Well, it's been a while since I last posted in [checks notes] December 2020[!]. A lot has happened hasn't it? We went through a whole pandemic, blogs became kind of obsolete, and I worked on a number of personal and professional illustration and animation projects. To keep busy during and in between projects I tried to start my day with an illustration just for me, to strengthen my craft and make something that inspired me. One piece has been pretty popular with folks who follow my work, a simple illustrated portrait of one of my favorite music groups - THE BAND.
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| The Band, illustrated March 2022 |
I was trying to go for a mid-century look, heavy on shapes, and it turned out almost cubist with the shadows. However pretentious it might sound for such a cartoony illustration, I was kind of inspired by Picasso's Guernica.
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| The Band, also illustrated March 2022 |
I got rid of the shadows, to lean in on the mid-century aesthetic, and I felt I relied on shadwos to create depth and make up for whatever was lacking in design. But I liked this design. It was done and ready to be shared.
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Like most illustrators, I've been drawing since I could hold a pen. But just as important to me has been music. As a kid I found myself inspired to illustrate the musicians I was listening to while I drew. Pen, paper, album art all combined into one for me. Today, I've been lucky enough in my career to illustrate and animate some of those musicians professionally.
The Band has always been a huge part of my personal music soundtrack. One of the musical highlights of my life was a show at Levon Helm's barn in Woodstock NY (with Taj Mahal!) before Levon passed. I've been sketching its members since I got a copy of Big Pink.
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| The Band, illustrated 1993 while in middle school |
based on their 2nd album cover photo by Elliot Landy
Fast forward to March 2022 and my daily illustration workout, The Band was on my list of exercises. Sometimes you have a bunch of false starts, and sometimes something just pours out of you. That's what happened when I started to sketch The Band that day. It was already in my head, I just had to put it on paper.
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| The Band, the process, March 2022 |
I wanted to feature them in an iconic, rootsy fashion. I always loved the way they rotated instruments without losing their unified voice. Some of my favorite songs of theirs feature Levon, who typically played drums, on mandolin. I also really didn't want to illustrate another drum kit, they are super klunky to fit into a design with multiple people. So no drums, Levon on mandolin.
Once I had the design sketched out, I polished it off in shades of brown echoing The Band's earthy sound, old-timey aesthetic, and 2nd album cover. I shared it on social media, including a few facebook groups, and it got a nice response. Some people inquired about a print so I added it to my shop.
But for every supportive person on social media, there are those who see something for only themselves. That's where Scott "Buzz" Bowes enters the story.
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| Buzz Bowes (Scott), plagiarist |
About a year later I got a message asking if The Band illustration was an original of mine. "Yes" I responded, everything in my shop and featured in my feed was original art by me, unless otherwise noted.
"That's what I thought," he responded, and notified me that someone was making copies of the piece in wood and selling them, even advertising them in the same social media groups I had previously shared my piece. I looked it up and sure enough, there was my design in wood marquetry posted by Buzz Bowes of Chatham Ontario. My biggest fan.
I've created a lot of illustrations over the years. Art is meant to be shared, and that's one of the things that social media and the internet are great for. Thanks to the digital highway, my art has been seen by people I never would have met. People have even shared tattoos they have gotten based on my art, which always blows my mind if I think about it too long.
But the internet is also full of thieves looking to see how they can profit. Buzz Bowes was selling a number of pirated pieces he had translated to wood marquetry, none of them his own design. Because Buzz Bowes is not an artist, he is an amateur craftsman. Design and ideas are hard, I get it, maybe he just needed something to inspire his hobby, and that's fine. When I learned to draw I used references too. Buzz was clearly inspired by music, just like me - The Band, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin - were all featured on his page.
Funny thing about Led Zeppelin is they would cover songs written by other people and then claim credit for those songs. They got sued by a lot of people - from Ritchie Valenz's estate for an acoustic romp on "Oooh My Head" (which they even re-titled) and famously by the band Spirit for "Stairway to Heaven".
It sucks to find someone else claiming credit for something you created, no matter how small. It is not a fine line between homage and plagiarism, it's pretty clear, and suddenly that's what was happening to me. Granted, Buzz didn't just take my image and slap it on mugs, he transformed it into wood, which is actually kind of cool. The problem is Buzz was proud of what he called his "accomplishment", and even answering questions to creative design decisions - "What made you choose to put Levon on mandolin and not drums?"
He could have answer honestly, "you'd have to ask the artist who designed it". But Buzz actually provided an answer, and it was the wrong answer because he didn't know why. Because he traced it like a child. That was the moment Buzz went from a craftsman with good taste to plagiarist.
Now, maybe Buzz isn't internet savvy. Maybe he couldn't find those other artists that he had copied. But I was able to quickly find those artists and notify them of what Buzz had done with their work, naturally they weren't happy either. I'm certain he never tried to find them, especially when I saw he was advertising his work (for sale) in the same social media pages I first shared my work that he copied.
Look, I've had a lot of people ask me if they can use my art for something, or re-share it on their Instragram, or even use it as a facebook banner. I'm always happy to hear people like it and share it with others, as long as they mention who made them something they liked to look at.
So I was pretty pissed to see someone taking credit for something I had created. Maybe it didn't take me long to design and illustrate that day, but it was something I had been designing since I was 10 years-old. This simple illustration took years of practice and education to create. Of all the doodles I made when I was 10, it was one of The Band from the cover of their second album that my parents decided to frame and hang on their wall for years. And I didn't sign it as mine, it was an interpretation of someone else's work (the photo is by Elliott Landy, the album design is by Bob Cato).
Naturally I called Buzz out. A lot of my friends did too. Even some fans of my work that I didn't know came to my defense which was pretty amazing. Buzz never responded, he just blocked me and eventually deleted (most of) my comments. One of Buzz's "customers" did respond, doubling down and defending Buzz by disregarding my part in Buzz's work as a "template" Buzz was "inspired" by. But if I trace the Mona Lisa, that doesn't mean I can take credit for it. I told him I'm glad he liked my work that's hanging on his wall.
Buzz clearly liked my work so much he copied it and that's great. He stares at it for hours at a time, more than I even look at my own art. And he even sold the pieces to other people who like my work, and that's fine - marquetry takes materials and time. But he has never bothered to credit any of the artists he's copied, and that's not fine. He's not a good dude. You cover a song, you credit who wrote it. You trace a design, you credit who designed it. And he definitely knows who designed it.
So that's Buzz Bowes, plagiarist, and one of my biggest fans.
