On originality

I've recently discovered Folksy (I may well be setting up shop there soon, but that's another post) and have spent some time recently looking through items which have been tagged with "polymer clay" and "polymer clay jewellery". For two reasons really - firstly to get an idea of what other UK clayers are producing and secondly for inspiration.

I don't think there's anything wrong with using other people's ideas. I seem to spend half of my life admiring pieces and wondering how I could make something similar myself. I've worked through a lot of online tutorials (particularly Cindy's videos) and made projects from books and I'm perfectly happy to make money from those pieces. I figure if something's in the public domain then it's okay. And you can't develop your own style and techniques until you've tried lots of different things.

But the key word here is similar. Maybe the first time I make a bead from a book I do it exactly the same. But I'll always create a different piece of finished jewellery to the one they show, and by the time I've made one "right" I'm ready to experiment and put my own spin on the project. Maybe I'd prefer it in warmer colours, or with glitter, or wrapped with wire, or as a bracelet rather than a necklace. And maybe I don't have Pearl-Ex powders so I'll just use metallic powders instead.

I'd like to think that any of my work which is inspired by tutorials or books is different enough, and requires enough of my own creativity and ideas, that I'm not stepping on anyone's toes by selling the work as my own.

Which is why I felt uncomfortable when I found a piece on Folksy that looked familiar. Now I'm not so au fait with the polymer clay world that I can immediately tell which artist created what, but this one was very distinctive. It's a distinctive piece by a distinctive artist and since I happen to have one of the artist's books which shows how to make that exact item I did a bit of a double-take.

Essentially it's a heart pin decorated with some simple cane slices. The one on Folksy was identical in all but three respects - the colours were different, the bullseye cane of the original was replaced with a solid dot cane, and the finish wasn't anywhere near as good.


I don't think that's sufficiently different enough, personally. I know that the Folksy artist is perfectly within their rights to make and sell such an item, but it somehow seems wrong to me because it's kind of like taking the credit for the design yourself just because you constructed the piece. I guess there's a fine line, but I think I'd prefer it if there was something like "In the style of Polymer Artist X" in the description.

But anyway, where's the artistry in copying? How creative is it to follow instructions? And isn't it more fun to do your own thing?

And in case you're wondering, the pieces in the picture are entirely from my own head.