Oh, you Etruscans… Taking all the credit again. We Sumarians
did a bunch of cool stuff almost two thousand years before you
did, (Actually, some jewelry items our ancesters made are over
4000 years before you, but not so sophisticated metalwork) and
though we didn’t do AS much with fusing/soldering, etc. as you,
we did know how to do some slightly crude granulation and
filigree. More commonly We were content to melt the metal, forge
and hammer it, and cut our spirals and leaves and stuff from it,
without so much soldering the bits together so much. But we did
also do a fair little bit of what you might call stone setting.
or more properly, stone inlay. Those egyptian folks to the
southwest, round the other side of the med from us have been at
just as long as us, though less of their early work will survive
the ravages of time. And after us, but again before you, more
egyptians and the early greeks did a bunch of stuff that’s gonna
be pretty impressive even in another two thousand years or so…
by You guys were actually pretty late in the game as far as
ancient jewelers go, which explains why you got so damned (yeah,
we’re jealous, just a little) good at it. And while you didn’t
actually invent the first spirals or granulation techniques,
I’ll grant you that you sure did perfect those fibulae and
granulation to levels that will have those poor future hotshots
STILL trying to figure you out. Please also don’t forget that
only a couple hundred years after you were at your best (like,
maybe, 400 BC) those celtic barbarians up to the north, will have
developed, independantly from you, some metalworking traditions
that are, in their own way, just as vigorous and unique as your
own. They use spirals differently from you, but boy, do they know
how to use em. AND, they’ve figured out how to do enamel 'bout
then, too. Gotcha there, I think, don’t they?
Chuckle. (By the way, if you don’t have a decent reference on
ancient jewelry, the British Museum publication, “Jewellery
through 7000 years” is a wonderful resource,and is even available
in inexpensive paperback form.
Back to the real thread. Plagierism isn’t hard to detect when
it occurs. It happens all the time in this industry. There are
a fair number of folks who consider themselves designers who’ve
had only a very few actual creative ideas entirely their own,
while most of their work is derived or even directly copied from
others. It happens. That fact does not even in the slightest,
make it right. Whether a given technique is used
plagiaristically can’t be judged just by the description of the
technique. I can do plenty of flush set diamonds in whatever
metal I like, including iron, without plagiarising anyone. So
long as I’m doing my own thinking, it’s original to me. Even if
I’m arriving at similar results as someone else has done, if my
exploration of form and function and style and technique is my
own, and not simply copied from someone else, then perhaps it’s
valid. Still, if I’m a reasonably well trained artist, or self
taught with some self respect and intellegence, I’ll make some
effort to know what has been done and is being done by others in
the field, simply so that I won’t have to waste time reinventing
the wheel. It’s not only acceptable, but it’s highly desireable
for us all to learn from the work of others. Part of the whole
purpose of art is to communicate and educate. I rather like the
idea that one way to judge the artistic validity of a work is to
ask whether the piece is teaching/showing the viewer something
he/she did not already know. If this is the case, then to ask
that viewer to in future ignore those learnings is silly. But it
IS reasonable to ask that viewer/fellow artist not to just
parrot back what’s been learned, or copy the commercial success
of someone elses work. You take what others do, and learn from
it, and add it to your own experiences and perceptions, and
synthesize something new. This is the process of art. None of
us live in a vaccuum. If we’re good at our art, our work might
incorporate something learned from the work of others, but it
will also expand on it, or vary it, or otherwise take something
from it but add something else of our own to it. Sometimes, the
only one who will know for certain whether this is the case, is
the creator of the object. The simple description of gold and
iron with flush set diamonds says little of exactly what’s been
done with these materials. Someone familier with prior work will
be able to tell, seeing a new piece, whether it’s a cheap shot
copy, piggybacking on someone elses work, or whether it’s
something new in itself.
Some folks have now and then observed, “Imitation is the
sincerest form of flattery”. When it comes to art, if you want
to flatter someone, learn from them, and then make their ideas
grow even farther than they did, making something that may use
their knowledge, but adds your own as well. THAT’s respect, not
mere flattery. And if you do simply want to flatter me with
imitation, then please contact me for regarding
licensing and percentages required…
Also, for the record, the first gold and iron combination piece
I know personally was a nice spiral of alternating gold and iron
that one of the grad students at the university of Wisconsin was
doing back in '73 I think. He went from there more to straight
blacksmithing work. I played with the combination some in the
mid 70s, and about the time I learned to do flush setting in the
late 70s, I even set some small diamonds into some wrought iron
pieces as an experiment. Tried both flush burnished settings and
pave in iron, likeing the look after the iron had then been blued
afterwards. And I then moved on to other things… Still like
the look though, and every once in a while, use it again.
Burnished in/flush set diamonds are one of my favorite setting
techniques… Most recent of the sort was a piece 3 years ago
with some flush set multicolored diamond melee scattered around a
slice of meteoritic iron, which was then etched to show the
crystal structure and blued. Only trouble with it is you have to
keep the iron oiled, or that meteoritic stuff will rust… And
the oil gets on the diamonds…
Peter Rowe