love affair with stained glass

i am the first to admit that i look for inspiration via the internet or pattern books, or what have you. occasionally, something pops into my head, and I draw it out. but even then, I often look to existing pattern books for help. example: the Hawaiian fling piece. i thought of the concept, but I used an existing pattern for the whale. the sea and shore is all  me, though, and I am really proud of it. the clouds i took from another pattern.

but normally i credit these sources.

I was trolling through etsy, looking for a piece that I unforgivably didn’t mark as a favorite. I want to copy the border in my next buddha piece. can’t find it, can’t find it… trolling trolling trolling thru 20 pages of stained glass panels on etsy. btw, there is some really phenomenal art on there. i come across a pattern i love, but have never done. bunch of koi in water, with ripples and bubbles. love it. have set out to do it a couple of times, and gotten distracted onto another project.

but I still have the pattern. so here is this gorgeous piece, really pretty. its larger and has more fish than my pattern, and the artist added a dragonfly in the center as a 3D accent. its super cool. so i send the artist a note saying i have the pattern but have never managed to get it done and I love  her treatment. she sends me this reply:

“Thanks glasswench. You probably have a similar pattern but not the same one. This one is my own design that I created about a year ago. There is one like it out there, but with simpler fish, fewer fish, and no dragonfly. At any rate thanks for the kind words.”

huh. this confounded me cuz i thought the pattern i have is pretty similar. so i hunted it up.

She is right in that there are fewer fish and no dragonfly in the pattern I have. but otherwise… it is the same pattern!! the fish are exactly the same, look at the tail f the one going out of the frame. it is the same! the water lines are exactly the same. the placement of the fish is different and there certainly are more fish in her panel, but come on!! that is totally splitting hairs, and disingenuous. she altered the shape of the heads slightly, but it’s the same pattern, and she only  expanded on it. oh, and I have had this pattern since the first year I was working glass, 2005. it is one of the first patterns I was really excited about. i think i was distracted by my first Ganesha window, and that is why i never did it.

for some reason this really fries my ass. i wish wish wish i knew where i got the original piece. I call *bullshit* on your sistah!

~ by kellig on July 22, 2012.

Posted in Inspiration, Patterns
Tags: copying, etsy, fish, flattery, koi, patterns