I went to a wonderful lecture at Emily Carr on November 24th, 2010. It was featuring Marian Bantjes and her newly created book called I Wonder
I’ve always known of her work, but never really took the time to explore it fully. I felt like my eyes were opened a bit wider tonight after looking at how she has creates her pieces. It’s really truely a mind blowing process. Marian discussed how she started her career and failed to get a good start, but then continued to mention that she was fortunate and very lucky to get the jobs she had. She has worked on everything from magazine covers to window displays for Saks 5th Ave and even graphics for a sail boat! I personally think she has some kind of crazy gift to have the patience and mind set to spend the time creating such detailed works of art.
I could discuss all of her creations and what my favourite’s are, but i’d like to talk about the one thing that stuck in my head. She briefly showed a piece called Seduction and went on to say that Puff Daddy had ripped it off and how she was in the middle of a law suit etc etc… she seemed pretty annoyed with it, keeping her comments brief and moving on quickly, kind of chuckling a little nervously. All I kept thinking was how flattered i’d be! I think that once people are copying you and ripping off your designs it just means that you’ve probably reached a point in your career where you’re creating something that’s never been done before and other people have no new ideas so they have to steal/copy from around them. I mean sure Puff Daddy is a big deal and you’d think his team would be big enough that they would be able to create something of their own?
What do you think, ripped off or just a coincidence?
All in all i’ve come out of this lecture feeling refeshed and also slightly frustrated, wishing I could design beautiful posters and patterns for a living. How amazing!
I highly recommend getting her new book I Wonder
