Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

yeaaah...i've learnt vectoring over photos recently. it is EXTREMELY time consuimg, but very, very easy. basically her only skill is patience, it wouldn't surprise me if everything else she has in those pics is traced too. no skill here. it's embarrassing this is being published in magazines etc - when its on par with a simple task i was given at university...

and i'm sorry to those trying to defend her but i agree with what everyone else has said above.

 

Right now, I don't think anyone is 'assuming' anything. From what I've seen after following this topic since I first heard about it yesterday, it's plain to see that she's done a lot of tracing over photos. It's not the fact that she traced that's infuriating people. It's that for a while she was saying she had never seen bjd photos only to suddenly change her mind and say that she has used photos. If she was innocent, wouldn't she be quickly trying to support it with evidence? I don't believe she 'lost' the photos, unless when all this started she trashed them in her trash bin on her computer. [Lolz, my imagination likes to run with me. But it could have happened! D8]

Also what's not settling is the fact that she's not giving credit. How hard is it to mention that she's used the doll photos as inspiration instead of trying to make people believe that it just came to her? Did she even give her 'friends' credit for the photos that helped inspire her before all this popped up?

I always try to find that fine line that could maybe prove someone's innocence, but at the moment, it's hard for me to find it. There's just too much evidence against her. And it's not wrong for others to assume that someone could be stealing. It happens too much these days.

 

As stated before, if her work were not based upon these photos, people would not have been able to recognize them so easily--including their original creators. Notice that none of the reply emails (which are listed on radiotrash's site) suggest that the photographers/doll companies are unaware of what has occurred.

Many things in life are coincidence, and most good artists use reference. However, nobody can capture the properties of a photograph that perfectly without tracing said work. And tracing, by definition, requires the original creation. She's never referenced having used the original photos before, and she did not have permission. Ergo, her work is derivative without being honest.

 

One of my photos has been used, but I really don't know whether sueing her would be successful.

 

The owners of the photographs could probably file a class action lawsuit for royalties, but it might present a problem since there are many owners and companies involved from different countries.

 

I really think this should happen. It'd be difficult to organize, but maybe it'd help teach her - and others - that you just can't go around doing this to people.

 

That brings up an interesting (and somewhat sticky) point, too -- in cases like this, where it's international in nature...how do you stop it from happening?

 

I don't know if there's any practical way to stop it from occurring. If you expose people who do it, then there's a disincentive for others to mimic that train of behavior (bad publicity). That might be the only workable solution at this juncture.

 

It's especially hard in this case, because since she was international, it took a while (a.k.a. her becoming somewhat famous) before people started realizing that she was actually tracing. I think the best thing to do is just to pass it on and spread awareness, so that people who see other 'tracers' will be able to identify that they are, in fact, tracing.

 

The original artists complaining is a lot more likely to get swift and effective results than attempting anything like an overseas class-action suit.

I think the best recourse for artists whose photos she's traced from would be for them to directly contact the galleries and stores involved, point to the *specific* piece of work she stole from you along with a link/copy of your original photograph, stating that you at NO POINT were contacted for permission to copy it, that you have not been credited properly, and would like them to cease showing that particular drawing and/or selling prints of it.

And also provide them with a link to: http://www.radiotrash.org/mijn/ so they can decide for themselves about the other pieces.

Gallery she recently showed in:
Eerste Anjeliersdwarsstraat 3-5*
1015 NR Amsterdam
The Netherlands
+31(0)20 6814567
[email protected]
http://www.kochxbos.nl/

The gallery that she says on her blog she is "now officially working with":
6 Rue du Jour, 2nd floor
Paris 75001
France
+33 1 4026 5454
[email protected]
http://artpartner.com

Sites currently selling her products/prints:
http://www.infectious.com
http://justbecomplex.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=25_255

A site that has recently featured her work:
http://www.juxtapoz.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6151&Itemid=121 ("Mijn Schatje grabs moments from thin air and imprisons them," That's rich... "thin air," eh?)

 

Just be/compound gallery is here in portland. I went in and talked to them a couple days ago and they said they'd be removing her work from the physical store and online, and kochxbos was the first place I contacted, who said they were shocked and would be investigating.

 

I think on radiotrash number 15 is wrong - you can see her thank someone here (no clue when she added that thanks or anything) and I think it is this picture. Just thought I'd post - some pictures on radio trash don't seem to line up perfectly, though most do. Even if she did get permission for everything it is still pretty crappy to deny tracing them not make the source known, in my opinion.

 

TOMATO > Oh wow, I didn't even notice that! They're just a 10 minute walk from where I live~ XD Thanks for doing that, I'm glad they were receptive!

And to the people defending her claims of 'not tracing', please actually read this email radiotrash posted from Mijn.
She herself stated that she's "starting with a photo from a friend of mine's dolls . . . the photos help me with drawing a quick sketch and setting up the lights and shadows, positions of body and such. Then I drop the photo and start coloring my sketch . . ."
I don't care what universe you live in, or what language you speak, that's tracing.

I'm sorry, but it's completely implausible that she doesn't realize that what she's doing is wrong. No one lies about their methods/sources/receiving permission unless they know that their behavior is immoral. If she herself believed that it was acceptable to be doing this, she would have admitted it the second it was brought to her attention. Saying that it's a "witch hunt," because we're accusing her of lying when there is very clear-cut evidence of her already having lied on multiple occasions, is absurd.

 

I wouldn't call that tracing.
And I'm not even defending her.

That's a legit reference.
So see how arms should lay or where a shadow would be. Not a trace.

The trace is when every line matches up. Including the lazy eyes >.<
When everything overlays exactly because she's tracing the lines, drawing over them with vectors to get her art.

Besides. If she's referencing a picture for how bodies work... Someone either has a REALLY messed up doll or she's using pictures of people who don't have bones because some of that is just so mind bogglingly not right that. Ow. Mental ow. I just, can't with the words and the what not.

But yeah. I don't see how she's just referencing like she's trying to say she does.

 

Honestly, not even tracing is bad. It's actually absolutely legit as long as the picture you are tracing from is yours (or if you at least have permission to use it).

 

I've been emailing the art sites/emags that she was featured on as well, bringing our "suspicions" to their attention. I have to thank Radiotrash for her new link, because unfortunately Tomato, the "brycesucks" part in your URL may make for an untrusworthy first impression xD;

I'm really sorry for the owners whose photos were stolen. And as for people trying to defend Marie B. Hendrickx with her explanations, well... if I was making a lot of money thru any means, I'd work as hard as hell to keep it from being snatched from right under me. Once you've tasted wealth you can't really live any other way anymore.

Anyway something she said on a site once intrigued me :
"I read a book a day when I was very young and I was convinced very early on that reality is what you want it to be."

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've just found the root of this problem.

 

That doesn't sound as tracing to me.... Tracing is putting a paper (or a digital paper) over the original foto and exactly copying the lines of the photo.

What she describes is the normal way of working with reference material. You take the picture, you look at it, you memorize the picture in your mind, you go to you paper and make a quick sketch of that mental image on the paper. You compare it with the foto again, sometimes even several times, just to make sure that you drew it right.

 

The problem is that she was using pictures which did not belong to her nor did she had permission to use the pictures whatsoever. She traced and did not give any credit at all.

These kind of people make me sick really. It's plain obvious she's now caught and yet she's trying to deny, nor trying to feign innocence. First, she claimed she didn't know about BJDs then she suddenly admitted she used the dolls pictures as reference. Isn't it obvious she's lying?

 

Hmm, let me get this striaght. Almost every single response I've read says that they don't think it's wrong, for various reasons.
Well, I think it's still stealing someone elses art. If recasts and plagerism are wrong, than this is too. You can't justify her being 'inspired' by the doll enough to completely copy its image and give it no credit. How is that any different than recasting a doll or copying someone's story or photos?

As an artist too, I can see where some of you are comming from, but there was no reason for her not to credit her inspiration. Would it have really killed her to write where it came from? No. If you're so ungrateful to the sculpter of the doll as to not give them credit for their own work, then, in my eyes, you are truly just lazy.

EDIT: Holy crap! She's terrible! I didn't see the examples!!! Thats awfuly! How dare she?! They're just rotated, traced, and then very slightly changed! And she gives no credit at all to the companies or anything! How awful!

Please, everyone, bombard the gallery with emails. Make sure you include pictures of the comparisons in the posts above mine! If they see that and know she isn't crediting, they'll have to take her stuff down. This is so awful, and that might be the only way to get noticed.

 

Oizys > Ah, I see what you mean... when she says "I drop the photo" to me that lingo implies that she had it as a layer in her illustrator or photoshop document, was drawing over it to get the linework, and then dropped (or deleted) the layer containing the photograph.

I work in graphic design, lettering things to look as close as possible to their original Japanese counterparts--when editors or my fellow freelancers talk about using an image for overlay reference and then deleting the original they say, "drop the layer" so I am used to that. But maybe it's not what she meant (I don't know why she'd use the word if that's the case though--normally wouldn't you say, "I stopped looking at the photograph.")

lol... I guess it does matter what language you're speaking! Mental ow indeed.

I don't have a problem with tracing if you received permission from the creator of the photograph (although in this case permission from the doll sculptor/creator is also an issue IMO--when making photobooks for profit you must receive permission from the doll companies to use photographs of their dolls.) My point really is that if she was just using the photographs as loose references and not directly tracing, I would have a lot less of an issue with it. But I am very familiar with what works look like that have used photographic references--they are not that precise. You shouldn't be able to see that exact shape of the eye-well, or the direction the pupil is facing, shadow on the nose, shape of the eyebrow, etc.