I guess derivative work must really be on my mind these days. I treated myself to a bookstore crawl last week, and in one of them I made the strangest find.
In a book on contemporary designs for chain mail, I found a picture of one of my very first designs…except the chain had amethyst in it, and I definitely was not the person behind it.
It was a bit disorienting.
I first created the box chain with beads embedded in February 2002. It was my second attempt to modify a chain pattern I had just learned. In mid-2004, I wrote out an instruction sheet, intending to use it with students in a hosted jewelry class that never materialized. In late 2005, I even put it online.
The picture was dated 2004.
It just amazes me that someone else came up with the same idea, although it really shouldn’t. The modification is a pretty simple one, a natural extension of the original box chain.
But it’s left me feeling unoriginal again…
