artist interview - amanda dziedzic

Three cheers for Amanda Dziedzic, whose knack for making art out of glass has our minds bending as much as the stuff she works with. She talked us through the ins and outs of glass blowing, including strange inspirations, the hassle of hot days and the importance of letting go and trusting your hands.



What is your name and how old are you? My name is Amanda Dziedzic and I am 34 years old.

Where were you born and where do you live now? I was born in Adelaide and now I live in Melbourne with my husband and furry son, Mont.

How did you get started with this medium? I first took glass blowing as an elective, way back when I started my first degree in visual art. It kind of just snowballed from there. I decided to go back to study full time in glass when I moved to Melbourne, then after that I got an amazing job as an associate designer in glass at JamFactory back in Adelaide. And now I’m back in Melbs; that’s a whole lot of moving in there….



Please describe the space where you do most of your creation – whether it’s your art studio or kitchen bench! I kind of split my time between home and my studio, which is in an old beat-up warehouse in Brunswick that I share with about 10 others. It’s kind of crummy, it leaks (the first big rain we learnt quickly that my studio is the lowest point… cue flash flood). But I do love my space, I’ve worked hard to make it my own. Full of fake greenery, glass equipment, I just got myself a flame-working torch set-up and some cold-working equipment. Then to actually blow glass I rent time at hot glass studios. I go back to the Jam in Adelaide probably once every six weeks to do a big, crazy making run.

Are there any downsides to this medium? Summer is a real bitch when you are a glass blower. HOT! It is also a really expensive medium to work in that can sometimes be unpredictable – bubbles, chords, crappy glass. You also need to rely heavily on another person to work with, but I kind of love that too.



Is there a running theme to the work you create, or do you just make whatever comes to mind? Most of my work seems to revolve around plant life and the garden, I think. It’s where I draw most of my inspiration. I just love the colour and shapes that can be found in your own garden. I like taking time to really ‘see’ things that are sometimes all around me and find beauty in the everyday.

Tell us a little about your creative process. I honestly seem to work best when I have a million things on and kind of run on the stress. That sounds ridiculous I know, but it’s like when you are busy being creative and meeting deadlines, more ideas come. You are just in the right frame of mind. Too much time off and being idle is a bad thing for me (not that it happens much lately).

What kinds of ideas and things are you working on at the moment? At the moment everything is gearing towards my solo show next year at JamFactory in Adelaide. I want it to be an all-encompassing installation based on the idea of the greenhouse. It’s going to be off the hook! I am also part of a cool group show called the Secret Garden, which is on now in Melbourne at the Schoolhouse Studios in Collingwood.



If you were to teach an art appreciation class, what kind of lessons would you try to teach your students? Oh god! That’s kinda tough! I would probably just take them all outside and get them sketching leaves! Then we might head to the market for lunch and pick our favourite vegetable and find the beauty in that! Teaching fail?

What is the strangest thing or thought that has inspired a piece of work? A daikon radish in the back streets of suburban Tokyo caught my eye and triggered a whole new body of work (or obsession). I also had a thing for making gold pretzels when I did a residency in Scotland. I was obsessed with turning things gold once I figured it out. Rumplestiltskin eat your heart out.

Are there any other mediums that you’d like to experiment with? I like working mixed media into my works lately. I can’t get enough of fake greenery. Aquarium plants are my weakness. I also would love to do more printmaking. I haven’t done any in years but I have some ideas to incorporate printed images into glass. Ooh, and I also very recently bought an old brownie box camera off eBay and am super-pumped to get back into some photography.



What’s the coolest art tip you’ve ever received? Let it go. Relax and trust that your hands know what to do. Glass blowing is all about repetition, really. It’s like you build up this language of muscle memory in your hands. Sure you need to have your wits about you, but I like to think that makers, craftspeople in particular, work best when they switch their brain into another mode and just have the confidence to let their hands do the work.

Which era of art do you appreciate the most? I don’t really identify with art eras but I do LOVE design from around the ’50s. I am a sucker for typography and I really love the illustrations from that era. I collect gardening and natural history books from the ’50s to the ’70s and they are so beautiful. I wish I’d never told my sister about them, it’s now almost impossible to go op shopping with her and a blood bath in the book section.

What would you be doing if you weren’t making art? I’m going to go with a chef who raises alpacas. Those things are ridiculously cute. I actually have no idea, glass blowing is all I know!



Where can we see more of your work? I have a couple of stockists scattered around like Modern Times or Fenton and Fenton. You can check out my website, or I keep an irregular, sometimes sweary kind of blog. It's good for lots of images of things that I’m working on, scattered in with adorable pictures of my cat.