[Jewelry making - Article 00156] - Re: [Orchid] Ethics in Casting

[Karen Goeller]

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>        what is ethical in casting? 

    You pose some interesting questions that I've thought a lot about in
    the past year or so. 

    Here's my take on it.... 

    1.  Objects from nature are sources for a lot of my work.  I think
    they reflect and transform the beauty we see around us, making
    people even more aware of the easily overlooked beauty in nature. 
    My PERSONAL approach is that each item from nature is an original. 
    I don't mold them and replicate them.  Mother Nature created each
    one to be unique, so who am I to say there should be a thousand of a
    particularly nice leaf or twig?  Within my art, that adds to the
    perceived value of each piece, as well. 

    2.  Manufactured plastic objects can be used in some circumstances. 
    Again, the issue is transformation and respect for copyright.  For
    example, I would likely get into deep doo-doo if I used plastic
    Monopoly markers as sources for my pieces.  They are highly
    recognizeable and part of the copyright of the game; additionally
    the company markets various Monopoly pieces in metal and such.  So
    this is an area I'd definitely stay away from. 

    Having said that, there have been times when a component of a
    plastic modeling kit has been the "perfect" item to use in a design.
     As an example, an odd-shaped torpedo component from a plastic
    modeler's kit of a submarine worked out beautifully for a shape I
    was having a devil of a time replicating in a piece.  The component
    outside of its intended context and use would be completely
    unrecognizeable and I don't feel that I'd be infringing in any way
    upon the copyright of the original model maker. 

    Likewise, some items are so common as to be "outside" of
    copyrightability.  The examples that leap to mind are a generic,
    clawfoot hammer or crescent wrench.  I can, of course, spend the
    time to carve it out of wax, or I can purchase a plastic model that
    is already the right size/shape.  The design is generic and the
    result would look the same no matter which way I obtained it to
    cast.  So I don't feel at all that there's a problem using it. 

    No matter what, you will be transforming the object in some way. 
    That's your art.  That's the point of using a common object everyone
    would recognize -- to introduce some type of incongruity in its
    presentation (presenting something in metal that everyone is used to
    seeing in plastic, for example). Claes Oldenburg was the great
    champion of this approach in art (the Clothespin, the Spoon Bridge,
    and other works); he used size as his transformation medium instead
    of material, but the underlying artistic principle is the same. 

    And as to your final question, I don't make a distinction between a
    one-off piece and a production piece.  If done right, both have the
    potential to be seen by many people, thereby indelibly attaching the
    "ownership" of the design -- or any questions about its authenticity
    -- to me. 

Make sense?

Karen Goeller
kgoeller AT nolimitations.com

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