Originality

First off, thanks to all these people listed below





and last but not least


Without these people's willingness to let me use this artwork I couldn't have done this! Sorry if you don't see your artwork in here, I appreciate everything you did regardless! Also, the people that commented in my journal after I went over the limit, I appreciate all of you too

Now it's time to get cynical lol. This is for my final exam in my art topics class, and the criteria for this assignment was to make a piece that critiques originality. If you remember the piece I made earlier in the year called internet appropriation, [link] it deals with the same issues as that. The reason I used artwork from this site is because this was the place where I developed as an artist in my formal experience. I learned a lot about photoshop and I learned a lot about photography just by practicing and looking at artwork from this site. However, outside of this site I learned a lot of important stuff that was going on in the art world. I appreciate all of that now because I can remember plenty of times when people say, "your style looks too much like "so and so's."" And while we're all on this site, this is the stuff we'll encounter a yearly basis - this site ain't going to teach you it's ok to take a style, in fact they encourage people to develop a style of your own. However, if you think really hard about this, can one really truly be an original individual if we're all brought up in a culture that influences us on a daily basis? Not everything we do is influenced solely on genes, there's a lot we do in our lives simply because we see others doing it. We dress a certain way, act certain ways around certain people, and that list could go on for miles. So when it comes to art, one may raise the question, is it important to try and be original? And more importantly, can anyone truly be original? This piece is the result of that question. Here I am sitting in front of my computer screen, faceless because all that really matters is that I'm a person. It doesn't matter if I'm Keith or any of the other artists that helped me out in this project because each and every one of us draws or photographs, or paints, or does graphics based on what we have seen. So my advice to you, don't flip out if you find an artist that does similar work as you or a friend. We're humans on earth living together