So, have you ever given much thought to the concept of how vast the word "original" can be when pertaining to artists work general. I must admit, being a fine art painter, who writes and has played a tune or two, I have. But this all popped into my head the other day and I had some real fun giving it some deeper thought.

So, I'll start off with an easy one. An artist paints a painting and it would be the original. Simple right? So, there's just that one original. Okay, so the artist would like to share that image with others and in doing so, prints reproductions, also known as prints. Still with me?

So to make a reproduction, you first need to photograph the painting. Now before the age of digital photography, you would shoot on film and guess what, to a photographer, that would be an original photo negative, for which reproductions or prints could be made. In just that one example, you have an original painting and an original negative, both reproducing their own prints. As the final prints are both reproductions of an original painting and an original negative, from an original photo taken and two artists are involved, a painter and a photographer. But wait, if the photographer used a digital camera, he/she still would have produced an original image of the artist's original painting and there would be an original electronic file. Certainly less complicated would be that the photographer could have photographed anything, a tree for example and that would still be an original and more so his property, but any prints he/she made would be what? Original prints or reproductions of his original file? Perplexing huh?

Well, let's move on to something more simple, like song writing. Okay, so there's little Taylor Swift sitting in her bedroom writing her next big hit. She's strumming her guitar, singing some things and jotting her words down on a piece of paper. She plays one cord after another and she writes them down too. So you have music and lyrics. Is her original the concept or what's on the piece of paper? And once she's sung the whole thing once, is that the original time or is it the original when she actually records it? There obviously will be an original recording and then all those CD copies will be reproductions right? So does that mean every time she sings the song in concert, she is singing an original or a reproduction of the first time or both? I guess we already know that the photographer who photographed the CD cover will be making reproductions.

On that note, when Eric Clapton wrote and sang his original song "Layla" with Derek and the Dominos in the 70's as a rock tune, did it become a new original when he turned it into a new bluesy "unplugged" hit a few decades later? Or was that just considered a different version, even though the two would be barely recognizable to each other to someone who wasn't around for the original original.

In any event, I'm pounding away at my keyboard right now, writing this original story and if you are reading it, you are not reading the original, you are reading a reproduction ... I think.

Tom Neel "original" paintings can be seen at Live An Artful Life in The Plains, VA. Prints too!

Or visit www.thomasneel.com