'If you have 100,000 followers, how can you not expect people to replicate your work? If you don't want people replicating your art, don't post it,' says NYC-based nail artist Julie Kandalec.
and olives — but also because of her own signature posing using her own hands."I only have myself," Goldstein explains of how she developed a now often-copied"aesthetic" years before it was trendy."I wanted to find a pose that would make my hands look okay and would be able to feature the nail art. I was just playing around, it was trial and error. If I go all the way back, [my] aesthetic has pretty much always been the same.
While this is not necessarily a legal issue, copying does pose an ethical dilemma, and feels catty, especially when it's between artists with a similar clientele or visibility."Let's say you're an artist in Alaska and you replicate my work, I don't care," Nguyen explains of where she sees the nuance."But if you're another celebrity manicurist, all of a sudden you're insays this happened to her.
Goldstein, with her large following, has experienced being slighted by larger conglomerates, like nail polish brands who don't want to pay for her original nail artwork, and will instead commission another artist to replicate one of her designs at a lesser cost."A brand might pay an artist to recreate my art — it could be something I did in 2014 — and do a tutorial for it, because they don't want to pay me," Goldstein explains."That hurts a little bit more.
At the end of the day, it's just common courtesy."It's really nice to have credit," offers Kandalec."I think it's a really nice gesture, to say in your caption: 'Inspired by so and so.'" When it comes down to it, the larger problem with artists copying other artists is the most worrisome: When we all copy each other, as Goldstein puts it,"Everything kind of mushes into one, and there's no individuality.
It's about making your own art and championing others to do the same."My husband calls them horse blinders, you can't look around," Goldstein continues."Sometimes I try not to get any nail feed online, like I try to trick my algorithm into showing me things that aren't nail art. You get influenced by what you're served. The 'likes' can be hard, because if you see that French tips gets likes, you might do a million French tips, but it's not original.