Metal Collage Workshop with Anna Davern

Last Sunday, as part of PGAV's Get Into Art! open day, recent Gallery 3 exhibitor Anna Davern held a 'Metal Collage Workshop' to an intimate group of like-minded ladies who were all keen to learn the tricks of the trade.

2 hours and thankfully not too many band-aids later, here's what the ladies came up with:

Tabletop covered with bits of colourful tin from Anna's collection and handy tools.

Anna's piece, with lorikeet head taken from the above tin.

Get Into Art! last Sunday

Last Sunday was PGAV's Get Into Art! open day. As one of the six participating galleries, CVHQ was open especially for the occasion. At noon, Gallery 3 exhibitor Anna Davern presented a floor talk to a crowd of avid listeners. What was even more exciting was that she brought along her giant black poodle, Humphrey, who is possibly the most lovely dog ever!

Anna also ran a metal collage workshop on Sunday. Just a happy crafternoon at CVHQ! Photographs will be up soon, so stay tuned!

Get Into Art! this Sunday

This Sunday 26 October, CVHQ will open its doors for the Get Into Art! open day organised by the Public Galleries Association of Victoria. We will be open from 11am to 4pm and Gallery 3 exhibitor Anna Davern will be giving a talk from 12pm. This talk is free and no bookings are required.

As part of the open day, CVHQ along with 5 other galleries in the CBD have joined forces to provide a cultural passport. Visit three of the participating venues, get your passport stamped and stand a chance to win a fabulous prize! You can come pick up a passport from CVHQ as well as the other galleries which are:

• City Museum at Old Treasury
• Ian Potter Museum of Art – University of Melbourne
• NGV International – 180 St Kilda Road
• The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia – Federation Square
• State Library of Victoria

Please note that we will only stamp your passport on Sunday. No requests for pre-emptive stamping please, and no bribing either! After all, we are Craft Victoria, not Crafty Victoria.

For full event details including information on events in regional galleries, please click here

Get into Art! open day is also your last opportunity to see the current exhibitions, so do try to pop in sometime soon and have a peek and see for yourself the wonderful work on display.

Introducing... Anna Davern

Anna Davern is the very lovely subject of this week's Introducing. Her current exhibition Buena Vista in Gallery 3 is on till October 25 and you can view more images of her work in this previous post, as well as the accompanying exhibition essay written by Erica Sanders which you can view here. Anna isn't just a tin tinkerer (heaven forbid the thought!), but a highly skilled artist who has mastered the art of metal collaging.

Without further ado, here is our conversation with the very talented Ms Davern. It's guaranteed to illuminate and inspire!

Absent I (small swan), 2006, tin placemat, chocolate tin

What is the significance of the exhibition title Buena Vista?
Buena Vista has a double meaning in relation to the exhibition. Of course, the literal translation 'Beautiful View' relates to the idea of landscape and this exhibition is an investigation into the Australian landscape and its role in defining an Australian cultural identity. And Buena Vista also makes reference to my exhibition of 2005 held at Craft Victoria titled Beaut. When I say the title of the exhibition I pronounce it Beuw-na (rhyming with tuna) Vista as this is what we called the local pub of the same name when I was growing up. The choice of font in the signage is the same as the font on the front of the old deco pub.

So many people have been asking how you are able to cut such precise lines into tin! How do you do it?
Practice! And very fine sawblades. I use a 7/0 sawblade which will only mean anything to other jewellers. I need to use a loupe (magnifying eyeglass) to see which direction the teeth go on the blade so I can put it the right way up in the sawframe!

How long does it take to complete each work? Do mistakes happen often?
The time taken varies with each work, particularly as I might take the tin down the journey of a particular narrative but then change my mind and change the direction of the story. But as an example, to cut out just the lid of Spook (pictured below), which has the Arab on the horse and the koala hiding in the tree, took me 2 days of solid saw piercing. Mistakes do happen and they can be very frustrating as when you are working with found objects, you only get one chance to cut out the right thing.

What is the most fun/frustrating part of the process?

The most fun is when I'm trying to work out what story I want a particular tin to tell and I come across an image in another tin which will tell that story clearly and succinctly. The most frustrating part is the neck and shoulder pain.

What is the significance behind the recurrent motif of the cut out duo (pictured above in Absent I)?
In the catalogue essay to Beaut, Robyn Phelan wrote of the kangaroo brooches made from found biscuit tins: "Muster is not all-inclusive. It reflects a colonial view from the shade of the veranda, compulsory cup of tea at hand. Indigenous representation is not available in the narratives promoted by the manufacturers of these tins nor those collected by the craftsperson."

However, I did have an old cork-backed tin placemat with the image of the two indigenous figures sitting on the rock. But I felt that it was an important image that I could not deal with in the light-hearted manner of the kangaroo muster. I was concerned about the display of images of indigenous figures who may be deceased and how this can be offensive to the indigenous population. And I also questioned my entitlement to address 'the indigenous issue'. By removing the figures I was able to address both of these issues. In one or two of the works the figures that have been cut out have been turned around and attached face-down on to another tin.

Do you have any anecdotes regarding Buena Vista?
I went through a packet of bandaids in the last 3 months and for the last six weeks I was going through a gross (144) of sawblades a week! I also like that the negative shape in the tin left over after cutting out the picket fences resembles a Persian decorative pattern. Puberty Blues is one of my all time favourite movies and the title of the work with the surfers is a quote from the movie when Debbie goes to get a Chiko roll for her rat boyfriend, Bruce, and is told "And don't take a bite of it orright!" Incidentally, Puberty Blues is set in Cronulla which is also where the race riots occurred in 2005.

Last, but definitely not least, who would your dream collaboration involve?
The Brothers Quay.

Spook, 2008, toffee tins, tea tin

Buena Vista

Anna Davern's practice intervenes into the iconography of the kitsch souvenir to question cultural identity. In Buena Vista Davern exploits the political import of the silhouette, cutting away from the quaint landscapes of vintage biscuit tins, the ghostly outlines of human figures. The parts removed find new form as objects of adornment, whilst the hollow spaces left behind trace a troubling relationship to national identity.

Here are some images from Anna's beautiful show. There are 18 works in total, so this is a just a teaser. The works are truly stunning, so do try to make it down and see them for yourselves. There is even a work featuring a little terrier (pictured below) on a movable pendulum, look at him fly!

Securing the Harvest (detail), 2008, biscuit tins, tea tins

Coo-Eeee, 2008, biscuit tins, tea tin

Tally Ho, 2008, tin tray, biscuit tins

King of the Glen, 2008, lolly tin, tea tin, printed aluminium

Absent V (beefeater), 2008, biscuit tins

Fantastic Mr Fox, 2008, biscuit tins

Fantastic Mr Fox (detail)

Which one is your favourite?

Coming up soon we have an Introducing... feature on the lovely Ms Davern. Stay tuned!

Anna Davern

Today CLOG presents to you an insight on Anna Davern's beautifully crafted tin works. We had to field numerous enquiries as to how Anna managed to carve out her figures, and the answer is that Anna does it all lovingly and skillfully by hand. No lasers here, Anna's the real deal!

Sourcing materials from op shops, garage sales and eBay, Anna makes an effort not to source collectable tins so that no collectors are bereft of their precious goods. The most Anna has paid for a tin was one that she recently bought on eBay for $24, but unfortunately it is not part of the exhibition as it was a recent purchase.

One of Anna's favourite piece from the current exhibition is And Don't Take a Bite Of It Orrigh (pictured below) which was inspired by Puberty Blues, the seminal 1970s book/film about teenage rites of passage and Sydney surf culture. You know the one I'm talking about, it featured memorable lines like "Where's my chiko roll!" and "Don't eat my pie!" Aahh, those were the days...

Check out the great detailing - hot dogs! Isn't it amazing!

Anna Davern, Buena Vista

Buena Vista is the culmination of Anna Davern’s work and ideas over the past four years. Leading this process have been questions of national identity and place. The land; its owners, rulers, development, inhabitants, flora and fauna and our responses and assumptions about these are central to Davern’s concerns. With Buena Vista landscape and sentiment are the vehicles for Davern’s exploration and expression.

In 2005 Davern had the exhibition Beaut here at Craft Victoria. The installation Muster, presenting seventy-five kangaroo brooches bounding across the wall, heralded a shift in Davern’s work. It introduced both a new medium, with the use of old biscuit and tea tins, as well as a distinct expression of Davern’s interest in Australianness and national identity.

In 2007 Davern undertook a four-month residency at the Estonian Academy for the Arts in Tallinn. Here she continued her exploration of national identity via the kitsch souvenir, deconstructing and reconstructing the Russian matryoshka doll.

Buena Vista presents an enjoyable and though provoking challenge to notions of Australian identity, belonging and beauty, predominantly through the use of landscape. The works are a series of cut outs and additions, displacements and replacements, mix ups and surprises: an Australian flag as the cape on a superhero ram and a fleeing fox, the Queen and Prince Phillip as kangaroos with their large eared offspring and the silhouette of removed indigenous Australians.

Although the scale is larger than Davern’s previous work, there is still the invitation to take a closer look and make discoveries. Davern’s work continues to evolve and here she makes some strong and unsettling comments about national identity while maintaining her great whimsy and humour.

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To read more about Anna's recent trip to Estonia, do visit Anna's blog, or you can click here to go straight to the Estonia posts.