Posted by lizzymahoney on 2004-10-02 00:21:04
Post Subject:
Where we draw the line is going to be different for each of us.
I could definitely see painting or printing a picture and having someone else professionally mat and mount it. Actually, I do it myself, but my shortcut is that I don't use a router to make my frames usually. I'd rather buy preshaped pieces and miter them myself. Cut my own glass and mats, though.
I've done an awful lot of furniture refinishing over the years. If I needed someone else to hand tie the springs in a chair, but I did all the rest, I'd have no problem saying I did it. If anyone wanted to know how, I'd be open about the minimal assistance, but it's still my piece and my selection of fabrics. But then, would I have to weave the fabric myself, spin the wool, raise the sheep?
I'm a good writer. Better than you see here, anyway. I've been published, I've edited published manuscripts, etc. But just because someone else edits the work and others typeset it and print it and bind and distribute it, that doesn't make it any less my work.
Working PT in a craft store, I get customers all the time who are clueless about the craft they are attempting, and they are grateful for the finishers, like the quilters and seamstresses and reupholsterers and printmakers.
I love fine needlework. I dislike quilt patterns and embroidery transfers. If I am going to put all that work into it, I want it to be my concept, my colors, my design with all the inherent flaws I make. I dislike the use of machines. Quilters who talk to me about their precut pieces in a proscribed pattern with boring material sewn on a machine may think we are in the same league, but I'd be insulted if anyone of them still thought that after seeing what I can do. It's not that my stuff is better. It's a different animal entirely.
One thing that kills me is the modern approach to decoupage. Now people are talking about packing tape transfers and I'm thinking, Dang, if you learned the traditional decoupage this would be old hat. Is it wrong of people to take shortcuts and use full thickness prints for decoupage?
Too tired to write more, and I have to quit my craft store job tomorrow... Ha, maybe I'll tell some HGTV pretender to shove it before I go.
