-ad-site (blad?) filled with AdSense ads, but it’s certainly better than folks who grab your entire blog, change some details, and publish it as their own (I’ve encountered this a few times, second- or third-hand).  It bothers me that there are people out there who will steal your pictures of your life, your child, and pretend the pictures are their own, illustrating their own life.

I can actually sort of understand it, though.  There are people out there who yearn after validation, who want to be seen as creative, as kind, as loving, as beautiful–whatever image it is that they are seeking, and stealing, they’ve got a serious self-image problem.  While I think plagiarizing like that sucks dead toads and should be the object of scorn and contumely, I also feel sorry for these folks.

But what the hell possesses people to start up an email with a lie?  You don’t know ahead of time that your email is going to go viral…

OmegaGranny recently sent me a forwarded email.  There were two lines of text, and 26 photos.  The text read: 

Entries for an art contest at the Hirshorn Modern Art Gallery in DC

The rule was that the artist could use only one sheet of paper.

The photos–the photos were awe-inspiring.  Fascinating.  Lovely.  Amazing.  Beautiful.  Quirky.  Sad.  Thought-provoking.

The photos were also very familiar to me.  I was dubious that these were the work of multiple people, because I could swear I had seen these very same pieces of artwork on one person’s website.  But I wasn’t sure.

So first I went off to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.  I couldn’t find anything that related to an "art contest".  I did an advanced Google search of the entire website, and didn’t find anything.

I went to Snopes, just to see if they had anything listed.  Nope. 

So then I googled "paper art".  Because I was sure I had seen these pictures before.

And lo and behold, the very first link that shows up when you google "paper art" is the site of Peter Callesen, a Scandinavian artist who has been creating paper art for years.  Every single one of those 26 photos is directly from his website.  He’s been published in books, he has had oodles of shows in Europe (none at the Hirshhorn, by the way), he has permanent art up on display in various corporate places.

He’s a "name".  It’s his work.

Why?  Why would someone send out an email claiming his artwork is the result of an anonymous collection of art contest entrants?  Why on earth didn’t they just say, "OMG.  You have to see this guy’s artwork!  He’s a genius!"?  There’s no need to actually copy the photos (a violation of copyright) and send them on in an email–just provide a link to his website.

What is the motivation in doing something like this?  The person who originally sent the very first email (first in a long chain, trust me, because googling the text pulled up a large number of hits) knew that what s/he was doing was telling an outright lie about the artwork.  Why deny the artist of his recognition?  This man has worked long and hard establishing a reputation in the art world.  Why steal it and apply it to no-one in particular?

Gah.  It’s frustrating to me.  Anyway, as a result of that email, I have a post for the day, and I have a website to point y’all to.  Go look at Peter’s website.  Enjoy his artwork.  It’s amazing.