There’s a jewelry collective I follow on tumblr and Instagram. They have a very distinctive and unique style that I love. I forget the name of the brand right now but I’ve reblogged their work before.

The other day they posted a picture of a necklace from Anthropologie that looked like a poor imitation of one of their pieces and they basically said as much, which their followers were quick to defend.

The thing is that I’ve made pieces in a similar style to theirs. Pieces that were inspired by a completely different style that looks nothing like my finished product. Or theirs. And I wanted to say something but I decided against it.

There’s a difference between inspiration and copying. I’ve always looked at other artists’ work for inspiration. When I paint, when I did graphic design and now as a jeweler. I do it almost every day. It gets the creative juices flowing for me and I use it as a jump off point to create my own pieces. But I never (at least consciously) copy.

However it is inevitable that you will see more than one person creating the exact same thing. Maybe some of it is ripped off. But I truly believe that a lot of times creativity pulls from the same place: The collective unconscious.

When I worked as a designer I could feel a “pulse” for lack of a better term for certain trends. And I could sometimes feel what was going to blow up next in terms of style. And I always knew what was in the way out.

I don’t know if jewelry is similar because I haven’t felt that pulse in this field. And maybe it’s because the trends really don’t change in the same way. Not as fast, not as extreme. Other than art jewelry, there’s not that much reinventing in this field. There’s only so many ways you can make a ring, after all.

For me, I’m less concerned with being trendy and more interested in finding my own style. I don’t expect to reinvent jewelry. I just want my pieces to look like they were all made by me.

That said if, I see a piece of mine replicated, I think I’d probably be more flattered than insulted. At least at first. As far as I know, no one in Trinidad is making pieces like mine. And I hope it stays that way.

The jewelry collective ended up taking down the picture in the end. I think it was a good move. It didn’t reflect positively in their brand. Plus honestly, their style is very derivative of Native American beadwork so I don’t think they can claim ownership. And that’s just the thing with doing anything creative. Something is always inspired by something else. Rarely is anything ever really new. Which is why I tend to feel a little defensive when someone claims their work’s been copied. Because unless you’ve lived in a cave all your life, it’s kind of difficult to claim that you’re an original.