Back to the Aida Cloth

April 11, 2016

By Lada Dedic

After a break from stitching while I made new work for exhibition, it is nice to be back working on this piece. Having a small break makes it all seem manageable again. So far I've stitched for over 106 hours.

I have also been sketching toward some paintings I'd like to work on, unfortunately my current studio space isn't suitable for painting. I'll keep planning and hopefully something will come of it. It's been a long while since I picked up a brush.

Self Portrait Artist's Brain, Lada Dedic (Work in Progress)

Am I Too Dumb to Refine?

April 1, 2016

By Lada Dedic
post title from New Slang by The Shins

“The professional always makes the right moves, knows the right thing to say, the right name to check. Controlled and measured, the professional never fucks the wrong person or drinks too much at the party. They never weep at the opening, never lay in bed for days too depressed, sick, broken to move. They say about the professional, “so easy to work with” or “so exacting but brilliant.” The professional takes advantage from every encounter, employs every new acquaintance as a contact, always hits the deadline. When asked about their work, they know what to say, a few lines of explanation sprinkled with enough filigreed intrigue to allude to abysses of research, the mysteries of making. They answer emails in minutes. Their PowerPoints are super crisp. Look at their website, so clean, so modern, so very pro.”

— http://momus.ca/how-to-be-an-unprofessional-artist/

I have so much to say on this matter and I don't really know where to start so I'm going to ramble.

I fixed my website which looked like it was straight out of 1998 and I hate it already, sooooo 2015. I don't think I'll ever work out small talk and 'networking'. I find art events challenging, particularly the fractured conversations, I feel as though I'm either interrupting or being interrupted.

A big-shot art dealer once felt me up while we had our photo taken, or more to the point, I was assaulted in an extremely intimate assertion of power and control while I stood there and smiled for the camera. Needless to say I didn't sign with that gallery and ever since then I have difficulty talking to art dealers/curators and pretty much anyone who can help with my "career". It’s not that I think other art dealers are going to ‘cop a feel’, just that ever since then, I think that I unconsciously believe that my work is shite because that one dealer had ulterior motives. I was young and impressionable and straight out of art school and the feeling stuck.

The following sentence makes me angry: "Theory and discussion will explore perspectives on materialisation embedded in the logic and phenomenology of digital and analogue substance" (COFA). I hate 'artspeak'. My work is still "arrrty crrrafty". I always cry after openings (I have an opening tonight). So far this year I have earned $500 which I then spent on materials. If it wasn't for my partner, I'd be destitute. (I deleted all the swear-words).

I love what I do. Truly. In the past, I tried to stop making work, I've never been able to give up. My plan now is to just keep plodding along and if one day I'm a 'successful' artist that'll be a welcome surprise and if not, that's OK too.

Also, I should add that I admire the artists I know who are able to shape-shift to fit into the expected 'professional artist' box. I know that many find it challenging.

Showcasing my 'Professional Artist' persona at the Parramatta Artists Studios 2008. Snuggling with artwork by (the brilliant) Linda Brescia, draped with lights and a glass of cask. — Showcasing my 'Professional Artist' persona at the Parramatta Artists Studios 2008. Snuggling with artwork by (the brilliant) Linda Brescia, draped with lights and a glass of cask.

Wait, Weep & Be Worthy - a photo essay

March 23, 2016

By Lada Dedic

Researching the new work for the upcoming exhibition at the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery (see here) my first port of call was The Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, even though they don't have an archival collection that was suitable for my research, Brad Manera the Senior Historian and Curator pointed me in the right direction and suggested resources which proved invaluable. He emailed me this anecdote:

"When I was working in the north in my youth my grandmother used to make cakes and post them to me the way she had done with her husband, my grandfather, during the war. She would fit them into a tin and stitch the tin shut with calico writing my name and address in indelible (purple) pencil on the outside.

This came up in conversation last week when I met with a 98-year-old widow of a decorated Australian naval veteran. It was something she hadn't thought about for 75 years and was delighted at the recollection. It inspired several hours of very pleasant reminiscences."

The team at the State Library of NSW were also fantastic with numerous Librarians phoning and investigating which of their collections would be of most use. I also received assistance from the research centre of the Australian War Memorial who sent links to their digitised collection saving me a trip to Canberra.

First rough sketch for the installation.

The piece will explore the role of women sending letters and care packages to loved ones serving overseas.

Preliminary research for the new work. Looking forward to is getting my grubby (but gloved) fingers on three crates of papers, pictorial materials and relics from the 'Special & Restricted Collections' of the State Library of NSW.

Having spent many hours in grand and hidden reading rooms of the State Library of Victoria, this was my first foray in the Mitchell Library Reading Room, Special Collections area of the State Library of NSW.

I felt as though I were discovering long lost treasure, see below for a list of some of items I came across in my research.

Mitchell Library Reading Room, Special Collections Area, State Library of NSW

Cordoned off with a glass wall, the special collections area was not the dark, lamp lit, back-rooms I remembered from Victoria. It is however much more practical, well lit with power points for laptops and large wide desks for spreading out my treasures. The Librarians were so very helpful, dragging out the crates I had ordered from offsite. "Oooh, that's a heavy one, be careful lifting that"

Letters from Frederick Stobo Phillips, 31 January 1915-26 October 1916, Collection: Series 01 Part 01: Irene Victoria Read WWI papers, 1914-1918 — Letters from Frederick Stobo Phillips, 31 January 1915-26 October 1916, Collection: Series 01 Part 01: Irene Victoria Read WWI papers, 1914-1918

At first I found each authors handwriting arduous, being a child of the digital age, cursive script is not something I come across often (even in my work with the 'pen pals' at the Liberation Prison Project). There was no email trail in 1915.

As I settled in to a pile of letters, I'd slowly get to know the script and the author. You can learn a lot about somebody by their personal letters, particularly considering that they wouldn't have imagined them being read 100 years later by an artist in a Library reading room. Each writer has a style and a language, a sense of humour and in wartime oh so much heartache. Much of the story is told between the lines.

I'd often find myself reading years of letters in the space of a few hours. Sometimes these letters would STOP abruptly. I'd then find myself scrambling through records only to find the dreaded 'Missing in Action' telegram or list of casualties. Heart. Broken.

Some of the treasures I discovered:

A passport from 1916 with space for a photograph of the 'Passport Holder' and another for the 'Passport Holder's Wife'.
Green Envelopes, known colloquially as 'greenies'. A privilege given to soldiers once a month allowing them a letter home which was not subject to censorship. The following is printed on the envelope:
NOTE:
Correspondence in this envelope need not be censored Regimentally. The contents are liable to examination at the Base.
The following Certificate must be signed by the writer:
I certify on my honour that the contents of this envelope refer to nothing but private and family matters.
Signature (Name only)
Xmas, I don't know why I thought it was a modern abbreviation, I only saw the formal term 'Christmas' a handful of times during my research. On further investigation the term Xmas has been in use since the 16th century.
Carbon copies. As letters would regularly get lost in the post during wartime, some service personnel would send multiple copies of the same letter home. Envelopes were often scarce so it would have been quite an investment to do so.
Lists from the Australian Comforts Fund, which was formed at a grass roots level by women to provide 'comforts' and little luxuries to Australians serving abroad. Lists of items included: tobacco, cakes, puddings, condensed milk, sugar, biscuits, newspapers, socks, pyjamas (for the injured), games, pianos (for hospitals) and other 'luxury' items to supplement the Australian soldier's army rations.
Although numerous collections are available from nurses serving abroad there is a distinct lack of the female voice from the home front, therefore only half of the story is often told. Understandably, letters from home would have been challenging for the soldiers to keep (although some do mention that they kept all letters).

A Slow Art Blog

March 19, 2016

By Lada Dedic

I am a slow art practitioner. Each of my pieces requires extensive time to complete and therefore collections can be years in the making. I was thinking that It may be helpful to my practice to have a place to document the process and progress of each piece, as well as any side projects I may have going. So this blog is born.

I don't plan to spend hours nutting out explanations of what I am doing and why, I am not a writer. I hope this can be a place for a few scrawlings and images of my works in progress. Time will tell.

After years of silent work, why a blog, why now? With the opening of The Blake Prize slowly fading into memory, the resounding feeling I have is that I am humbled that my work was chosen to hang alongside those of such talented and varied artists. It seems a fitting time to come out of my shell. Just a little.

I have dealt with some significant illness over the last few years, so having my piece in an exhibition of spiritual work feels like a turning point. I have come to realise that I just want to make work, so that is what I'm going to do.