I’m fairly certain there’s someone who works for this Casaba kitchen towel company that just flips through my art for their “inspiration.” Casaba is apparently a product of Deborah Connolly Designs, with a “team” of designers, product developers and “world renowned manufacturers.” They sell to places like Pier1 (gasp) <insert big store name> (gasps again) and other such stores. Every time around this year I start getting messages from fans and customers about how they’re seeing my art in stores such as the above mentioned places, as well as others. This year is no exception. So I started looking through Casaba towels via google search and I’m definitely seeing a pattern. Now, this is different from past times when they’d literally just slap my actual art on to a pillow, or piece it together with multiple pieces of my artwork. It isn’t just Casaba, it’s Nicole Miller Home with Persian cats on towels that look rather familiar, and a yet unknown designer just last night was spotted in a Meijer store in Texas.
So how do I combat this? Is there anything I can do about this sort of theft? I mean, it’s super obvious they’re getting ideas from my art, but how much change is enough of a change to allow this to be legal? Any insight is greatly appreciated.
I’ve gathered a bunch of images of their items and put them together with my paintings to get a better look at the similarities. I’m absolutely eternally grateful to my fans and customers who spot these items and message me immediately. If it wasn’t for them, I’d never know about any of this.
Edit to add larger image of the stolen autumn coffee cat:
So you can see, there’s definitely a LOT of inspiration going on from my work here, but when does it go from this cute word “inspiration” to out right theft. So what can I do about this sort of thing, if anything?? Below is just a sampling of the messages I get from fans telling me about all these sorts of things. From my art being painted on some electrical box somewhere in Russia, to my art on a sweater in a boutique in Italy. Like…what? As one of my friends said, “You’re like this famous artist that no one actually knows!” And that is how I feel at times. It’s especially frustrating to think about.
