THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Well hey there. This is Miriam Schulman, chief inspiration officer and host of the Inspiration Place Podcast, where we help passionistas, passion makers and passion professionals reconnect with their creativity and profit from their passion. Today is episode number 119. And we’re talking all about why you don’t need social media to make a thriving career as an artist. Today’s guest has made her living as an independent artist since 2003. Her work focuses on questions of identity and belonging, often expressed through portraiture, and it has been featured on Hyperallergic, Boing Boing, Newsweek and Bust. This artist speaks regularly about creativity and culture, both locally and internationally, most notably at a TEDx at Geneva. Whew. Born in Saudi Arabia in 1981, she has lived… Now I’m late trying to calculate how old you are. She has lived most of her life in France and the US. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place, Gwenn Seemel.
Gwenn Seemel:
Hello. So glad to be here.
Miriam Schulman:
I am so happy to have you. I feel like I know you, even though we’ve never actually met.
Gwenn Seemel:
One of those funny things. One of those internet things.
Miriam Schulman:
And we tried to get together in New Jersey.
Gwenn Seemel:
We did.
Miriam Schulman:
And we will probably try again someday soon, break some laws, breathe on each other. I don’t know.
Gwenn Seemel:
One of these days for sure.
Miriam Schulman:
Right. Although that’s not exactly on brand with what we’re talking about today. The reason I’m inviting you on the show is I got super excited when you announced that you were disappearing off of Facebook. I was like, “Oh my gosh. I have to get Gwenn on the show and talk about this.” I’m so excited. So first of all, for everybody who doesn’t know, please share that message you blasted to everybody. So we’re not just talking about leaving the Facebook group. You know how people announce, “I’m leaving this group because I don’t like it anymore. Unfollowing.” No, Gwenn, you left all of Facebook, right?
Gwenn Seemel:
I did. I deleted all of Facebook and all of the Zuckerverse, I like to call it because there’s many companies that are underneath the Facebook umbrella, like Instagram and WhatsApp. All of that gone. No more.
Miriam Schulman:
I love it. I already have a title picked out for this episode. That song Forget You. Yeah. So it’s called Forget You Facebook.
Gwenn Seemel:
I should be clear. I’m saying Forget You to Facebook. I don’t think everybody has to. But it’s right for me. I love being loud about doing it in case other people are thinking about it. So that’s why I’m talking about it so much. That’s why I’m so glad that you’ve invited me to talk about it.
Miriam Schulman:
And by the way, full disclaimer, I am a Zuckerberg slut. I spend lots of money on Facebook advertising. I am very much part of the problem, just so you know. I wish I could be somebody like you. I think it’s amazing what you’re doing. And it’s an inspiration. So just full disclosure. I do use lots of Facebook advertising, but I use it to promote my art classes. I have never used Facebook… No. I shouldn’t say never because that’s not true. I no longer use, and I haven’t in a very long time, used any form of Facebook advertising to sell art. I firmly believe you do not need Facebook to sell your artwork.
Gwenn Seemel:
I think it was like 2016, Cory Huff, who’s an art coach who I met years ago. We were both living in Portland, Oregon at the time. He put out a book called How to Sell your Art Online. And he used my career as an example of how to do it. And it specifically was on about my social media use. Because I really came up with social media. When it was becoming a thing for artists, that’s when I was basically becoming an artist. So I feel like we sort of raised each other, me and social media for artists. Obviously there were other artists involved in the raising of social media. But you know what I mean. It just feels like we are intimately connected. And so for me to leave was kind of a really big deal and not something that I just did, like flipping the switch, like one day I was like, “That’s it we’re done. Forget you.”
I worked on this for a while because you’re talking about like, “I would like to be able to do that, but I don’t think maybe I can,” or something like that. I definitely went through all of those fields. Last year, end of 2019, I took three months off to see if I could even do it emotionally, but then also to see what it would do to my business. So it’s definitely something that you have to negotiate. I don’t think it’s something that you can just easily do if you’re an artist who’s made their business online.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. So I have broken up with social media on my phone. It is not allowed on my phone. I do not have Instagram on my phone. I do not have Twitter on my phone. I do not have Facebook on my phone. The only thing I do have on my phone is Facebook Messenger. So really the only things I have on my phone are communication things, direct communication. People can text me, call me, message me and that’s it. And God forbid, somebody sends me a message and I see on my desktop that they’ve sent me an IG message that I can’t look at on my desktop. I’m like, “Okay, well that’s too bad for you. I’m not installing that app back on my phone just for you.” Occasionally that happens. Like, “Nope.” And I do post on these places, but it’s all through the desktop. I don’t have it on my phone.
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah. It’s good to have boundaries, I think with it, whatever they are. For me, it’s a hard boundary of the Zuckerverse. That’s my thing. But for you, not having on your phone is what helps.
Miriam Schulman:
Zuckerverse. What I teach artists inside the Artist Incubator is that they do not need to build an Instagram following. I think a lot of people out there… And I’m not trying to paint them as being evil. That’s not what I mean at all. It’s like, “Well, if only you could build a following, then you can be a really rich artist.” That kind of selling thing. And for some people, maybe it did work at one time. Notice how I added “At one time.”
Gwenn Seemel:
It’s true. It’s really changed in the last four years, especially. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Artists who will come to work with me, they’ll say, “Well, I just don’t know what the perfect hashtag is for…” And then they’ll insert their type of art. So let’s say I talked to a metalsmith or someone does felt art. I says, “Well, you know who knows what the perfect hashtag is for your felt art? Other felt artists.” That’s it. Your art collectors do not know what the perfect hashtag is.
Gwenn Seemel:
And here’s the thing about social media is that it is a rented space. You have no control over it. The companies are going to change it as they want. I’m sure they’ve done it to you already. If you’ve been on there for any amount of time, any social media platform, they’ve made changes that you haven’t liked and you don’t get to say anything. They are the landlords. They are the ones who decide. So if you want to avoid that headache, but still be social, have a site. Sure. But also have a mailing list because then you are in control of being able to stay in touch with those people. No one can take that list away from you. No one can make it so that you can only contact them through your phone or whatever, like with Instagram and you.
But it really becomes yours then. And I think that’s, what’s really important to remember is that you want to have a home, not a rented space that’s kind of a party being thrown by jerks. Do you know what I mean? That’s kind of what social media is. They’re not into the idea of making the party better. They’re just into the idea of making people stay at the party and watch ads. That’s their whole revenue.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s like Mean Girls where it’s like, “You can come in the lunch room, but we’re not even going to look at you.”
Gwenn Seemel:
Right. Unless you’re going to cough up some money. Then we’re interested in you.
Miriam Schulman:
So that’s why I wanted to say at the beginning, I happily cough up the money to make money. I am what’s paying for this universe. I want people to stay. So that’s the thing that’s kind of tricky for me with this conversation is, we’re saying “You don’t need it.” And then I’m saying, “Uh, but please stay on it long enough to see my ads.”
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah, but that’s not the only way that you sell your stuff. I mean, you do this podcast. You have lots of different promotional means.
Miriam Schulman:
My paid advertising is my number one way of finding new customers for my classes. That’s what I want to be extremely clear about. Not for my high end art. I don’t use advertising on social media for that. And I don’t believe artists should be using social media for that. I don’t feel like that’s the right way to go. Free publicity is far superior to any kind of paid advertising you can do to sell art. Do you agree with that?
Gwenn Seemel:
Oh, for sure. One of the earliest lessons that I learned, just looking at musician friends of mine as I was coming up as an artist, their whole world sells via the look, right? They have to have the look of the musician. It’s the cover of their album. All of it is based on look. And then weirdly, visual art sells all on sound, all in the buzz that other people, what they’re saying about your work. It really almost doesn’t matter what your work looks like, as long as people are talking about it and people, not you, are talking about it. You can definitely add to the conversation and sort of talk about it in a way that’s interesting. So people are like, “Oh yeah,” and I repeat what you say. And then it sort of builds that buzz. But it really is all about other people talking about your work. That is your whole goal as an artist, trying to promote your work, is get other people talking about your art.
Miriam Schulman:
This is not for you, Gwenn. This is for you, the listener, you. So if you listener could set one goal for 2021, I would say it’s that. Get publicity. Find those art collectors. That’s the ticket. If you look at Ashley Longshore. Yes, she has a big Instagram following, but that’s because she built up a celebrity through press. And I think she even invested in a media person too, to work with.
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah. And you don’t even have to do that, though, is the thing. Literally reaching out to get people to talk about your work can be as simple as writing your best friend and being like, ‘This is what I’m working on right now.” It could literally be that, that simple word of mouth of you tell your friend, they tell their friends. Or they even just draw you out about your work. So suddenly you’re writing them or saying things to them that you never knew you even thought about your own art. And you’re like, “Hey, that actually sounds really smart. I’m going to put that in the copy on my site.” Or, “I’m going to put that in my Instagram post.” Those conversations, all of them are so important. It’s just vital that you just start talking to people about your work and that will then get the ball rolling on others talking about your work.
Miriam Schulman:
Totally agree with you. I’m so glad we’re here agreeing with each other. Okay. So let’s talk about the email list, Gwen. How large is your email list? Do you mind my asking? Is that a dirty question?
Gwenn Seemel:
It’s not huge. It’s not huge. I actually have two, technically three, because I also have a French one. So I have one that’s more like a monthly digest. And then I have one that I send out every time I publish something new on my blog or a new piece. And so you there’s people who are signed up for both of them. There’s people who are signed up for just one or the other. It just sort of what they want. I have about 200 people on my every time I publish something new, and I only have about 180 on the monthly digest. And some of it has to do with, literally I’ve spent over 10 years telling people to follow me on Facebook instead of on my mailing list. So I’m going to have to do some rebuilding of my mailing list because of that. That’s another thing. I just gave all of my power, all of my communication, all of my interaction with people to a company. And I did that for years.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Who’s the art slut now?
Gwenn Seemel:
It’s true. I did. I gave it all away.
Miriam Schulman:
Because I want to say something. All the money that I spent on Facebook was to get people onto my email list.
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah, nicely done.
Miriam Schulman:
All of it. Every single dollar, it was to get people onto an email list. You do not need a large list. I have a client who made $5,000 in October, 2020, of a list of under 200 people. Or maybe she just hit 200. I forget. I wrote it down somewhere, how many people. But not a large list. So you don’t need thousands of people on your list to make it work. So with Instagram, you need thousands and thousands to get attention. But not email.
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah. The whole quality versus quantity thing. This is where social media is at. It is all about the quantity right now. They want you to be making live stuff. They want you to be posting instant throw away things. That’s just to keep people on their site. That’s literally all they care about. It’s not about the quality of what you’re making. But when you then move to an email list, you’re looking all for the quality. It’s the people who actually want to get that message. It’s the people who want to engage with you. And so who are going to potentially be spending money on your work, more so than the people that you’re just broadcasting to on social media.
Miriam Schulman:
So how have your art sales been since you broke up with Mark?
Gwenn Seemel:
You know what? They haven’t changed actually very much. But what has changed is my whole emotional everything. Instead of receiving comments on social media and having to answer them, and so it’s public. I’m still on LinkedIn and Twitter. So I’m still doing a little bit of this. I can really AB it. When someone comments on a blog post or something on social media, I’m always sort of reticent about sharing anything personal. But when someone emails me directly after having read something of mine and shares about themselves in a way that they maybe wouldn’t do publicly, I am then inspired to share back with them.
Now I’m having conversations about the vegan cheese that I make with people that I didn’t even know were vegan also. These are things that probably wouldn’t have come up on social media, just because I’m a little bit shyer. I’m not going to share that I’m a vegan, even necessarily. So the whole emotional aspect of getting away from the Zuckerverse has been… There’s no way to put a price on it. I mean, it’s only been, since I completely deleted, it’s not even been a month. So there hasn’t been any changes at this point.
Miriam Schulman:
Good for you. I’m a vegan too, by the way.
Gwenn Seemel:
Oh hey. Do you put that on social media? Is that a thing that you share a lot?
Miriam Schulman:
Not often. Because I don’t know. It just feels like it’s kind of extra information. But if it comes up, it’s not like I’m hiding it.
Gwenn Seemel:
But I’ll definitely share with you some vegan cheese recipes, if you’re interested.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m a lazy vegan. So I will go to a vegan restaurant with you, but I am not pressing my own cashew nuts into cheese.
Gwenn Seemel:
She will take my vegan cheese, if I make some for you.
Miriam Schulman:
I would love that.
Gwenn Seemel:
Okay got it.
Miriam Schulman:
Is there a good vegan restaurant at Long Beach where you live?
Gwenn Seemel:
There is a place. This is terrible. I’m going to say it though. It’s called Living on the Veg. It is so yummy, but we are on what’s called island time here where people just close whenever they want. It doesn’t really matter what their posted hours are. And of all the places that I frequent on the Island, Living on the Veg is the worst. You literally go there… It’s a schlep for me. It’s not in my immediate neighborhood. So I drive, in the summertime, like 40 minutes to go there and they just decided they didn’t feel like being open that day. And there’s no way that you can know that. So it’s unfortunate. But that’s why I make my own vegan cheese. Because nobody else is going to do it for me around here.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I’m a very lazy vegan. I will make a tofu scramble.
Gwenn Seemel:
Nice. See, I wouldn’t do that. Because I didn’t ever like eggs and that’s too, reminding me of eggs. So, I would eat your vegan scramble, tofu scramble. I would definitely.
Miriam Schulman:
We will make some post COVID plans together.
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah sounds good.
Miriam Schulman:
Or even lazier, can you meet me in the city? And we’ll go to somebody else’s vegan scramble. Blossom is my favorite. Have you ever been there?
Gwenn Seemel:
There’s a Blossoming Lotus in Portland, which may be related.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh I I’ve been there.
Gwenn Seemel:
It’s so good.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. That’s a good place. Yeah, that’s really good. No it’s not related. It’s Blossom. There’s several in the city. It was actually… I mean, we’ve gone way on topic, by the way. We’re just going to assume either the foodies out there staying with us, because we have such compelling content. But anyway, there’s a couple of Blossoms in New York. They’re owned by a divorced couple that started a Blossom. And now there’s multiple Blossoms by the two different people. Nobody paid for that, by the way. They are not a sponsor of the show, which is terrible that we spent all that time discussing brands that are not paying to be on this podcast. All right. This is a question Gwen asked me to ask her.
Gwenn Seemel:
I don’t remember even doing this. This is going to be new content for me.
Miriam Schulman:
No I know. I’m reading it and I’m trying to change it from first person to third person. What art do you place in the public domain and what are… Okay. So it was something about putting our art in the public domain.
Gwenn Seemel:
All right. We’re talking about copyright. That I know, now. And we’re talking about how I don’t believe in copyright. And this is me most social media-
Miriam Schulman:
This is controversial.
Gwenn Seemel:
I know, I know. But this is like my social media decision, right? I’m saying this is good for me. That doesn’t mean that it has to be for you. But I do just want to put the plug out there, and this is what I like to do when I’m talking about copyright, which is that copyright generally is better for people who have lots of money. The people who can hire all the lawyers to make all the things happen. It’s generally going to protect corporations, so corporate intellectual property, more than it’s going to protect the average individual artists. So I’m just putting that there as like a basic unfairness that exists in the copyright universe, which is why I encourage people learning about copyright and its alternatives. Because there are other options you don’t just have to be either pro copyright or in the public domain. There’s things in between there that are options as well.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So what do you mean by that? Okay. So my philosophy is people are going to rip me off no matter what. If I catch them and I can do something about it, I will, but I’m not wasting my time looking for them. If that makes any sense. Because I know there are a lot of artists who waste…. I don’t want to say waste. That’s a judgey way to put it. They spend a lot of time with those sites, like Image Rights, where they upload their art and the site looks for people who have ripped them off throughout the universe.
Gwenn Seemel:
So my attitude is pretty similar to yours. I’m just not interested in spending a lot of time on hunting people down. And generally it comes to me. It’s a friend who says, “Hey, I saw your work,” just most recently on the label of a goat’s milk ice cream in Southern France. So your work is going to be used. If it’s online, it will be used by people. In this case, the farm had no idea that they were stealing art from an artist. They had an intern who was designing the label, who just decided to grab my work instead of actually do the work of drawing a goat. The farmers themselves had no idea. This is going to happen, and it’s not always malicious, like in this case. For me, I would rather just have a conversation with people and be like, “Hey, did you know that that’s my work? And where did you find it?” Because it’s good. You can do market research, be like, “So how did this come about? Oh, it’s an intern who…” This is the way that happened. So you’re figuring out where your work is getting seen.
And then in this case, the farm has offered to send me ice cream, which obviously isn’t going to happen because I live in the US, but I’m going to have them send it to a friend of mine who’s in France where they can ship it. So there can be nice things that happen out of not pursuing something legally, and instead going this other route of being like, “Hey, we now have something in common: My drawing. What are we going to do about it?”
Miriam Schulman:
By the way, I was not as nice as you when I discovered my art on a bar soap. I was on vacation and there was my art on a bar soap.
Gwenn Seemel:
It’s shocking, right?
Miriam Schulman:
I didn’t get paid for it. So I think I’ve told this story in the podcast already. But I’m in Provincetown, my daughter and I go into the soap thing. For some reason I made a beeline for the soap section, because I was looking for gifts. And I thought, “Oh, what a great idea. A bar of soap with a picture of the beach on it.” Except that it was my painting on that bar of soap.
Gwenn Seemel:
Wow.
Miriam Schulman:
I mean, they had a bunch of other artist soaps, which I’m sure all the other artists got ripped as well. So I went up to the guy behind the counter who owned the soap. Actually he was the owner. And I just said, “Who’s the vendor for this?” Because I knew it wasn’t him. And then he gave me the contact information, and I did send a cease and desist letter or pay up now type of… It was like a “Pay me.”
Gwenn Seemel:
And that is an option. That is totally an option. There are other options. Let’s talk about what the sort of in-between of being pro copyright and being pro public domain is.
Miriam Schulman:
I did take a very soft, what in my mind was a soft option because I could have gone for a lot more money. I decided, “All right, let’s pretend he had asked.” Whatever. I think I got 500 bucks. But the other thing I could have done, if I wanted to be a real asshole about it, I could have taken pictures of all the other soaps, found all those other artists and done some sort of class action, really burn the house down on this guy. But I just chose not to. Because it’s a kind of thing. It’s like, “Okay, I want to protect my thing.” And it wasn’t that I was like “Too bad for you other artists.” I just didn’t feel it was worth my time doing all that. Anyway, go ahead with the nicer things that I didn’t do.
Gwenn Seemel:
No. So there are options. And specifically a good one is called the Creative Commons. And if you’ve never heard of it, I will explain it a little bit. But I also want to encourage people to look up, literally just search on the internet, Creative Commons Kiwi video. Kiwi as in the bird, or the fruit, but it is a bird in this case. And there’s a really fun explainer video that really gets into what Creative Commons is. But basically it’s a group of licenses that take apart what copyright is. Because copyright isn’t just one thing that you’re protecting. You are saying whether or not someone can use your work. You’re saying whether or not someone can make a derivative work from your work. You’re saying how and when and all of this stuff, whether they can make money. There’s a lot of rights that are within copyright. What Creative Commons does is just separates them out.
So for example, I think a lot of artists identify this way. They’re the kind of person who’s like, “I don’t care if other artists are being inspired by what I’m doing. I just don’t want a company like a soap company or a farm to come along and grab my stuff and use it to make money.” That’s where their hard line is. With copyright, if you just put the copyright C on your image, you can’t communicate that that’s who you are, that you’re okay with inspiring other artists, but not helping companies without them paying for it. But with Creative Commons, there’s literally a license that lets you say, “Go ahead, be inspired. Do not make money without asking first.” So it’s a great way to really be clear about what your boundaries are. Look it up. Creative Commons Kiwi video.
Miriam Schulman:
Interesting. Okay. We’ll put a note about that in our show notes, if people want to check that out. Let’s talk about Patreon. I know you use it and I would love to hear more about how.
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah. So I’ve been on for five years. I think it started almost like six years ago. So I was a pretty early adopter. What Patreon is for people who don’t know yet, it’s basically like Kickstarter, but it never ends. So Kickstarter is, you ask people for micro donations, small amounts of money, $5, $10, $100, whatever it is, to help you make a specific project, right? There’s a beginning date on it and an end date. And hopefully you deliver by the end of it the product that you said, whatever it is, a book or a series of images, whatever it is. With Patreon, and with other ongoing micro donation sites, it’s basically like an automatic tip jar that charges people, if they’re okay with it, it charges them on a monthly basis usually, whatever it is they want to give you every month.
Gwenn Seemel:
With Patreon, you’re basically creating an inner circle among your patrons. I like to say that there are two kinds of patrons. There’s the patron who supports the work that you’ve made already. And then there’s the patron who supports your future work. And when you’re looking at their behavior, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between them, right? Because they’re spending money on your art. That’s basically what a patron is, is someone who is supporting your work. But there are patrons who are more focused on purchasing stuff that you’ve already created. And so they’re sort of more interested in acquiring things that you’ve already done.
But then there was a special subgroup of patrons who may be acquiring your objects, the stuff that you’ve made, but they are also really interested in being involved in what you’re doing next. So those people often end up supporting artists on platforms like Patreon. Because it’s not so much about whatever special gift you offer them in a different pledge tier. It’s kind of like public broadcasting where if you give a certain amount, you usually get a gift back. Artists can set it up so they can give different gifts for different pledge tiers. But most people who are signed up for Patreon, I don’t think it’s really about those gifts as much as it’s about, “I want to make sure that this artist keeps on making. I want to be the first to know what’s coming out of this artist’s brain next.” That sort of a thing.
It’s a really nurturing platform. It is not passive income. I think if it’s sold as like, “Oh, you make a Patreon profile, and then you get several hundred dollars a month every month. Or several thousand if you’re one of those artists.” No, it doesn’t just sort of happen like you snap your fingers and it’s in your bank account every month. It’s something that you definitely nurture as an artist as well. It’s a mutual nurturing situation.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that. If someone was to be a Patreon patron for Gwenn Seemel, do you have any gifts for us?
Gwenn Seemel:
I do. I got some good stuff. It’s stuff that you can get in other ways through my site, but I give special deals to patrons. So it’s things like, you could be a part of my sticker clubs. So every month you get a new sticker and you don’t know what it’s going to be, and it just arrives in your mailbox. Or sometimes it’s a magnet, or sometimes it’s a small print, like a postcard. But it’s called the sticker club. Or where you can get drawings or paintings, but at a special deal through Patreon.
Miriam Schulman:
Cool. My capitalist brain is thinking, “How could I do that for the podcast?”
Gwenn Seemel:
Totally.
Miriam Schulman:
I know. It’s one of those many to-do items. Okay, let’s talk about now your characters. So Gwenn has created these characters, and they are wearing masks.
Gwenn Seemel:
The Lifesavers Fan Art series is what I’m calling it. And I’m taking pop culture characters, making fan art, so I’m just making images that are recognizably, like the, My Little Pony character Rainbow Dash or Pikachu from Pikachu. Characters that people know. And then I’m just slapping a blue surgical style mask on them. It’s just mask-positive work that is super simple to make. Artists professional amateur alike can do it, can grab images, can trace, can do collage where can make paintings like I’m doing. Whatever it is, and then just add that mask on there. And the idea is to just slug the interwebs with images of these pop culture characters wearing masks as a way to be like, “See Yoda wears a mask. Why wouldn’t I do it?” That sort of a thing. That’s what we’re looking for.
Miriam Schulman:
And I’m going to assume you’re not selling these copyright protected.
Gwenn Seemel:
Oh, it’s an interesting question, isn’t it?
Miriam Schulman:
Yes it is.
Gwenn Seemel:
So yes, I am selling the original artworks and I’m encouraging the artists who participate in it, because I want other artists who are making these images as well, to sell the original artworks. I wouldn’t recommend putting it on a site like Etsy or even Redbubble, those print on demand sites, because those are the sites where companies who own this IP, that’s where they’re going to look to try to get you in trouble. But honestly, these are not violating the copyright of those companies. These are taking it… That extra step, by adding that blue mask, you are falling in the fair use area of copyright.
So there is a limitation on copyright’s ability to be enforced and to control everything that’s done with intellectual property. And that’s called fair use. And if you are making commentary using their imagery that falls under fair use. Not that doesn’t mean that they might not come and decide to sue me. If they really did want to, they could, but it would probably be a spurious lawsuits, something that most judges would look at and be like, “You know what? She’s making commentary. You’re just trying to chill her creative output.”
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So I have to say two things. So I agree and disagree. So I agree that the creation of the art itself is fair use. However, if you use their trademark name in trying to promote it, you could get sued rightfully because then the brand name, let’s say Pikachu, so that falls into like the trademark infringement, which is different than-
Gwenn Seemel:
Which is slightly different. It’s true.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s different. So you can sell the art as long as you don’t label it with their brand because that, from their point of view, they just don’t want… And we do have an episode on this with Autumn Boyd, I believe we discussed it, or it could have been with… Oh gee, I don’t know. It could be with Katie Lane, we also discussed copyright. So those are the two lawyers I’ve had on. But I’ve run into trouble myself where I was creating artwork, derivative artwork, which was fully my right to create the artwork, but it was in the titling where the companies were, “We would prefer you not use our names to promote your art, because that is saying that we sanction this art as-”
Gwenn Seemel:
That’s part of it. Also, trademark is one of those things that’s more reliant on them doing that to every single person who takes their name and uses it. Essentially trademark is reinforced by companies going after people who are using whatever words they’ve trademarked. So they have to do it in order to maintain their trademark. I’d still think it’s arguable. I’m not worried about being sued by companies because I’m not putting it on my Redbubble site for example. But it is something to consider when you’re making this work. For sure.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. All right. So thanks for sharing that, Gwenn. Okay. So we’re going to wrap up. All right. Now, if you want to see this pop culture characters and get involved, you said that’s on your blog? Is that correct?
Gwenn Seemel:
Yeah. Just go to gwennseemel.com/lifesavers, and you’ll find the whole series.
Miriam Schulman:
Now to wrap up, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Gwenn Seemel:
The thing that I’m really obsessed with right now is this idea of having a canary in my heart, sort of like the canary in the coal mine. The concept of the canary that it protects the miners because it’ll sing. And then when there’s no more air left, it’ll stop singing, and that’s when the miners know that they need to get out. Right? I feel like I have a canary in my heart that’s singing and I need to listen, if she’s maybe singing a little bit less loudly to sort of direct me. And I think we all have these birds in our heart. And some people are walking around with dead birds in their hearts, right? But the artists, I think, are the ones who have the more sensitive birds and also the louder birds. And so I want to encourage your listeners to listen to the canaries in their heart, to recognize that they as artists have this power, this canary in their heart, that can help other people’s birds come back to life. So recognize your value in this world, please. You make our hearts sing.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh Gwenn, that is so beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I really appreciate you and your time.
Gwenn Seemel:
Thank you.
Miriam Schulman:
Everyone, just listen up. Next week, we have a two-parter. next week and the following week, it’s going to be The Inspiration Place Rewind. We’ll be sharing the best of The Inspiration Place from 2020. And you do not want to miss it. So make sure you hit the subscribe or the follow button in your podcast app. And if you’re feeling extra generous, would you please leave me a review? We’ve made it so much easier. Just pop on over to schulmanart.com/review-podcast. And if you are still on social media, and you pop your Instagram handle at the end of the review, then I’ll even give you a shout out over on my IG Stories. And if you’re wondering how I do that without it being on my phone, there is a way to do it from the desktop. Trust me. All right, guys. Thank you so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you next week. Same time, same place. Stay inspired.
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