Friday, March 8, 2019

The Open Access CHALLENGE on Off the Wall Friday

The Digital Wall At CMA where you can look at images right there
Have you ever heard of the Open Access Movement?  Yeah, me either.  Well at least that was true till my last visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  In its simplest definition the Open Access means that academic research (but for my purposes art work) is distributed to the public free of charge and copy right licensing.  With a little bit of research you will find that this movement has its cheerleaders and naysayers (as you can imagine - but really in today's climate what doesn't?)

The Red Kerchief, Claude Monet (CMA)
And why is this important?  Because museums are giving the public free access to their extensive digital collections to use as they may.  The Cleveland Museum of Art  announced last January that  the public now has the ability to  share, collaborate, remix, and reuse images of many as 30,000 public- domain artworks from the CMA’s world-renowned collection of art for commercial and non-commercial purposes. In addition, portions of collections information for more than 61,000 artworks, both in the public domain and those works with copyright or other restrictions, works are now available. 

And CMA is not the only one!!  The National Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago all have open their images free to the public. 

So I have a challenge!  I challenge YOU to browse through the museums' collections  - pick some picture that inspires you and let it jump start you onto a new path in your creative journey.  Now this doesn't have to be anything formal. It can be sketches, digital or ..... gasp.....actual fabric!!!  But let your imagination run wild and take the plunge into these collections.

I will be sharing mine over the next few weeks and I would love it if you would too.  Anybody who does please link back to this original post so that maybe it will inspire someone else to take the plunge into Open Access!

So What Have You Been Up to Creatively?

6 comments:

For the love of geese said...

I have been using copyright free images for years and I love the museum collections, Thank you for the linky party. Denise-For the love of geese

quiltedfabricart said...

In the words of my senator - this is HUGE! I’m always looking for opyright free images to play with and be inspired by. I didn’t know about this resource so thank you so much. I would love to play along.

Marianne said...

Je ne sais pas si en Europe, il y a le même mouvement.Je vais voir. Et si! peut être que je vais essayer le challenge:)))

Gwyned Trefethen said...

Thanks for sharing your discovery with us. Fabulous challenge idea.

Nina Marie said...

I am answering here since it seems that I don't get emailed comments anymore due to changes of blogspot :(. Please let me know if you blog about your challenge and I will post a link to them on my post. Marianne - you can certainly use any of the United States Museums if you want. If anybody has questions or comments please email me privately at ninamariesayre at gmail. I think this will be fun!

Tami Von Zalez said...

Ah, I missed this linkup, hope you do another one. That you for the art info!