Sometimes it isn’t easy to be a working artist. Visual artists are often expected to work for free because people assume that their hard work is “fun”. In our new digital age, artists also need to guard against theft, as the fruits of their labors, a.k.a. images of their artwork, are frequently stolen online.
Local Las Vegas artist Robin Slonina found this out the hard way when she woke up one morning with her inbox full of messages from friends sending screenshots of one of her images printed on t-shirts for sale all over the Internet.
The image in question is an iconic one, and it holds a unique position in this magazine’s history. It depicted a pair of shirtless men embracing, one body-painted with the American flag, and the other body-painted with the Rainbow Gay Pride flag.
Slonina and the crew of her company, Skin City Body Painting, created the image in 2012 on models Benoit Beaufils and Shawn Stone, for the cover of QVegas magazine. It was then photographed by Jennifer Burkart of Square Shooting Photography, and graced the cover of the October 2012 “Coming Out” issue of QVegas. In January of 2017, QVegas underwent a metamorphosis, expanding to a national market and changing its name to QLife, with three new digital editions dedicated to Las Vegas, New York, and Los Angeles. According to the Publisher Russ White, the flag cover was the most popular in the magazine’s history. He says, “This cover means a lot to me because it was my first cover after I took over as Publisher of QVegas.”
The photographer, Burkart says, “I love the creativity that flows out of Skin City, so when Robin approached me about this fun body paint project I was happy to work with her and her team. I think the images we captured for this project are timeless, and they have become beautiful reminders to love more, in a time when it has become so easy to hate. Love is love, and I like how clear the message comes through in these images.”
Once the QVegas cover image was online, the LGBTQ community picked it up, with people using it as their social media profile pictures, as well as on posters and flyers for various charity events. During the summer of 2016, after the tragic shooting at the Orlando nightclub Pulse, the image was embraced on a national scale as a symbol of the nation’s attempt to heal. The image was printed on posters, flyers and protest signs to raise awareness and money for victims of the tragedy. Most of the times that the image was used, people reached out to ask permission, which Slonina always freely gave for these worthy causes. However, the attention also caused some opportunistic websites to grab it and start printing it without Slonina’s permission.
Less than a year later, in March of 2017, Slonina explains, “I woke up to find my image being sold on t-shirts without my knowledge or permission. It took me a while to get in contact with the first culprit, who ran a Facebook page that claimed to ‘support the LGBT community’, but as far as I could tell, it was really just a bunch of products for sale. I finally got through to the owner of the site, and asked exactly how they support the gay community - I mean, are they associated with a charity or what? His very glib answer was that he supports Pride because, ‘People buy my products, and then they feel pride!’”
The other problem Slonina faced is that the shirts were selling well! The success of that first seller encouraged copycats, and within one day there were three more sites selling them, many of which were located outside of the United States. To make the task more challenging, many sites did not have contact info listed on their websites. Slonina explains, “When you submit any image to an online printing service, there is always a box you need to check, confirming that you are the creator and copyright owner of the image to be printed. So these people knew exactly what they were doing, and they all lied to the printers fulfilling these orders.” To their credit, as soon as the printing companies knew there was a copyright infringement, they pulled the image and pledged not to fulfill the hundreds of orders that had already come in. Slonina goes on, “It was just really frustrating, because I am a busy woman, and it became my full-time job for several days to stop the theft of my artwork.”
Friends on Facebook who were following the drama brought up a good point to Slonina: if these shirts were selling so well illegally - why not try to sell them legally herself? She took the advice and designed her own versions of the image, branded them LoveIsLoveArt. In May of 2017, with the help of QLife Publisher Russ White, Slonina launched them for sale on the QLife site, as well as on the printing site Red Bubble. Red Bubble prints on a variety of products, fulfilling orders as they come in, which saves the artist the overhead of pre-printing products to sell. You can find links to both of these sites on the Shop page of Slonina’s website: http://robinslonina.com/shop/
Slonina also contracted a local Vegas printer, Game Over Merch, to print a limited run of tees to sell at local galleries and at the various conventions Slonina attends, like RuPaul’s DragCon in Los Angeles and New York. The shirts are currently available in the Las Vegas Arts District at Jana’s Red Room inside the Arts Factory.
But Slonina did not want to simply print the iconic image for herself. She reached out to Arlene Cooper, Director of Development at the Gay & Lesbian Center of Southern Nevada, and offered to donate 50% of the profits from the sale of LoveIsLoveArt to their various LGBTQ charities. Slonina has been a longtime supporter of The Center, which provides a variety of services to the LGBTQ and transgender community, such as free medical screenings, support groups, continuing education, computer labs and access to the only queer library in the state, with special programs focusing on youth at risk. When Slonina contacted her, Arlene Copper jumped on board stating, “As soon as I saw the shirts I had to buy one for myself. I love it! Plus Robin is very dedicated to raising awareness and money for our cause here at The Center.” Andre Wade, the Executive Director of The Gay & Lesbian Center, adds, “I love the t-shirt. The two flags hugging each other says so much. Basically, the t-shirt represents the work we are trying to accomplish here at The Center: Equality, Acceptance, and Inclusion for all!”
Slonina explains, “It has really come full circle. Now the image I created to represent unity and love will actually benefit the LGBTQ community that it was made to support.”
You can follow @LoveIsLoveArt on Twitter and Instagram, and purchase their products online at http://robinslonina.com/shop
