In the Family
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 by Patrick Ross
Print This Post
Regular readers know I came to be a copyright believer because of a career as a freelance writer, and they also may know that there is a far more successful writer in the family, my mom (I’d call commercial publication of 100 novels successful). But there’s a third generation I’m fighting for in my crusade as well.
My daughter just came in 2nd place in a statewide Virginia art contest. She has dreamed of being a professional artist from at least the time she could verbally articulate such a desire, and now she has acclaim beyond just her family, friends and teachers. Her work involved a pencil sketch of her hand on a table with a chain and key, which she then covered with plastic and sketched, and then put ink on the plastic and ran it through a strong press onto paper. (I particularly like this technique because I am obsessed with antique maps, and this is very similar to the woodblock printing popular in the 15th and 15th Centuries.)
While she can be fairly flighty in the way artists often are (probably the reason I wasn’t more successful as a creative writer is that I’m not flighty enough), she has become singularly focused on getting into a top art school four years from now and making sure we can afford to send her there. She also just told me that (1) she made sure she’s in Honors English next year when she starts high school because I told her how in the year I spent working in a liberal-arts college admissions office we focused most on English grades, and (2) she has been submitting essays to a web site that offers college scholarships for sharp prose.
My daughter reminds me of the illustrators in the Copyright Alliance membership I have been fortunate enough to meet. None are household names, but they are (1) extremely creative, and (2) earning a living at what they love. They are very serious about (1) and (2), as is my daughter.
I am no judge of visual arts talent, although I will say that when she brought this particular piece home, I immediately grabbed it, put it in a mat and frame I had, and brought it down to the family room to hang. It was only then that she, sheepishly, told me that she had actually slipped it out of art class without permission so I could see it, and that her teacher planned to submit it to the art contest the next day. When she told me about her award today, I insisted that the work eventually come home so it can be returned to its frame and mounted with honor in our home.
Will my daughter be able to forge a career as an illustrator? I have no idea. I would also never say that she has a “right” to earn a living. The market will determine that. But I will fight with every breath of my being to make sure that she does have the “right” to do with what she pleases with her own original creations, including licensing or selling them. Digital technology makes visual artists extremely vulnerable to unauthorized use, but that vulnerability doesn’t justify unauthorized use. Here’s hoping all of her hard efforts to get into and pay for a top art school will not be followed by joining a work force in which illustrators no longer have any say in how they are compensated for their hard work.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
By insisting that your daughter bring her work home to you so you can hang it in the house, isn’t she losing her in how it’s being used? (This post is meant tongue in cheek, and not mean spirited)
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Darn tootin’, Neal. But in the Ross household, Daddy Rules trump all rights of minors (however, nothing trumps the rules of the wife).
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:14 pm
I’m glad you took that comment in the spirit it was meant in.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
[...] Ross wrote a great piece at the Copyright Alliance blog about his artist daughter and her possible future career. His main concern is that she always [...]