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Upcoming Statewide WRAP Exhibit/WRAP Registration Forms/Workshops and State Award Winning Artworks

Past Issues of Contour Notes

Bridging Generations Youth Art Exhibit and Workshop

TinyTreasures 2012 exhibit/competition

STAMP Teen Exhibit

Purchase Color Catalogues

"Evening With the Arts"

"Chat'n Chocolate"

Community Outreach Projects

Annual WRAA-WRAP State Art Exhibition and Conference "State Day" Registration Form

Become a WRAA Member

"Go Figure!" Art Competition

The Mary Lou Lindroth Publication Fund

Description of Awards for the Annual State WRAP Exhibit in Madison

WRAA board of directors and director's manual

Interesting Links

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Wisconsin Regional Art Exhibit/Workshops are held throughout Wisconsin.  You do not need to be a WRAA member to participate, but we encourage you to join.  Many of the awards for the annual exhibit in Madison each year are designated for WRAA members only. To view all the benefits of becoming a WRAA member, please click on the "Become a WRAA Member" link on the left.

 

Please click here for a listing of upcoming WRAP exhibits/workshops throughout the state of Wisconsin

You will be directed to the UW-Madison's Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts website where there is detailed information about the WRAP Program, including WRAP entry forms.

Please click here for a printable WRAP Registration Form

Please click here for a printable press release announcing your State Award for your local newspapers

 

Original or Copy?                                                  Click here to download this article

Over the last few years, occasional incidents have occurred in which WRAP artists mistakenly believed that in converting a commercial artwork or published image—be it a magazine photo or copyrighted painting or drawing—into a different color scheme or a new medium (such as converting a photo to a pen and ink drawing), they were creating a new and original piece.

It’s easy to see how this happens. In many introductory art classes, students are encouraged to find an image they like—often a magazine photo, a postcard, or a page from a seed catalog,  calendar, or art publication—and use it as their model. Sometimes the instructor provides a xeroxed image from a similar source for the class to use.  Unfortunately, there is seldom a follow-up discussion pointing out that the student’s completed artwork is not truly original in composition and would be a violation of copyright if offered for sale or exhibit.  As a result, many new artists—who are delighted with their new-found skill in accurately rendering a published photo or copying a Monet—never really think about or comprehend plagiarism as it applies to art. Though you may love your finished piece and hang it on the wall, you should not exhibit it or sell it as an original.

We remind you of this for two reasons. First, artists who copy a commercial or published artwork and submit it to a WRAP competition gain an unfair advantage over other WRAP exhibitors: the skilled professional photographer or commercial artist whose work they have copied has done a lot of the hard work for them— choosing the topic, designing the composition, and selecting form, color and perspective. Second, WRAA and WRAP are put in a potentially awkward legal situation if we inadvertently reprint copies of professional copyrighted works in Contour Notes or other publications without appropriate permission.

This situation has prompted the WRAA Board to reword the description of “original” in our printed materials and WRAP application forms.  The new description also will state that giclee prints or other reproductions of the exhibitor’s own work will not be accepted as substitutes for the original in any WRAP show.  Also, we are asking cover art competitors to state from what sources they drew their art. We will include a piece in future Contour Notes on the subject of “original” work.

Just as you have always done in the past, you will be asked to sign a statement that your work is original when you submit a WRAP entry form.  The revised statement, however, will be more explicit and will read in part as follows:

“If your artwork is a copy of a commercial photograph or of a work that is not your own (such as from a magazine photo or illustration, postcard, calendar or seed catalog), you must have permission from the photographer or original artist. Please include a copy of that permission with your artwork.”

Remember, our concerns are with copies of commercial, professional, copyrighted photos and artwork - not snapshots of your brother’s trip to Yosemite, or your daughter’s pencil sketch. But WRAP and the WRAA board are taking this issue very seriously and we expect our members to do the same.

 

© 2009 Wisconsin Regional Artists Association