This feels worse than plagiarism or identity theft.

Post Reply New Topic

My name is Fatal Noogie. I sign my art Fatal Noogie.
If you google "Fatal Noogie" you find my art. That's intentional.

For my portfolio presentation class, I've been using my legally-given name on all the documentation
but I still use Fatal Noogie to sign all my art work out of habit.
My instructor saw an instance of this and told me to take it out.
I thought he meant on the image pages so I didn't mind.
Later, while looking over my shoulder, he sees that my Artist Statement page says

Your name is your legal given name and the name you are registered with the school. I am positive the school and professors have every right to require you have your legal name only on the assignments and not some alias you created.

My legal name is included on the assignment at every place it's required. That's not the part that irritates me.
What irritates me is that I have to expunge every mention of my alias to meet his expectations.

And to give just a little snipped of historical context,
Masaccio, Guercino, Hieronymus Bosch, Pontormo, El Greco, and Caravaggio are
all pseudonyms completely unrelated to their given names.
And those are just the most famous ones.
It's not a contemporary "youth-culture" trend I'm trying to exploit.
It's a centuries-old tradition.
(Albeit mine is peculiarly descriptive.)

Besides, Disney spends millions in lawsuits against
the little guy at every opportunity just to protect its name.
I find it hypocritical for others who passively accept and even advocate that behavior,
to then say I can't lift a finger to protect my own name without getting penalized for it.

The counselor herself was actually rational.
She gave me a direct answer: a strict interpretation
of my options considering the rules,
so I don't blame her.

If I can keep my pride hidden for two weeks,
I'll get my grade and get my degree.
Then then be in the clear,
free to promote my work however I see fit.

That's the 'sensible' choice to make.
It's just hard for me to make it because subjectively,
it feels like I'm 'selling-out' before I even step on stage.

I use my legal name at my job. I don't have a choice. If I don't I'll be fired and, with the loss of money for the rent, become homeless.

I have an art degree, and this seems weird to me.
Your signature is your signature. It seems you should be able to sign your art however you want. Someone in my class had a name that was already "popular" and used by someone else so the professor even mentioned changed her name or using an alias maybe. Art is about creativity... Making up a name for yourself is creative.

I've had some really bad professors in the past as well. Well, one was really rude and I dropped his class. The others were pretty good overall but then occasionally did something that really irked me. :\ But, I say, deal with what you can deal with. You won't need to deal with it for too awful long. When you're done with your classes, you can do as you please for the rest of your life with that.

You should ask him what his qualms with Fatal Noogie are. Present a well reasoned cogent argument in defense of your choice to use the name. Beyond that, if he really is a jerk stick it to him and don't cross out the names. People would say that doing so would be unwise but you know it still pisses him off even if he can fail you. It takes a certain ratio of sucking it up and sticking it too the man to succeed in life. I am 95% of the latter so things usually don't workout too well for me, and things won't workout well for you if you stick it too him and fail but at least for me when someone contradicts one of my convictions I feel an insatiable desire to defend my point of view.

You would be happiest if you could be like my friend who would laugh him off as just another moron, do what he wants and not care because he doesn't let other people take control of his happiness and peace of mind.

your art is pretty good

The conflict is essentially mitigated.
We struck a compromise.

Today I told my instructor how I consider "Fatal Noogie" to be my name,
and why I may want to include it somewhere in the portfolios I give to certain reviewers.
Like, for example, if I wanted to join a Muralist association (I have legal mural experience)
where aliases are commonly used,
or if I try to become a member of a watercolor society, which might
want to inspect my paintings after I send them the prints, and then
they'll ask why I neglected to mention my signature in the first place.
Or if I apply to be a featured artist at temporary gallery shows,
and the curator may find my alias more catchy for publicity purposes.
That's actually happened before: I got featured at a hip-hop show as "Fatal Noogie".

So he said that while he doesn't think the name helps,
he'll allow me to mention and explain it in my Artist Statement
if it doesn't break the continuity of the writing. And I agreed that
I would still label the heading for every page with my legal name.

It's his first time teaching this class, so he's realizing he has to compromise
on his rigid expectations for what's gradable, or nobody will get credit for anything.
Now, if for ex. we have problems scaling between rendering applications and
one print gets 1/16 inch off, he tells us we did it wrong,
but he no longer says it's un-gradable.

I work at a university it department and I see dumb s**t like this all the time.

Professors get power and it goes to their head.

I had to deal with a woman, a senior, who got married before her senior year. She legally changed her name, but she had so many things linked to her email account, she decided to just keep her username and email which was her maiden name.

She had a professor who refused to accept any assignments from her because her university email did not match her name on the roster.