Sharing some love

I think these flowers are lovely. A Tumblr user that I follow posted them today, and I was struck by their summery loveliness. I wanted to know who had created them, so I clicked from Feedly to the actual blog...and found that to be the end of the trail. 

A while back, I read a blog post by another person that I follow (my husband laughs at me for following people I don't know personally...but it's fine, right?), and this situation reminded me of said post. Go read it because it offers an interesting take on "the other side" of a prevalent issue which most of us happily feign ignorance about. But synopsis: Stephanie is a creative and talented designer who found her own photo spread far and wide on Pinterest with no credit given to her, and that hurt (understandably!). 

So anyway, I remembered a little commitment I had made to myself when I read that: "I will do all in my power to not further acceptance of this system that we all silently agree to by no longer reposting without attribution." (Or something like that.) And so I Google Image searched these flowers! It was super easy to drag the image into Google, and then Google found the artist for me in about 3 seconds. 

And I am so so glad that I took those 3 seconds to find Yao Cheng Design. I spent 20 minutes perusing this girl's work, and it is beautiful! I suddenly wished that I had asked her to design our wedding announcements (although I'm not sure that watercolor florals are Joseph's cup of tea as much as they are mine). I also followed her on Instagram cuz I am so all over all things floral. If you, too, want to view some lovely things, go check her out.

I do not post this to brag about what a wonderful citizen I am. I have spent plenty of time reposting without attribution, and I have committed such crimes since declaring my little manifesto (oh the horror!), so I certainly am not a shining beacon of perfection. But the happy discovery I made tonight by looking just a little further into something I really enjoyed felt worth sharing. And I guess it's always good to raise awareness? I'm no artist--that's for sure--but if I were, I would sure appreciate people who insisted on sharing my art appropriately. 

I realize this problem is not world hunger status, but I do think it's at least courtesy and kindness status. Thus, here I am to advocate attribution: Just everyone cite your sources and we'll all be one happy family. Amen.