{"Owl friends and a bird with an orange hat" Yes. this is my art. Please don’t steal it and claim it as your own original illustration to sell. thank you.}

Well then. There’s nothing like someone stealing your art, claiming it as their own and then selling it in their Etsy shop to consume an afternoon and snap you back to blogging.

Look, let me say that this kind of "knocking off of my work" has happened to me before and I’ve come so close to blogging about it. But then I realized that I would just be venting, and as you may or may not know I don’t usually vent on my blog ~ however I do speak up from time to time. {Thank you to Sean, my mom, and my close personal friends who are a patient ear on the days I need to vent} 

And look again, I get the whole "flattering" aspect to people copying work. I mean they wouldn’t copy it and try to sell it if it wasn’t already selling.  But this time it’s different. And personally I’m over this idea that "oh that’s flattering" is the way to take this kind of, in my opinion unthinkable behavior. 

This time is also different because someone didn’t just use my work in their blog banner, or Etsy banner or copy my exact painting composition and characters in their own style. This time someone stole my exact art along with at least 10 other artist’s as their own. And this created an opportunity not to vent but to SPEAK OUT, on twitter and now here on my blog.

Let’s just say I’ve been passionate about injustice for a long time. Some family members say I was born with this innate sense of right and wrong. Others have said I should’ve become an attorney. And others still have wanted to fire me for it. But alas, I did not get fired, and I did not become an attorney. I became an artist, and the intensely fair side of me has never gone dormant. In fact it has only become stronger, especially in the face of the creative world of which I am a member. Let’s just say without opening up a whole other can of worms ~ that the unfair way in which artists are often treated is INSANE. And that is not an exaggeration. It is INSANE.  Having also been in business in many different fields in this life, I’d be hard pressed to find other careers where people are this taken advantage of.

Before I ever entertained the thought of becoming a selling artist, I had a friend who built an entire business from her art in the 1990’s, a time when she didn’t nearly have the opportunities we now have. From just one creation she took to the Atlanta Mart, she grew her business to over a million dollars in sales and supported 40 employees. Then one day, Target and Crate and Barrell decided to knock her designs off. She didn’t have the legal strength to fight them. Starbucks also returned a huge order of hers because she didn’t have the where with all to have a contract signed by them that stated an their understanding that "all of her products were handmade and might vary slightly". No, my friend just trusted people. And that was it, her business came to an end. A gracious end as she slowly sold everything off and paid off all the debt accrued due to these situations. She then sold the remainder of her business to another artist who took over what was left of her brand.

This friend was one of the people who inspired the early seeds of my own " life as an artist". I looked up to her and admired all her passion for building a creative dream. This unfair ending of her business made an early impression on me as well.  I still cannot believe that she had no re-course for her creations and ideas that were stolen. 

And sometimes in the case of little guy vs. big guy in the corporate world there is no re-course. But now that’s all changing too. Thanks to the internet not only have our business opportunities grown but our opportunity to have a powerful voice has as well.

Another early mentor once told me that it is inevitable ~ people will copy you and when they do it is just up to stay ahead of them and keep making something new.

Somewhere in between these scenarios ~ all of us who are creative, all of us who share our creativity into the wide world {which also due to the internet exposes our creations to far more people than was once possible} we have to decide which road to take. Ignore it or fight it.

Today was a day to fight it. Today, enough was enough. Today several voices of one could reach far and wide through this immense but ultimately small community of online artists. I say this in my e-course again and again, but times are changing for all of us. No longer do just a few powerful people have all the say on this planet. Each one of us has a voice. And while it is still up to us to use that voice wisely and responsibility with grace and kindness ~ when it’s time to speak up, we CAN make a difference.

The best part of today ~ someone in the community had my back and alerted me to this, the shout of support from my fellow creative peeps or tweets I should say :) the realization that yes I DO finally have a voice in this world and that combined with the voice of many kindred creative spirits we are indeed a very BIG VOICE. 

And last but not least due to this experience I was introduced to several wonderfully talented artists {my comrades, whose art was also stolen}. Not an ideal way to meet each other, but I’m so happy to learn about them and their work. Corrabelle, Julia Denos,  Cathy Peng, Abigail Halpin

Enough is enough artists. If we want change, all we have to do is create it.