Eureka Stockade – Dawn Duncan-Smith

Commission 2018

Titled: 1854, The Birth of Modern Australia

In 2018 a client asked me if I would do a commission piece with the theme of Ballarat. She lived there and absolutely loves its history.

We met one day outside Ballarat Art Gallery in Lydiard St. She took me on a tour pointing out landscapes, architecture and history via gallery artworks some history texts that inspired her, it was a wonderful day, I’ve never really visited Ballarat before so it was a wonderful insight to its history.

We also went to The Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka a museum dedicated to democracy, located at the site of the Eureka Rebellion in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. to see the flag was breath taking, just amazing.

It opened on 4 May 2013 and replaced the previous Eureka Stockade Centre. at 102 Stawell St, Ballarat Central VIC.

We ended the day parting with lots of books and heaps of photos.

On the way home I pondered on how I would do this one amazing piece telling such a rich story of Australia’s history, it would have to include the gold rush, clashes between the people, the making of our flag, death, really it was the birth of Australia’s beginning, that was going to involved so much, and was going to be a big job.

The Process

When researching I write pages and pages, jotting down text and images references from books or the internet. I love this part of the process as it starts to develop a vision in my mind which takes about two or three weeks depending on the size of artworks in an exhibition or a single piece for a commission.

I then work out my fabrics and threads, they go into large clear bowls so it’s easy to stack and find that little piece of fabric!

I sketch out my drawing, transfer it onto tracing paper then between the canvas and paper I place fabric bits, pin then machine stitch. The tracing paper is taken away by either tearing or using tweezers. I’ve tried so many different methods for transferring my drawings, this works for me. Hand stitching is then applied to enhance or elaborate on the subject.

The whole work took about 200 hours, the client was very happy with it.