Opal Mehta plagiarism case

[pegkerr]

dlgarfinkle says: "Who knew that the most eloquent, intelligent discussion of the Opal Mehta plagiarism case would come from Meg Cabot, the author of The Princess Diaries?"

Comments

[ladyjaida.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks so much for this link -- so much of what's written there is what I've been feeling all along, but couldn't quite put into words.

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

I feel Meg cabot is undervalued as an author - her blog is, at times, hilarious and sad - she seems to be able to find and distill the truth of a situation. (Plus, she doesn't pretend that she doesn't watch TV or read trashy magazines, which makes her seem all the more likeable)

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

You know, I see Meg's point, but I don't fully agree with it.
Obviously, if you practice something THAT much, eventually you won't totally suck at it.

Er, no. No matter how much I practice at raquetball - and I've been playing twice a week for about four and a half years now (minus two six-months-off stretches around babies #2 and 3) and I still can't play well enough to hold my own against my brother in law, who plays maybe three times a year. I suck. It's fun, but I suck. And drawing? It doesn't matter how many of the puppy dogs I learned to draw in third grade that I draw - it still looks like a third grader without any drawing skill did it. I can't even draw proportional tic tac toe boards on placemats.

Unless, of course, I trace. They they don't suck - they're just mediocre.

So no, I don't think that practice is the key to automatic success, and I also do think that for kids, and yes that means even the eleven and twelve year olds in middle school - sometimes, tracing is a good way to learn how to do something artistic - it's a form of practice, really.

And where does tracing give way to freehand copying of something? I've seen a lot of artists say that they learned certain things about drawing or painting by copying from a photograph of an actor, a scene, a location, etc. Is that kind of copying ok in an self-educational sense? Would it be okay to allow something into an art show if it was a drawn copy of a photo? What about collages? They fully reinterprit someone else's work, but to my mind, they're a form of artistry in and of themselves, regardless of whether the collager took the photos or drew the drawings.

So I don't think that a blanket condemnation of tracing, as a concept, is fair, and I don't think that giving full credit to practice as a way to success in everything is especially realistic. No, tracing something and passing it off as your own isn't a good thing; tracing something and saying you traced it isn't an inherently evil act either.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Practice alone isn't enough; it's possible to endlessly practice poor methodology, but if a person is observant enough to notice what's workiing, and what's not, and adapt and learn in the process of practice, he or she is bound to improve.

(Given the basic equipment for the job: eye/hand coordination in visual arts, hearing in music, some physical agility and strength for sports.)

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I agree that copying from the masters is a long-recognizes method for students to learn some artistic skills. It's just that a copy is a copy, not a work demonstrating any degree of original vision or anything unique to the copyist.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Interesting, and says a lot of what I've thought. Thanks for posting.

I remember being totally absorbed in learning various types of art when I was in HS. Didn't do any art shows -- didn't care about them. I also remember my major teacher commenting in passing once that no one that year had copied anything to turn in for one of their projects. I said, no, someone had. He was shocked, and wanted to know what. I took him over to the silkscreen print of the Mock Turtle, from Louis Carroll -- Right out of an illustrated version I had as a child. Have no idea why she did it -- she was quite talented, and a better natural (at drawing) than I was -- but she did.

The only thing I loved to practice even back when I was a disaster at it was writing. I kept trying, until my own voice came out. Never show the imitations to anyone, of course -- our version of fan writing back then.

But I do think that people have forgotten that working for something and then succeeding can be so much more satisfying than getting it young.

I think about having a hit like Rowling, only young. It would have paralyzed me -- I wouldn't have been able to write.

Now would be a good time . . . ;^)

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

It's true: There's a girl at archery who is naturally much better at it than I. She's more likely to win or at least make the finals in any given contest, she performs better under pressure, and she simply has the hand-eye co-ordination. She can practice less than me, and beat me hands down.

But.

When things go wrong, she's having an off day; she quits. She leaves.

When I'm having an off day, I may not linger at the range after the official practice time ahs elapsed, but neither do I leave early.

This is why I can not only compare myself to her, I can sometimes beat her. I have.

Practice isn't a key to instant super-duper success. In fact, meg's only remark is that you won't "totally suck", You may still suck, if you ahve little or no talent. And the less talent you have, the more you ahve to practice. But it's the only way to hone what talent there is.

(Skylarker's point is true, too -- practice can be poor practice. But that's another issue.)

Now, since I happen to also be an occasional visual artist:

Tracign has its uses (See below). But the way this girl did it, she didn't learn anything. She didn't use it as a teaching tool to learn how to draw princesses. She didn't use it to practice the skills. She used it entirely to get her name on a piece that was in the show.

I know exactly why people sometimes draw their own copies of the masters; why it helps them get the feel for why a line is where it is, and not somewhere else, it helps them actually spot that one little scrap of shadow that makes the image work. By looking at the picture clearly, and hard, then looking at your own copy, clearly and hard, you can see the two side by side and see the differences, and the likenesses.

It's also damned hard to get the proportions right just by looking; this is another kind of training you get copying the master. The ability to actually see how proportions and things like foreshortening work.

Tracing paper gets between you and the other picture. It blurs the subtleties. You can't look at your tracing and the thing you're tracing together. And all the tricks of figuring out how things line up just right? All done for you.

And, note, none of those who copy the masters then try to pass off their copy as a new work. They call it practice, they tuck it into an art drawer. If it turned out well, they may pin it to the studio wall as a reminder of what they learned, even show it to friends. But they don't put it in a gallery and call it their own.

You *can* use a tracing as the beginning and base for your own separate art piece. Those who do art this way trace the lines of the piece -- then fill in the details their own way. The particular points that appealed to them get emphasized in ways they weren't in the original. Their colour choices may be more or less savvy, but they're clearly individual. Their technique may be sloppier, or finer, but it's their own. They may make their piece an homage to the original, or a parody, or a snark, but what they don't do is make the original over again. (I guess this is also rather like your collage comparison -- again, the collagist tends to be glad when you can recognize sources.)

(Drawn copies of photos have their own issues -- not going there except to say that most of the time, the closer to a tracing you get, the worse the painting based on the photo.)

Those who began with a tracing or a copy, then revamped it in their own way, will sign their name to the new work, but usually will also acknowledge the original source -- or, if you recognize it, they will be glad you did so. They will not, as this girl did, copy it point for point then vehemently deny it.