When is copying okay?

I open with that question today because I have a copy for you:



I truly love Amy Kinsch's large holed beads - particularly the wispy little "clouds" she gets. (Here's a link to her Etsy: AK Designs.) I posed a question on Lampwork Etc a couple of weeks ago, asking for tips on getting those cute little wisps. No answers. Well, not any answers that were helpful. So, last weekend, I sat down and experimented, and came up with this - which is pretty darn close. Today on LE there is a huge discussion on copying....in this case REAL copying, as the copy-er is posting and selling on eBay essentially the same beads as originally sold by the copy-ee on eBay. I'm sure you can imagine the discussion - if you're an artist, or even follow bead and/or bead-related forums, then you've seen the same discussion over and over again. But, these discussions always interest me. I remember taking oil painting lessons from a woman who was quite well known in this area. In her studio was a magnificent "copy" of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, which she displayed proudly. Why? Well, in her day as an art student (and she was close to 80 when I took from her, so we're talking a quite a few years here) they would let art students go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and copy the masters. If the copy was good enough - as judged by the museum's curators - they would "certify" it as an acceptable copy. Which Della's was. And, in fact, this is exactly the way most masters learned - from copying. EXACT copying. I guess the difference is that Della wasn't offering the painting up for sale...anyway, I wound up making quite a few beads in the "Amy-style," which I'll wear with delight. I'll try to put a twist on them, and perhaps even sell them as large-hole beads....Here's something else I did with what I'd learned from my experiments, and it's very different:



Pretty, isn't it? The wispies are only in the center row - it's a pretty big bead, probably close to 25mm to 30mm....