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UPDATED Copyright Infringement - Freakalee Ceramics

Saddened and shocked to find my illustrations being copied and passed off as original work by local ceramics 'artist':

Lee Hensberg of Freakalee Ceramics.

Below is my original work in black and white, done 4 years ago....

Below is an entire range of Lee Hensberg's ceramics with copies of Leila Fanner Illustrations all over them.

This particular stripy flower I invented she seems to love the most and she claims to "only get my drawings from books on birds and fynbos".

She's even copied my signature style of drawing protea's.

FROM HER EMAIL TO ME:

"I think copying means different things to different people.
I have removed the ceramic items that ‘look’ like your work
Heaven forbid that I would ever copy someone work…I mean we a small community like you say.
I am sure I was inspired subconsciously by an item I might have seen somewhere…
But I had never even heard of you untill now.
I like to believe my ceramics is unique and original…. And thought my proteas were…
I mean u can see my style clearly…copying means taking a copy of the EXACT original…which is NOT what I have done.
After seeing your things on your site I can 100% see why one would think that…
However its not the case.
I was inspired by some of the images somewhere along the way….
I am sorrry to have caused you an upset and appreciate you approaching me directly.
I will withdraw any items (with immediate effect) that mlook even vaguely like your work,
Kind regards
Lee"

and my leaves with spots and holes in them....and dots around them....

And this is someone who calls her work 'unique, original and luscious'. It's just sad.

When I wrote to her about it, she first denied knowing what I was talking about, then...

Her response ; COPIED FROM EMAIL: (her grammar and spelling - not mine)

"Hey Leila! I have just googled your work and almost fell off my chair! I couldnt believ how similar it was! The LAST thing i want is for someone or ANYONE to think i have copied someones work.

I will change my style immediately and redesign the ceramics so there is no similarities to your work. The image of your flower might have got stuck in my head somewhere..... I have a photograhic memory... Blessing or curse that may be. - have been work on these designs for more than a year now.

I appreciate u pointing it out to me,
Kind regards
Lee"

Photographic memory? Seriously? And yet she can't remember where she saw my work?

UPDATED: I think what saddens me is that I gave her an opportunity to simply acknowledge her 'inspiration' on her Face Book page where the work is visible all over the place. An opportunity to say to me, in private, 'Sorry. Yes, I totally love your style and couldn't help myself.' After all, I wrote to her directly to avoid her embarrassment. I would never have blogged about this had she been honest and taken the opportunity to settle the infringement that way. In other words - To spread the love... I guess I'm sad because I expected more from a fellow artist, but I didn't account for just how delicate and stubborn the ego can be. I'm sad because Lee lost an opportunity to be a friend and artist with integrity. She also lost the opportunity to widen the circle of beautiful honest and supportive creatives I am so fortunate to know. On a positive note: I take the compliment - back-handed as it may be - and at the same time I can celebrate... The Universe delivers some sweet with the bitter, after all; I have been commissioned to design a range for nationwide distribution. Look forward to seeing a lot more of my lyrical illustration style on a wide range of fun, funky stuff! ... ; )

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Symbolic Sight - paintings for 'Lucid Dreaming' series

Asleep In The Garden Of Temptation

Jung thought that spiritual experience was central to our wellbeing. I concur wholeheartedly. In fact, I just think of my whole existence as a spiritual experience. The more I see it that way, the more God/Life/Universal Intelligence seems to speak to me in symbols that I understand. It's a beautiful dance of visual communication in dreams and 'reality'.

According to Jung, a SYMBOL is a term, a name, or even a picture that may be familiar in daily life, yet that possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional and obvious meaning. It implies something vague, unknown, or hidden from us.

I have been writing just recently about my forays with my lovely Voice Movement Therapy friend, Lean, into Jungian ideas and the 'shadow' psyche. Jungs ideas about dreams always fascinated me as a teenager, we had no TV and I was reading Franz Kafka at 11 yrs of age!! but I hadn't read anything other than one book on Jung for years. It was after a discussion about anima / animus with Annika, coaching buddy in Sweden and her link to a documentary, Dancing in The Flames, that I was moved so deeply, I knew it would affect my next surge of creativity ( it does tend to come in waves - any other artists feel that way?)

Feeding The White Snake

My own spiritual journey started in earnest at the age of 19 when I entered onto a path of meditation, that I still follow to this day. For some reason, though, I have shied away from expressing my inner life in my art. Perhaps subconsciously I did, but this is the first time that I feel really connected with what I'm doing in terms of context and intention/focus.

I told you about my personal symbol of The Golden Pear, that has re-occurred in dreams since childhood - prompted by a story book - and the evolution of that symbol as representing the unattainable material desires - the unnamable wanting for something in the material world, that will change everything for the better.

The realization comes of course - and for some it is too late - that the golden pear is a pretty nothing. It cannot feed the soul.

My dreams have always been an amazing source of inspiration and symbolic sight into the workings of my subconscious. Sorting out the truth from the shadow/illusion.

So this is the general theme of these paintings. All acrylic on board.

The Golden Pear

They are just the beginning, as I stretch into this style and feel my way around the symbolism and reality vs fantasy, also my tendency towards a graphic style mixed with a more whimsical romantic style...

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Total Eclipse of the Art

Hello-o-o!

Well, I have had a stunner of a weekend. I feel full of positive, focused, creative energy.

The cause:
Raw food power, an eclipse and a BIG decision - and Best of all: Feedback from a Happy Client!

Our experience of Leila Fanner is that of working with an extremely talented Artist and Graphic Designer.

When we gave Leila the brief for the upgrade of the company logo and branding, she immediately got the message

we hoped to convey , the mission and ethos of the company.

She came along to our premises, saw who we were and was able to work digitally from a distance with us thereafter.

Without Leila’s creativity and understanding of us as her client, we would have struggled to create something as

awesome as the logo that now speaks the message of our brand.

I often find myself looking at our logo and have to say that I am as proud as punch with the end result." Rose Mc Clement - Design Tabloid and Design Monarchy

Nice, ay?

That was added to this interesting weekend of facing some shadow stuff and a sprinkle of goodness in between. For some reason I spontaneously fasted for two mornings, just felt the need to drink copious amounts of water with lemon. I only felt really hungry around 2 in the afternoon. After that I ate delicious high raw foods, (mostly smoothies of fruit and spinach, green juices, seed crackers with avo etc) hence the feelings of SuperPowers regardless of dire Horoscope mentions of a hectic eclipse ; ) !

A little green aside: Yesterday I had the loveliest conversation with one girlfriend over the phone while she slurrped her green smoothie, (the previous non veggie eater, smoker, drinker carnivore of note!) and got a short little mail from another girlfriend at the same time:

Subject line: Jummm

"in the juicer - tomato, celery, spinach, red pepper

add to blender with... lemon juice, an avo and some almonds, salt ooh la la Feel like an angel" I marveled at the fact that slowly but surely I am being surrounded by Good Green Food Goddesses!

The Shadow Emerges:

This weekend I painted like a painterly dervish, till I could no longer put off facing what I want to do with my Intuitive Transformation coaching work. My coaching friend had challenged me to FINALLY get down to it and put into concrete format some type of way forward (having spoken at length about this for two years!) and some method or modules.

I sat down to 'do it' and spent about 10 minutes sighing, yawning, reading and feeling wholly uninspired. All I could think of were the new images I want to paint, ideas for art related video on my blog/website, more marketing ideas, my style for the body of work I am producing for exhibition...
And it hit me like a very soft bear paw in the face: I must put coaching to bed for now.

I saw how much I have written already to date about it - the mood boards I have created, the presentations I have made, the talk I have walked and talked and I real 'eyesed' that it is just NOT FOR NOW. Coaching is very much a 'golden pear' for me. A term I use often lately - when I was a child my favourite story was about this quest that the character in the story had to reach for the golden pear.

I cannot remember the whole story, but I would have re-occurring dreams of reaching for a golden pear only to wake up and realise it was just a dream.
The symbolism runs deep for me - as this dream came to me over and over throughout my life - and I have started to understand what it means;
The 'golden pear' is all that glitters in this world. The seemingly easy way to riches or fame or ...name your obsession...and the reality is, that strive as I will to reach that big something that will change everything materially for me in this life - one day life will end like a dream does - and what will I actually have in my hands?

That was the same feeling I got with the big grand house...I saw without the 'faerie glamor' in my eyes. I saw the impulsive desire of my ego that craved a lifestyle 'image' that was realistically going to come at the price of peace of mind and heart. I saw clearly that I need to create - not grasp after. I need to root down where I am and enrich myself here where I am. It's not always easy - but I no longer have rose tinted glasses on and I see what I see and I know that so does everyone else. No matter how much of a gloss we may try to put on things we don't really like in our lives or about ourselves - we all know the truth deep down.

As far as the golden pear of coaching goes:

I cannot put my finger on why NOT, I am surrounded by beautiful women friends who all in their own way have encouraged and rooted for me to do this - yet all I know is that I have to stop rowing my 'art boat' with one oar. I need to get INTO what I am aiming for in art and do it with wholehearted commitment.

I saw clearly that if I died now, I would not regret the missed opportunity of coaching - but the missed opportunity for giving my art career the best shot.
My whole demeanor has been : well I am an artist - BUT I wont make money this way. So I found something else I was passionate about ( there are many things!) hoping to do more than one and strike it lucky.
Well, I cannot. It doesn't serve my art journey to have my focus so divided.
It is a huge deal for me to put this down and walk away - so I am saying 'for now' because obviously we have no idea what the future holds. But for now I must do all the stuff I tell others to do for their careers and their blogs and their sites and their marketing and use of mental energy and Law of attraction etc and DO IT for my art.

Sigh...

Just read last night that the eclipse holds BIG decision making energy and the 'end' of something....a total eclipse of the art....in my case.
hmmmmm....
ONWARDS: I bought new art stuff yesterday and am about to make myself a huge green smoothie now and work with a happy decisive heart. xxx

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A Little Bit of Fun Never Hurt Anyone!

I have been a bit off the radar! It has been a hectic week - went out late ( very uncharacteristically!! ) 3 nights this week. An art exhibition at gorgeous old Dutch style gallery Rust en Vrede, in Durbanville, where my lovely friend-ess, Vanessa Berlein, had a series of portraits on show (one of which was of me) and after a lengthy dinner we finally went to bed at 2:30 am after so much screaming laughter that I had a headache! Take-away from one beautiful Goddess: I found myself diving deeply in the gorgeous soulful eyes of Pnina Venster and both of us got wrapped up in a lovely conversation on the metaphysical side of the creators inner life. Her nugget of gold via her sister in New Zealand was along the lines of: If you are more unhappy NOT doing what you do - then that is a clear indication that you should be doing it. Don't worry about the times of unhappiness during the work - the creative process is never plain sailing. To say it my way: Judge not according to what you love doing, but what you cannot go for long without doing, without experiencing extreme discomfort, feelings of loss, desperation and/or depression. Because sometimes you will love the creative process and sometimes you wont. It is a messy process. Chaos in creativity is par for the course! Next up was a spontaneous dinner the following night ( different people - Sam something or other and Angela Du Preez - more screeching laughter - just 3 local women without our hubbies, kids running around in the nearly full moon playing with sparklers and fire, the last balmy summer air under starry African skies, I even saw a shooting star!) and then the next night my therapy dancing session with Lean Coetzer - a voice movement practitioner - and 4 other ladies - we Danced with the Shadow. It was energising and as always surprising! I had a massive epiphany about a shadow aspect in myself ( all to do with money and sex- eeeek!) that I must write about separately. This was followed by a delicious rustic dinner that her husband, Jacques Coetzer made for us ; real comfort food - potato bake with cream, tomatoes and fresh broccoli. However, I am exhausted! MEditation (that was a slip of typing, but it works!) has suffered, due to late nights and too much dairy slipping into my diet again - thanks to all the eating out! But I feel loved and lovely after all the socializing with great people - especially the women. I look back a year and marvel at how my life has changed - I was almost reclusive in Darling and now I find myself in a circle of heart-warming friends and fascinating acquaintances I really enjoy. For limited amounts of time, though. I totally cherish my solitude and alone time to be connected within. I know some people who have weeks like this past one EVERY week - otherwise they feel depressed and lonely - I am exactly the opposite. I would feel scattered and crazy and get NOTHING done, if I was that social that often. But the social side has its right place in an artists life and has created some good energy that I can ride on for some time to come : ) Fresh paint - still in progress but I'm happy with where it's going: Spirit of the West Wind Tribal Tales III Gems from my INBOX: On Courage.Love.Daring by Lisa Sonora Beam On Money, Work & Spirituality by Marie Forleo and Marrianne Williamson A blog campaign: On The Power of Grandmothers by Tara Mohr

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Losing vs Letting Go - Two Powerful Lessons For Artists

Here she is again. The painting that set my imagination alight with muse material for an exhibition. I painted Helene for a few months...my first life-size figurative oil painting. As I worked on her I discovered a new sense of possibility, of reaching new boundaries and then surpassing them. I called her, my Abundance Goddess.

I gave her a group of Goddess friends, held an exhibition and sold a couple - but not her. She lived in my garage, then in my bedroom. Then after a year or so of endlessly returning to her to correct what I thought made her un-sellable; her face, her blanket, the birds, the moon...I finally painted OVER her!

In a few thick brush strokes she was gone. I suddenly felt my heart grow heavy and shook my head at my stupidity.

But I learnt two powerful lessons in losing something I had taken so long to create:

1. The destructiveness in being overly critical of my art

2. the confidence gained in letting go.

It is the hardest thing to let go of something we have put hours, days, weeks, months into creating. To wipe it out of all existence. It is a crazy moment, yet it is also quite liberating.

Red haired Goddess Helene

Letting go meant I believed it was in me to do that kind of work again and better. It meant that I felt proficient enough not to have to hang on to it, as if that work was a once off magical glitch in my otherwise dull repertoire. I know now that if I had to do it again, it would be completely different, yet with the essence of that first painting living in it. Helene helped me learn how to do something I thought I would never be able to do. I had shied away from painting figurative work for years, thinking it was simply too difficult.

Making a choice to accept the loss in order to move on to better things is powerful. To tangibly feel the transient nature of everything and the deeper understanding that comes with it: nothing ever really dies, leaves or is lost. If you know what quantum physics has discovered - you know this to be true. Despite how hard it may be to get your head around it - it is comforting.

photo credit: twitter - anonpsyops

We are all ONE is not a New Age Concept, it is as old as time and the Universe. We ARE all one and the same and everything we create, love,see, is part of us - for ever, whether we know it or not.

But if you didn't know it, now you do.

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