Copyright Concerns

So, since I've gotten back into collage I got to thinking about that pesky, irritating and potentially inspiration-killing issue of copyright. Copyright infringement to be precise. I hadn't been too worried about the issue as a whole until I visited this page about copyright myths and learned some interesting facts. Most of my collages tend to center around ancient art, sculptures, mosaics and the like. But plenty, plenty, oh plenty of my images come from magazines like National Geographic, etc. And while I don't ever intend to sell my collages I do worry since I've recently discovered that simply by making a collage that incorporates the copyrighted images of others I am technically breaking the law. That's right, even if I have no intention to sell, duplicate, distribute or ever show it to anyone the mere fact that my collage has the copyrighted images of others in it means I am breaking copyright law. And since I've started to post some of them on this here blog I've gotten to worrying a bit.

Now, I seriously, very, very seriously doubt that any published and professional artist would care all that much about my little collages. I'm just one amateur crafty witch whose "works" or "pieces" will probably only ever been seen by a mere handful of people. But I am going to start making a concerted effort to use more of my own photographs as well as ancient images. I'll especially try to veer closer to photos of ancient mosaics and other 2 dimensional pieces as I've also recently learned that photos of statues can be considered creative and thus covered by copyright law as issues of position and lighting must be considered by the individual photographer.

And I've found mention of various free sources of images that fall into the category of creative commons so I guess I need to look into that. Needless to say, this puts a big kink in my collage plans but I'm not going to let that stop me. I just need to rethink my collage process and maybe ditch all those magazine clippings I've spent hours cutting out and organizing. This also means I've got to obtain some more printer ink and hope, no pray, that my printer can produce decent, collage-worthy images.

Different Headspace

If you're one of my regular readers you've probably noticed I haven't been blogging much lately. Well, that's because I've been busy blogging elsewhere. My creative juices have been turned on high lately and I've resurrected my crafty/photography blog. I've been doing mostly nature photography and collage, as well as creative journaling. And since it's me we're talking about here it's all done with a pagan slant. If you'd like to see what I've been busy doing please check out Sacred Spiral Creations.

Hecate Altar

Click for larger version.

Various magazine clippings. The moon and stars are from the same painting as the stars from the previous post that I can't remember. I'm not sure if I'm completely happy with this one but since I can't fit anything more into it I've decided to leave it alone for now.

Aphrodite 4

Click for larger version.

Here's another Aphrodite collage. The mural is actually Venus from the remains of Pompeii. The painting is "The Kiss" by Gustave Klimt from 1908. The stars are from an old painting of some sort as well but, unfortunately, I can't recall which one. My bad. The other images are from various magazines.

Offering to Aphrodite

Click for larger version.

The statue is the Venus de Milo but the prayer is meant for Aphrodite, same difference, so sue me. I found this prayer uncredited on a long lost website, so I have no idea who wrote it. I'm really quite pleased with this collage if I do say so myself. Most of the flowers came from seed catalogs and there's a bit of old stationary in there too. The Venus came from an illustrated encyclopedia of mythology I shredded to bits for its many photos. The text was added with my plain 'ol paint program.

Aphrodite is one of my patron goddesses so I'm sure I will eventually post more offerings to her to go along with this and the other 2 already posted.

Pink Petals and Love Notes

Click for larger version.

It feels good to use scissors and glue and make a lot of little pretty somethings into a bigger pretty something. That said, I think this is just a good background for something more profound. I think I'm gonna add some poetry in large writing over this. Something from Romeo and Juliet perhaps. Given that it's flowers it could either be a love poem or a death/funeral poem, or both. Stay tuned.

How Pagans Look at the World

I happen to really like this collage even though, especially on the larger version, there are visible glue bumps in the magazine clippings.

Aphrodite Altar 2

This is mostly magazine clippings but there is one image from the internet and a tiny bit of the magic of the paint program. I suck at that kind of thing but thought I'd give it a shot and see how it turned out. Not so great, but not too bad considering I don't really know what the hell I'm doing. At least I've learned something from this little exercise: I should stay away from the paint program.

Aphrodite Altar