doll-a-day

Please take part in a quiet campaign to increase awareness of this controversy by linking to Radiotrash’s resource below.  Already, the activity of the part view days has made it so that the documentation of this issue is within the top 10 search results on Google.

Normally, doll-a-day focuses on high points in the doll hobby.  Today I am writing in response to what is a definite low point in doll artistry: the unfolding story of Mijn Shatje.

Mijn Schatje is a 25 year old European artist who has made a career off presenting the art world with otherworldly faces that were pulled from her imagination, inspired by Vincent VanGogh and a fairytle upbringing by parents from different countries.

The reality, unfortunately, is that Mijn Schatje’s entire body of work appears to hinge on photos that she “appropriated” from the internet and traced using Adobe Illustrator.  In a small number of cases, she appears to have had permission to trace these images from the photographer.  However, the larger body of her “work” appears to utilize images that she has not acquired permission for.

Images, overlays, and company responses can be found on this website:
Is Mijn Schatje An Art Thief?

Mijn Schatje has sold prints of these glorified digital collages for up to $1,700.  Images lifted from Blastmilk have been sold to Sony, licensed to Lindsey Lohan’s Fornarnia collection, and have been featured as the cover of a Taschen calendar.  No credit has ever been given to Kallisti, the owner of Blastmilk, or any sort of recompense.  When confronted recently on the image “appropriation,” Mijn Schatje agreed to remove Blastmilk-derived pieces from her online gallery.  This noble gesture costs her absolutely nothing, as the pieces in question (originally priced at over $1,000 a pop) are already sold out.  There has been no mention of monetary compensation, or even any mention of contacting companies that have purchased these derivative images to share credit for their creation.

She has never credited individual photographers or doll makers as source imagery; even after having been accused of tracing and plagiarism, she maintains the use of the word “inspiration” rather than “tracing.”   If you check her MySpace page, it is a wonderful example of spindoctoring.  Additionally, she will remove any mention of the issue or any questions placed on her Facebook fangroup, giving a skewed impression of the proportion of supporters to critics.  Netdiver magazine posted to her Facebook entry about their endorsement of her to draw attention to their discussion of plaigarism; this post was removed, so to a casual reader would not revisit the link from several weeks ago and see that the endorsement in question has been retracted.

The story continues to unfold as interested (and upset) community members find more examples where she has traced from Flikr images, My Neighbor Totoro, clip art, and even other well-known 2d artists (Audrey Kawasaki).

She has also made deliberately misleading statements - such as that she had contacted Doll in Mind, and that the issue had “been settled”.  In reality, DIM had told her several days prior not to use their pictures without permission.  They greeted her later inquiry about illustrations by saying that they would not work with her.

In some discussions, her work is being compared to other current cases, such as Fairey v. the Associated Press.  Though they both raise issues of photographers rights, they differ on several key points.

In the case of Sheppard Fairey, he did not claim that he drew the picture of Obama from his own inspiration; the general public had knowledge of the photograph in question known.  In this way, it is more similar to work by Andy Warhol that used iconic images that were already widely known by viewers; as such, they could be immediately recognized as interpretations of an existing subject, rather than an original creation.

If Mijn Schatje had traced photos of Barbie, it would be a much clearer parallel argument.  Instead, the relative obscurity of ABJD allowed her to claim not only the interpretation, but the source material as her own imagination.  This was not a misunderstanding that she unknowingly introduced; this was a belief that she willingly fostered through lack of citation and direct statements to interviewers and critics. Even if you believe that the has materially transformed the images (which is a difficult argument to make, given how easily they have been identified by anyone with knowledge of BJD), presenting them as original daydreams is disingenuous and shows a profound lack of artistic integrity.