Strange Affection

I have a great deal of affection for clip art. As campy or boring as a majority of the images are (the actual photographs they put in clip art can be great for a presentation but using too many of them is a bit of a soul sucker). I keepusing clip art to create promotional stuff for work...

Why? Because infringing on copyright makes my stomach go all sour.

Does this mean clip art is really within the public domain of free usage? I have no clue.

(I should probably clarify this...but that would require I stumble through the legalese of Microsoft, so do it yourself.)

Anyways, the reason I am still a fan of clip art probably has more to do with the functions in Microsoft Office Suite. I can recolor, I can make background color transparent, fading, color saturation....the old stand-by's of flip and rotate.

Basically I can take two black and white abstract designs and create this background:

The background pattern is entirely made by yours truly (can you hear the modesty or is that my imagination...oh, my imagination, got it). I did it for a book mark where I wanted an gingham-ish pattern in a rosy-brown.

I know this has no mail, no art and no philosophy but it is part of why I am enjoying my mailart projects so much. Sure someone else may have created the basic block you are using to create but you can still end up with something interesting and totally your own.