On the Horns

This isn't the first time I have felt caught upon the horns of a moral dilemma. As usual, it has taken me a long time to accept the framing of others, to really look at my behaviors and my excuses, and to peel back the layers to the essential truth. Making a way forward is a whole other task, and I am not quite there yet.

But it's time to admit to myself that I accept my complicity in what amounts to hurtful acts against other cultures, by using images in my art that were inspired, taken, or that I did not generate myself. As a self-taught artist and crafter for over forty years, I had to learn somehow, and in the beginning I traced many signs and lettering fonts so that I could use them. Copyrighted or not, I took them for my own purposes and gradually learned where to draw the lines. Many times I refused to take what clearly wasn't original to me, but other times I wanted it too much. I made my rationalizations and excuses and kept moving.

I can think of lots of examples way back to the beginning. I knew at some point that copyright laws allowed use when the image was altered by 10% or more (or that's what I told myself) and often I used what was said to be in public domain. Those Dover books all seemed open to borrowing. The better an artist's images were, the more they lent themselves to being stolen. Until my own creations were copied, I didn't really see the harm.

The Fish Tie shirt was the first really impactful theft I experienced, with my partner in Fibergraphics, Mike Martin. He had the idea to put a fish

All original art, mine or Mike's, or Rich Sherman's.

on a shirt like a necktie, with the tail as the knot. It was one of many shirt designs we came up with at the beginning of our shirt business, in about 1984. It took off when I wore one to a small trade show in Denver and connected with a top-level sales rep who saw the potential. He got us orders from National Parks, Alaska resorts, and many, many stores in California, Alaska, Hawaii, and other states. The shirt was wildly popular and we were able to found our business upon it. We sold a ton of them. Some savvy businessmen saw our shirt, said to themselves that it was a million-dollar idea, and proceeded to make a line of polyester fish ties that did make a million dollars: for them, not us.

This was the Fish Tie Phenomenon of 1986. There was nothing illegal about what they did, but even though we followed quickly with a line of neckties, our experience was compromised. We discovered other tie-makers who had been doing fish, and they didn't get rich either. We made other products, and mistakes in other ways that didn't help, but the shirts still sold well for awhile, and we didn't legally pursue the several ripoffs of our designs that followed. Copyright protection is one thing; pursuing damages in court is quite another. We learned our best strategy was to keep moving with other innovative designs.

I "invented" the Pocket-O-Slugs shirt with the fake tuxedo shirt in mind. You have to remember that printed t-shirts only came on the market in the late 70's and early 80's. Our business was really a trendsetter by its very existence. My line of things in pockets was pretty popular too, and there were probably a dozen different ones and a lot of other tie ones as well. We had a great time with them, and it was big business for a few years. We sold to the Nature Company, Made in Oregon, science museums and gift shops all over, and had a team of sales reps and a number of employees. Mike's line of Fractal images was probably the first set of fractal t-shirts made, which carried us forward into the early 90's, when our business folded for a lot of reasons we won't get into here.

The point is that I felt the issue of infringement from both sides. I stole and was stolen from. I learned how common it was to not own your creative property, and this was before the internet. Once products went online, I gave up thinking I could protect my designs from theft. This is a part of the life of every artist now, and not a pleasant part. But it is only a tangential part of our current dilemma of cultural images.

Here's a photo of the first (and I think only) successful design chosen by the Sauna that I drew. I submitted others but they didn't have what was needed for the Sauna shirt collectors. This one is clearly derivative of Art-Deco style and is pretty original, though to me it shows my lack of formal art training. By then I had been making my own silkscreened work for a decade or so and technically I knew what I was doing, more or less. Mike and I produced a few together, and then Brad's designs became the norm and I became "only" the printer. I printed almost all of the Sauna shirts and accessories for a couple of decades, until my body started to complain and we changed our arrangement somewhat. I still printed some of the items, but let go of the bulk of the garments, and made the bags and hats. This past year was the first one that I printed no Sauna merchandise, but they went back to the flamingo icon and we're still family. I noticed, but probably only a few other people were aware of the end of my era. It had nothing to do with the imagery, but was solely a physical and health decision on my part. But it provides me a convenient break in tradition to re-think things.

I love my clients. Almost all my custom printing work is with clients I've had forever. I print what they ask me to print, whether or not I love it, find it appropriate, or care about the image. It's business. I provide a service. But I do get to make choices, as a self-employed craftsperson. I choose to not print sexist or mean slogans, don't do scatological, don't print cusswords or nasty things...unless I want to. I wouldn't print a racist stereotype, or a hateful slogan. And yet...

Things have shifted in our culture regarding what is racist and hateful. Many of us are only now catching up to what has always been true about using images from other cultures. Like I resented the theft of our fish tie, other people have been hurt by my actions. It doesn't fall into the category of complimentary admiration, like flattery. That old saw falls flat now. Imitation isn't right now. Authenticity is what we want in art, and in our lives.

So when this all came up heavily last year, I gave myself a year to consider my position. I love my clients, and want to do what I have always done for them, give them quality and dependability and value when I apply my skills to their projects. I'm still not ready to cut them off completely from our longstanding relationships. This isn't about the Sauna, as they aren't currently using any borrowed images and I'm not currently printing for them. This is about me, and where I draw my lines.

I've said no to lots of printing requests. All I'm willing to say at this moment is that I'll say no to more of them. I won't take on any new work that involves appropriated images that have now been identified as hurtful. I'm moving into semi-retirement anyway, so it won't be a sacrifice. I'm not going to suffer over this. So it isn't nobel, and it isn't commendable. I just had to say it though, in some kind of public way.

Because I haven't apologized for my part. I've still been making excuses, and listening to the people who excused me from responsibility. I'm hired to do work. I'm not hired to make moral judgements. But like all business owners, I do make those judgements, and I need to be more sensitive about it.

So there it is. I'm sorry I am complicit in putting forward products that people feel are damaging. I've failed to meet my own moral standards because of my ignorance and my clinging to old thinking that used to be sufficient. It isn't sufficient now. My excuses and rationalizations are just that. I can do better. I will do better.

It's a big issue, cultural appropriation, for my hippie culture, and there is a spectrum of opinions that goes from censorship through artistic license and freedom back and forth through millenia and we don't know what will settle out to be the common truth that we will all aspire to tell. It's a conversation we're having, and we're not through with it yet. I believe all participants should have the time to examine their own parts and make their own decisions, particularly when they have invested their lives in making art and building their skills and livelihoods. Their decisions are their own and I will not push them, though I may enter the discussions. Sometimes a course is obvious and sometimes it is not. I'm not going to impose my catholic, binary tendencies on such a nuanced question.

I am going to submit to my own, embedded Catholic tendencies for right action, purity of motive, striving to be morally sound and fair and working toward justice. I won't be pure enough for some, and I'll look prim and puritanical to others. I have to find the ground I can stand on, and I may bow to one wind or another in my personal process. I'm intensely loyal and care deeply about my relationships, but I also care deeply about ethics and honesty and have to live with myself.

But I am sorry. I have used what may be sacred African images in my art (that I stole from photographs), I have used photographs taken by others, I have used iconic images that were most likely stolen originally by collectors or at least not compensated for by me. I have profited from these things. It isn't a simple right or wrong situation about a single instance of misuse. I have put in my "artistic contribution" to alter these images as required by law. I have also not done that at times.

I was commissioned to do this shirt by the first Craft Committee (I think) and was proud to do it. I may have peaked as a t-shirt artist in 1989, though I am still printing shirts.I have tried to stop purchasing and using the toxic PVC-based ink that made these multicolor designs possible and printable. I pretty much stick to one-color waterbase ink, and technology has definitely passed me by with the digital possibilities most artists access now.

And when it comes to my crimes against the Oregon Country Fair, I'm not going to apologize yet. My membership goes back forty years plus. I have a whole list of things I've done starting from sneaking in, but I don't think it makes me a bad person who should be banned from participation or even leadership. Some of these things I should not confess!

Pictured are some shirts I may or may not have printed...when it comes to rationalization I am a master. I have always felt that working with the logo adds to the wealth of culture that we do generate as original to our Fair, and all my images have intended to enhance or assist us in working within our complexities for greater understanding. I've tried to add to the fun. I put them here to make the point that no one with decades of participation has a pristine moral record and there will always be nuances that can add up to either treasure or trash, depending on interpretation. I will always defend turning the sacred upside down to look at the underside, to see what we can learn from greater objectivity.

I don't do those things now, though I still feel I have the right to make original art. I redrew and donated the Elders design this year; my version has on the back "Just a place in the shade...and a pass." so you know how old it is (pre-wristbands.) I sell/sold these after hours and had many versions of shirts that I thought helped interpret our quirk and add to our fun as a family. Most of them are treasured; many of them forgotten; some misunderstood (like the 30th anniversary one.) I hope my admissions don't make you think badly of me, but remember that art is supposed to affect us. It's supposed to make us work. And it has been something I have fully immersed in and made a life around, so apologizing for it is futile.

I try as hard as I can to work in a positive, affirming way to promote the Fair as morally and protectively as I can. I'm not a saint. I will get some things wrong, be critical of some things I don't know enough about, and be as messy as the next person in my process for deciding my course of actions and what I say. That's a given.

But I will try harder. That is what I can do. If you point out to me something I need to hear, I will honor you with my attempts to not be defensive, to not give excuses. I will do my best. That is all I can promise.

That's the way I want my life to go. I want to make those improvements that are at hand, and try to correct my course whenever I can. I don't expect a reward at the end. I doubt there are reparations that I can make at this point that would be meaningful. I will sit at the table as long as I can, even when it makes me squirm. I will try to help create safe space for all of us so that we can continue to build our lives as we have together for so long. Thank you for listening. And thanks for buying my stuff.