Jigsaw receives beautiful art donations
Jigsaw Queensland has two new print artworks to welcome
clients and visitors following the recent donation of prints by artist
and adoptee, Patricia Zuber.
Patricia, an experienced printmaking tutor and community
artist, who explored her own experience of being adopted
through printmaking, donated the artworks in conjunction with
facilitating two printmaking workshops for Jigsaw in June.
The ‘Threads That Connect Us’ workshops were for adopted
people wanting to reflect and express some aspect of their
experience and to connect with other adopted people.
President of Jigsaw Dr Trevor Jordan said the prints have been hung in the hallway of the Jigsaw headquarters at SANDS House for all to see.
‘We are very grateful to Pat for her thoughtful and generous donations which are well timed as we celebrate our 40th anniversary this year,’ Dr Jordan said.
Patricia said printmaking helped her express her thoughts and feelings about her adoption experience.
‘Some people write their stories or poetry but for me, because I have been print making and working in the visual arts for years, it was a natural avenue,’ she said.
‘You have all these thoughts going around in your head as well as these subterranean emotions and feelings that are stirred up when you think about your adoption experience closely or when you are searching or reuniting with family and you don’t know what to do with them.’
Patricia discovered a few coincidences as she explored her own experience through the donated artworks.
‘I found out during our reunion that my mother was a textile artist who had worked in community settings as I have also done and when I studied printmaking at college, I discovered that my lecturer was a mother who had lost her child to adoption.
‘When I created Angela’s Birthday, I included a pair of scissors, which at the time suggested to me a severing of connection, but these later coincidental discoveries have allowed me to see that actually I’d chosen not to depict the scissors severing anything.
‘I realise now there is always a connection there.’
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Patrica Zuber donates two prints, 'Angela's Birthday' and 'Dressing Up' to Jigsaw Queensland. More photos below story.
Patrica Zuber with Jigsaw Qlds Forced Adoption Team Leader, Susan Kelly and President, Dr Trevor Jordan.
Angela's Birthday
Screenprint 2006
Patricia Zuber
I made this silk screen print after being reunited with my mother and finding out that she had called me Angela at birth and that she was a textile artist. I built a layered image onto a background print of one of my mother’s textile pieces, using my adoption consent document and its profound statement, tapestry webbing, photos of myself as a baby and of my mother taken a few months after I was born—printed onto hand made paper we bought together when I visited her, tapestry wool and a pair of scissors with a tassel that she made which she gave to me.
Dressing Up
Screenprint 2006
Patricia Zuber
This layered screen print reflects on the dress my mother never made for me and suggest that this was replaced by the making of an adoption order. I found an old pattern of the dress I am wearing in the photo of myself as a baby, which was a common type of baby girl dress at that time. The background are prints of the actual pattern pieces over which are layered my adoption order, pattern instructions, the photo and the image of a little girl holding a bird from the pattern packet.