A walk along a cemetery path, passing other memorials and plaques, can be an important moment of meditation for grieving loved ones. But some have had an unpleasant surprise when they discover that the carefully chosen design and inscription on the headstone they came to visit has been copied elsewhere.
“When a design is copied, it is not only your design, but also your time and creativity that is being stolen,” said Teucer Wilson, a master stone carver. “You can of course try to see it as a compliment to your work, in some way, but it can be very upsetting to the family you originally worked with.”
Viewing a headstone as a copyrighted work of art is often difficult for those making an important and emotional decision about how to commemorate a life. But for artisans who make a living designing and carving stones to order, it’s a growing concern.
Wilson has experienced a series of recent incidents that appear to have breached his copyright. “I made a memorial in Ireland which was very personal as the design, an intertwined swirly knot, was based on a ring the daughter had received from her deceased mother. The headstone I made looked a bit like a giant rock sitting on the ground. It was laid in a cemetery in Kilkenny and, just two months later, a blatant copy appeared nearby in the cemetery. The girl sent me the photo,” he said.
Although Wilson accepts that potential customers will occasionally take one of his drafts to have a stone made elsewhere later, he believes he is seeing an increase in direct commercial copying.
Now, the Lettering Arts Trust (LAT), based in Ipswich, is helping letter carvers and stone sculptors by raising awareness of this form of unintentional forgery, or even direct plagiarism.
“The main thing we’re trying to do is raise awareness about the creative side,” said LAT’s Mark Noad. “It’s clearly a delicate time; deciding how to sum up someone’s life in a few words and pictures. It can take between nine months and a year to complete a stone. This makes it difficult to discover later, as Teucer did, that your work was reproduced mechanically. This is often an obvious creative abuse that dilutes the particular nature of what was originally commissioned.”
Noad likens the experience of working with a custom lettering expert to the difference between shopping at a farmers’ market or a large supermarket. “If you go to a monumental mason, it will be a totally different, out-of-the-box experience,” he said.
The LAT, he explains, hopes to protect and encourage the skills of letter carvers and monumental engravers, because this profession is threatened by technology. Digital copies of designs can now spread quickly around the world.
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“I made a drawing of the tree of life on a tombstone which was copied in India and China, then published online in New Zealand, with an exact copy of the leaves I drew,” said Wilson. “It’s boring and I can get upset about it. But there’s only so much you can do, even if it’s my idea. I had spent days drawing, in homage to this man’s late wife. The New Zealand company removed it from the website, but it has since reappeared elsewhere.
The LAT wants dioceses and religious councils in charge of Britain’s churchyards, cemeteries and memorial areas to stem the tide of mass-produced and machine-carved products. The trust provides a link between clients and qualified sculptors. It supports six workshops across Britain, favoring stone quarried in the British Isles rather than imported black marble, and also takes on apprentices when funds permit.
British commemorative traditions are heavily influenced by convention. The rules followed by British cemeteries vary and are subject to interpretation. Sometimes there is a ban on a specific form and sometimes on new vocabulary. For Wilson, it’s usually about finding a stone color and carving style that will add something to the environment. All artists’ imaginations, he acknowledges, are fueled by what has gone before: “Of course I am also influenced, but for me the most important thing is to keep my creations fresh.” »
theguardian