#separating art from the artist

[howlingday]

I dunno who needs to hear this, but...

Liking Harry Potter does not make you a transphobe.

Liking Ren & Stimpy does not make you a pedophile.

Liking a creation does not mean you approve of the creator's personal actions. You can separate the art from the artist and like a series for what it is without diving into the politics and scandals that the creator was involved in.

[gemliteraturedtooclosetothesun]

Neil Gaiman

I think this is an important lesson on the concept of removing the art from the artist, as many people are already saying to do about Gaiman. “Sure,” they say. “What he did was wrong, and there is no excuse. But his books did nothing wrong.”

I know I’m hardly the first person to make the connection between the character Madoc and Gaiman himself—especially since the Vulture article lays it out very clearly. To those of you who haven’t read the article or Sandman, the character Richard Madoc is a writer who loses inspiration after a successful debut novel and receives a naked woman (Calliope, one of the Nine Muses) as a gift from another author, who he proceeds to rape continuously as ideas flow to him. Madoc collects awards, fans and general fame until Sandman punishes him in a poetically justified manner. This story allegorises the painful experiences of women worldwide who are sucked dry of their energy, souls, lives, ideas, love, identity and used by men who have no care for the impact their actions have on their victims. It was a beautiful and apt depiction of the inhumane act of vampirism and violation and painted such an accurate picture of the many weapons wielded against women that I could not help but believe the author is someone who cares very deeply about women and the downtrodden. Right? Right?

Why is this story particularly important? And why does it lead to a further discussion about separating art and artist? 

Well, anyone with any amount of critical thinking skills can draw a handful of parallels between Madoc and Gaiman. They’re both successful artists, consider themselves feminists and have made announcements to that effect, and ultimately fail to uphold the moral standards of the works they publish. And both of them have thoroughly misled the world at large about their own natures. In fact, according to the Vulture article, people likened Gaiman not to Madoc, but Sandman himself, as they are both considered an ���inexhaustible fountain of story”.

So how can I ever hope to separate creation and maker? How can I ever continue to support the works of someone who KNOWS. Because he does. He knows exactly what the impact of his work is, knows enough about the moral pillars of our society to accurately represent the interpersonal complexities of sexism, sexual assault and feminism played out in his works. How can I ever consume more media from a man who has made a mockery of our daily struggles, who reaps the awards and the glory and the money from a parody of the uphill battles every woman fights every day to assert her identity in a world created to pander to everyone else? 

I refuse to read fake feminism from an anti-feminist, refuse to read about the horrors of sexual assault from a sexual assaulter. I refuse to support this man in any endeavours he takes. I own no copies of any of his books and don't intend to get any. I’m not saying to burn your books—they're your property, and you've already gotten them, treat them with respect—but as someone whose most awaited show release since 2022 has been the second season of The Sandman, I don’t think I’ll watch it now, and if I do it’s to support the artists, and I’ll probably pirate it, to be honest. 

All this to say, there is no feasable way to remove the art from the artist. The art is an extension of the artist and even if we remove all economic and social advantages creators get from their content from the equation, we’re left with the stark realisation that when an author has personal morals that inherently clash with his works, it’s because he measured those morals and found them wanting for portrayal, therefore choosing to pretend at being a good person to achieve his goals and sell his trade. And I’m not so deprived of perfectly good literature that I’ll swallow my pride and sense of morality to take in the ironic preaching of a man who doesn’t believe in his own gospel. 

[the-uncanny-dag]

[evenlyevi]

By the lake

[meo-eiru]

I CAN DRAW AGAIN🥹🥹🥹

I've been constantly thinking about this guy lately so I decided to draw him

[spilladabalia]

Separating Art From The Artist (Is It Even Possible ? )

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[danrifics]

btw after today if you’re still buying into harry potter shit i have nothing to say to you, like legit do not talk to me.

[demadogs]

just wanna say that ive lost all respect for noah schnapp weeks ago and i continue to every time he does something more stupid than the last. free palestine.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[eggdrawsthings]

The Graveyard Book [2024 thesis project]

Part 1 - The Characters

Part 2 - Cinematic Moments, Color Scripts, and Sets + Props design.

[zipsunz]

state champs 🏀🏆

more omori OCs!! they were originally created for LM but have since wiggled their way into everything else. i want to make proper refs, but it's been… nearly a year now… so take these for now 🤲 a bunch of puppy jocks affectionately referred to as "the dog pack" as a whole 🐶

[canisalbus]

“he also employs a very competent personal doctor” - does this doctor have a name, or breed, or perhaps reference pictures? I would like to know… for reasons, lol!

Doctor Matteo Frosini, I imagine him as a fiftysomething Bracco Italiano from Florence. He has a dignified and collected look to him, but he can be surprisingly jovial and good-natured as well. Above all he's pragmatic, confident in his abilities and unflappable in a time of crisis.

[mooniety]

"Don't let her frilly appearance fool you! She's more than wiling to dirty her dress for the sake of invention!"

see cut for reference sheets & alt design:

i still can't believe all of this started because i was watching a friend play fortnite & making popcat jokes on discord vc, i literally can't make this shit up.

[assassin-artist]

yea im cringe free enough to make invincible ocs. in fact i am cringe free enough to make my invincible oc directly related to the main character idc

[tavina-writes]

so deeply deeply tired of the discourse where if an artist/creative gets revealed to have been a vile and shitty person irl we just start throwing their art out wholesale to the tune of "omg well I KNEW they were a BAD person!!! look at how AWFUL AND BAD and SUCKY their art was!! it was CLEAR it was never ANY good. Anyway I never bought the hype about them because their art was BAD!"

like, I'm not arguing for continuing to hold onto art that you now dislike because the creator was a vile person. you don't need to do that.

but this "oh I can tell if a person is good or bad if their art is good or bad bc bad people make bad art" is just such a reductive and honestly tiring approach? Good people make bad art. Good people make good art. Bad people make bad art. Bad people make good art. there's no correlation, stop trying to say there is.

we must learn to separate the morality and value of art from the morality and value of the creator.