Plagiarism….Plagiarism is something that is frowned upon in writing. It’s also frowned upon in Art as well. In the past year, I have learned about copying and plagiarizing someone else’s artwork, basically stealing it and making a profit off of it. When I looked up the word Plagiarism in the Bedford, it led to me to the word Pastiche. The definition of this is as follows, “A literary, musical, or artistic work that imitates another’s recognizable style or pieces together a medley of often incongruous elements from a number of existing works. Pastiche may have humorous, satirical or serious intent or may simply serve as an exercise in technique.” (Bedford, 316) The Bedford also states not to confuse the two words, they are nothing alike. The Bedford states that, “Plagiarism is characterized by deceptive intent; pastiche involves open imitation or borrowing and often pays homage to its sources.” (Bedford, 316) I was surprised when I read this in the Bedford. It is splitting up the two words, making them and giving them 2 different meanings. Plagiarism and art are linked together, something that I never really thought of being linked together until last year in my Art class.
I’ve known about plagiarism, ever since I started writing papers for school. They shoved down our throats at school to “CITE! CITE! CITE!”, and the teacher would usually state that if we didn’t cite correctly, or took someone else’s words and passed them off as our own, we would be in big trouble, specially in college. This is the same thing in the art world as well. I remember when I first started talking about it in my art class, I found it, interesting. I know some artists, digital artists, that have had their art copied, traced, and sold off as someone else’s work. It is sad to see someone else’s work, art form and written form. Whenever someone copies, or traces someone else’s work, it’s not broadcasted all over the news, even though it should. Whenever this happens to one of my friends, one of my good friends blasts it on social media in an Art Awareness group, for those whom have bought digital art from this person, and who are planning on buying art from this person. It’s also just to keep an eye out for this person. Once this happens, the person whom is getting accused of course gets defensive. If you’re learning, great, trace away, copy away, just don’t sell it, and pawn it off as your own. Give credit to the original artist.
I am personally apart of the group, and I find the group very effective in the art world for my group of friends. They may not be famous artists, but they are famous to me. I have purchased some pieces from my friends whom are digital artists, I have also watched my friends go through battles with these people. They have filed court cases, and WON; go them. I enjoy looking at art myself, I find it peaceful to look at.
The reason I am on this topic because we had to do a Plagiarism workshop in class one day. This idea popped right into my head and the ball started to roll. I wrote a paper about Stolen Art at GCC, I sadly do not have the paper any more, I should’ve kept it, I made some solid points in that paper; I also had a lot of fun writing it. I personally feel that writing is an art in itself. It’s an amazing thing. It’s beautiful on how some people can word their sentences, like authors, I find that amazing on how some can express their ideas, fully. It’s like you are given a blank canvas, paper, and you are expressing yourself in writing, or even painting. Art comes in many, many forms; music, writing, painting, drawing, even talking is an art form. I listen to podcasts sometimes and those art forms in themselves. It’s a whole story, you have figure out what in the world you’re going to talk about.
Now, back to Pastiche… From what I gather from this definition on pastiche is that you are taking someone else’s idea, and you are modeling it, and forming it into your own. You are using someone else’s idea as a foundation only, and you are building up from there with your own ideas. You are citing your foundation of your idea, and then branching off from that, to cite yourself; you created it after all. I have never honestly heard of pastiche until it came up in class. I like this word for some reason, it’s satisfying to me. It’s satisfying because I now know it, I know what it means, I know what the basis of it is. I now know, that it’s not plagiarism, it’s not stealing someone else’s idea, and doing NOTHING to it. You’re taking someone else’s idea, and molding it into your own, making it unique. We could learn a lot from the word Pastiche.