I had a look at Rosemary's web site and her new book. The flowers remind me
of Jana Novak's book "Fri Knipling" particularly the "Five petals" and
"Hearflower" - these are not even adaptations. Rosemary's other flowers
closely resemble Jana Novak's flowers and I would say are adaptations. We
had a great debate what an adaptation is and came up with a guideline for
lacemakers - in bobbin lace an acceptable adaptation requires a
"significant" alteration to the design. Whilst many people respect the
original designers sadly some people don't. I think that we have to be fair
to people who come up with great ideas originally. If we wish to change or
adapt the pattern we should acknowledge the original designer ie - adapted
by .......from the original design by ........
I agree 100% (being a bit of a designer myself). But I'm also aware that there's another factor...
Some people seem to design the exactly same thing, at almost exactly the same time, for all they're continents apart... Serendipity (though Deborah Robinson, the Editor of "Lace", had a better term for it. If only I could remember in which issue, or what the term was... <g> Something to do with the pool of underlying pool of human knowledge...) We all tend to re-invent, unwittingly, the wheel once in a while, especially if we practice our lacemaking in -- more-or-less -- isolation... As is common in very large countries, and/or where people make lace for pleasure not for profit.
So, maybe, that's what's happened here too, and it's a case of "not proven" rather than "guilty"... :) I don't design in Torchon (where un-intentional duplication is almost inevitable) but, even so, with every pattern I send out for publication, I agonize: *has* someone else come up with something, so very similiar as to make my own pattern a "plagiarism", *before* I had? I don't own all the lacemaking books/magazines which had been published over the many years (and, even if I had, I might forget I'd seen something similiar before)...
Rosemary does the "Fantasy Flowers" workshops. I attended one and was surprised than how closely the flowers resembled Jana's flowers.
Did you mention it to her at the time? What did she say?
I've never seen Jana Novak's book myself, so, to me, Rosemary's Fantasy Flowers were "brand new" (and I've marked it as something I'd like to own one day, if only to look at, "digest" and, possibly, take into another direction)... I agree, someone publishing (a pattern, a book) or teaching a workshop should not use another person's patterns without an acknowledgment *and* the original designer's permission... But... *What* if it's done without any ill-intent?
--- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) Healthy US through The No-CARB Diet: no C-heney, no A-shcroft, no R-umsfeld, no B-ush.
- To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
