Last Year's Successes are This Year's Clones
That was a very bold - but very true - statement made during an artistic seminar which I attended yesterday, in relation to photography by the great Tom Lee. I guess it applies to everything else, doesn't it - whether you are creating something with a piece of yarn, a paintbrush or a block of wood.
It is funny how, when one artist comes up with an interesting technique, everyone begins copying that technique. With social media, this is even more rampant so that this stifles the creativity of the artist: why would I invent something new if everyone else will be doing it in a few months ' time?
The tendency of people to copy has never been more rampant. I guess, this was already done in the past: if a great artist like Michelangelo, celebrated in his time, came up with a new way of depicting people and had a school of eager students, you can bet your last dime that everyone would have painting in a manner that emulates his new technique.
People tend to have the copyist mentality - or copycat - they see something and want to do it themselves rather than do something different. I call it the herd mentality too - so that if everyone is doing something, I suddenly find that I don't, or it would take me a lot of persuasion to want to even try it out. For example, I've never watched Game of Thrones or Money Heist, and got tired of everyone talking about it. Will I ever watch it? Who knows? I doubt it. It's too populist.
With artistic technique this becomes a problem because if you don't emulate the technique once, you never learn about how it's done. And you cannot break rules if you don't know them. That's a silly point to be operating from and I end up telling myself that I have to get out of my comfort zone and get on with learning the technique... I can always decide about discarding it (or otherwise) later!
It is funny how, when one artist comes up with an interesting technique, everyone begins copying that technique. With social media, this is even more rampant so that this stifles the creativity of the artist: why would I invent something new if everyone else will be doing it in a few months ' time?
The tendency of people to copy has never been more rampant. I guess, this was already done in the past: if a great artist like Michelangelo, celebrated in his time, came up with a new way of depicting people and had a school of eager students, you can bet your last dime that everyone would have painting in a manner that emulates his new technique.
People tend to have the copyist mentality - or copycat - they see something and want to do it themselves rather than do something different. I call it the herd mentality too - so that if everyone is doing something, I suddenly find that I don't, or it would take me a lot of persuasion to want to even try it out. For example, I've never watched Game of Thrones or Money Heist, and got tired of everyone talking about it. Will I ever watch it? Who knows? I doubt it. It's too populist.
With artistic technique this becomes a problem because if you don't emulate the technique once, you never learn about how it's done. And you cannot break rules if you don't know them. That's a silly point to be operating from and I end up telling myself that I have to get out of my comfort zone and get on with learning the technique... I can always decide about discarding it (or otherwise) later!
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