A couple days ago I received an email from a fan who wanted to let me know a seller on Ebay was selling pillows with my artwork on it. It’s not the first time, and probably not the last, as many artists have had to deal with this for years. I contacted the seller, filled out Ebay’s VERO form, and then set out to contact all the other artists I could find, by Google image searching artwork on the pillows. I found about 12, mostly on Etsy, contacted them and passed on the info. I thought that was going to be it for the day!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. A friend had recommended a website called ImageRights. They offer up to 1000 free uploads of images, which they will search the internet for. The results are bundled into folders like, “blogs, possibly resellers, outside our protection,” etc. That’s when I found my Frida and Friends painting. It was clearly my painting, but someone had vomited flowers all over it. So I turned to Google image search and went looking for the creator of the image. A girl in Peru, with tons of stolen artwork, she was passing off as her own. My piece, was apparently her signature piece.

I was literally stunned. I found her Facebook pages, her personal Facebook page, and I shared them on my personal Facebook page. My friends and Mom went at her, commenting on all the pictures with my painting, pointing out it wasn’t her work. I went to work contacting other artist who she had stolen work from.

After quite a few hours of reporting every image I could through Facebook to have them removed, she finally emailed me. She said it wasn’t her art (clearly) and that nothing had been sold (clearly…) and that I should keep quiet about it and she will remove all the images. That *I* should keep *quiet* about it. She has made her living off of directly stealing other people’s artwork, I wouldn’t care if she was inspired, we’re all inspired, but her “thing” is taking artwork, puking flowers all over it, slapping her name on it and saying it’s hers. That’s unacceptable. This is my livelihood, so I can’t stand idly by.

As of today, she has removed her 4art design Facebook page, as well as her Flavia Macedo(insertotherwords) page. She’s tried to remove all traces of her theft from the internet (I got screenshots =).) Surprisingly, she hasn’t removed all of the stolen artwork she’s taken from other artists. If you recognize any of the artwork, please contact the artists so they can get their art removed as well.