User:Ronachadwick

RONA CHADWICK (1954 - )
Australian based cartoonist, painter and feminist activist. She studied animation at Perth Technical College in 1985 and in 1986 completed a BA from urtin University of Technology, majoring in film and including units in language, literature and culture with an elective in animation. In 1990 she undertook classes in cartooning, comic art and caricature at the London Cartoon Centre, and she completed four modules towards a Preliminary Certificate in Art and Design at the Perth School of Art and Design in 1990–91. She studied caricature with M. Collins of Black Splash Graphics, Perth, in 1992 and received her Diploma in Cartooning and Illustration from the Australian College of Journalism in 1997.

SOME OF HER CARTOONS
Her cartoon If only... dated 1989 was published in Drawing Away: an Australian women's comic book no. 5 (1990). Apparently autobiographical, it shows a woman first regretting her unhappy childhood (at a rally dreaming of the right of everyone to have happy one), then realising that a happy childhood would have meant she'd have married and had kids ("NO!"). Issue no. 6 (1991) has her cartoon of a teacher looking in a boy's shorts for his brains. In 1991 she drew a series of witty blasphemous cartoons about the birth of Christ, Mary Xmas. Some were published as postcards (see file) and some appeared in Refractory Girl 41 (summer 1991) – Xmas issue, e.g. "Hey, Aunty Mary! It's the 3 Wise Wimmin!" (mounted on camels and reading Refractory Girl), cover; Mary coming out of 'Abortion Clinic' and saying to Wise Men: "I decided my career comes first" (p.6); Joseph saying to wise men, "I'm sure I put him in the manger", with grinning wolf in sheepskin among the animals in the stable, p.18; Mary Xmas 1990's Nativity Scene with 'Mean Muther' outside 'Government Flat' saying, "Yeah, I'm Mary, what of it? Hey, you guys wouldn't be from the Welfare would ya?" (p.31). Also Mary Xmas/ The herstory of I.V.F... Wise Man, "What do you mean there's seven of them?' (p.34); Mary Xmas 1990's Nativity Scene (Holy Family under bridge with hippies), "Remember the good ol' days when you could always find a decent stable to sleep in..." (p.45).

Other 'Rona' cartoons in Refractory Girl include Game of the Century! The System vs Token Woman (p.36, modern woman against hundreds of gladiators in Roman forum): "I can see it's going to be one of those days" 1990 and Laughing at the Patriarchy n.d. (Three witches going 'He He He He...', p.43).

HOW SHE WORKS
Responding to a survey published in Heinrich Hinze's [David Pope's] Scratch! A scrapbook of radical cartooning in Australia in 1991 in which contributors were asked questions about their practice, Rona replied: "Materials A4 photocopying paper; mostly Artline drawing pens – sizes 0.3, 0.4 and 0.6; any old pencil and rubber I can find; white-out. Attraction The materials I use are great because they are so portable and the pens produce a good black for reproduction. Drawbacks The line width is constant not variable "Process Draw ink rough in my ideas book (hardback and fits in pocket). Later, I pencil rough (to mark out spacing) not much rubbing out at all, then ink up detail and whiteout mistakes. Show it to my partner who doesn't 'get it' so make modifications so that it is understandable even to the visually illiterate! Then I number, enter into my records and file in numerical order. I always send clean photocopies to prospective buyers. Advantages Speed and convenience. For me it is crucial to capture in the moment. The drawing can come later. Disadvantages You can lose expression in the re-draw phase. This is why I use minimal pencil and quickly move to inking up. It is amazing how fast your confidence (and your output) increases. For me "rubbing out' is 99% procrastination."

GAY AND LESBIAN SPECIFIC
Rona drew regular cartoons for Adelaide's monthly Lesbian Times, e.g. LESBIAN ETIQUETTE: RULE # 1, 'NEW DYKES SHOULD BE SEEN & NOT HEARD' (a non-scene woman introducing herself to a couple of mean-looking dykes wearing t-shirts labelled 'KOOL' and 'TUFF'); LESBIAN ETIQUETTE: RULE # 2, 'NEVER, NEVER, NEVER ADMIT TO FEELING VULNERABLE &/ OR NEEDING HELP' (the same woman saying 'I'M NEW TO THE SCENE. MAY I SIT WITH YOU?' while the dykes look uncomfortable and embarrassed; and ENID PERSEVERES WITH HER HOMEOPATHIC REMEDY FOR THE 7 YEAR ITCH (a lesbian couple in bed, one saying 'PASS ME THE OINTMENT, DEAR' and the other reading a book called LESBIAN PASSION THEORY). A drawing for the cover of No.11 (January 1993) titled Bliss dated 1992 depicts two women embracing on a broomstick flying through a sky full of stars.

BROADCARDS
From 1989 to the mid 1990s Rona produced Broadcards, a range of wimmin targeted postcards. You may know my Mary Xmas cards which strive to bring a wimmin/dyke's perspective to the "festive season". Several Mary Xmas cards include designs that are blatantly lesbian.

STRATEGIES FOR BEING REMEMBERED
Rona, was a member of the Australian Black and White Artists Club for several years. As she says, "Mainly to ensure that I was in the records and not lost like so many women artists. The only way I could be lost is by erasing the work of many prominant male cartoonists". The 1993 and 1996 Hysterical Women Cartoon Projects were designed also to ensure that female cartoonists were documented and remembered in the public domain.

PERSONAL FAVOURITES
She played a key part in the two WA Women's Electoral Lobby feminist cartoon exhibitions entitled Hysterical Women. In the first, held in 1993, she won both the Megan Sassy and Pam Simons Awards. (Awards held the name of female activists nominated by feminist organisations such state and territory Women's Electoral Lobbies, Women's Refuges and so on.) Her cartoons were published in the book, Hysterical Women: A Collection of 100 Australian Feminist Cartoons (Perth: Women's Electoral Lobby, 1993), where she identified her chief influences as being UK cartoonists, Cath Jackson and Angela Martin.

"My favourite cartoons are in the Hysterical Women books" says Rona. "I am particularly fond of Unpopular Marriage Celebrants and Therapists to Watch Out For."

She starred in the second volume of Hysterical Women, published in 1996, with work on the cover as the winner of the exhibition's major Joan Williams Award sponsored by WEL (WA).

In July 1997, with over 30 other Australian cartoonists, she was included in Barbary O'Brien's The Cartoon Show at Noarlunga Community Arts Centre (SA). Fellow exhibitors included Judy Horacek, Joan Rosser, David Pope (Heinrich Heinze), Sue Wicks, Glen le Lievre, Michael Atchison, Peter Broelman and Angie Lyndon. She has tutored and given workshops in cartooning for the Applecross and Woodsome TAFEs, the Kwinana Town Council School Holiday program, the Bandyup Women's Prison and for social housing workers at Shelter, WA.

CARTOON AND OTHER ACTIVITIES
In October 1999 at the Verge Gallery, Perth, Chadwick held her second solo exhibition, Iron Maidens: Real and Unreal, on 'female archetypes who have inspired the women's movement', the female archetypes being painted on canvas-covered ironing boards (example in file & in colour in email attachments). The exhibition was supported by a Centenary of Women's Suffrage Grant, by Pride Inc. and by the Women's Electoral Lobby (WA). In 1999 she published a cartoon of a dyke with a wandering male hand grafted on that harrasses women in the WA gay and lesbian newspaper Westside Observer. Another, called Dyke hoons to watch out for (one yelling from a speeding car, "Hey Sis! Show us your tits!"), appeared in Women Out West (1999, p.7). Both were discussed in her APSA 2000 paper, written with Joan Eveline and Michael Booth [Chadwick re sexual harassment and other ambiguous cartoons she has drawn for specific audiences].

COLLECTIONS
S. Battye Library Pictorial Collection, SLWA; The Bunker Cartoon Gallery Collection, Coffs Harbour, NSW; Hysterical Women: First Australian Feminist Cartoon Awards Collection (1993), Women's Electoral Lobby (WA); Glasgow Women's Library Pictorial Collection; Glasgow Women's Library.

Adapted from an article by Joan Kerr, published on Design + Art Australia Online.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Currently, Rona is focussing on her art and in particular her paintings on ironing boards. In 2009 she was a finalist in The Black Swan Portrait Prize Exhibition with her art work, Angelina Melio with Merit Oppenheim (2009), painted on a canvas covered ironing board. In 2010, she exhibited a further 5 works on ironing boards her 4th Solo exhibition entitled, "Mirror Image", at the AM International Gallery, in Bivongi, Italy. All of the works were self portraits with an outstanding(though usually unknown or not well known) female artist. For example, one work is titled: You/We Rage - Self Portrait with Gluck (2010) and another was titled: In my Grandmother's Chair - self portrait with Mary Cassatt (2010). In March 2011, in collaboration with The Three Amicis, (Rona Chadwick, Maxine Boyd and Angela Hartwig), she organised The Long March: an art exhibition celebrating 100 years of activism for women's rights at the DoC Gallery in Maylands, Western Australia. Over 20 female Western Australian based artists including Rona participated. Later, in 2010, her cartoon featured in the Seriously Funny Group Exhibition held July to August 2011 at the Women's Made Gallery in Chicago, USA. She exhibited the Career Advancement Classes for Women cartoon where a room full of women are uncomfortably holding huge horns and the instructor stating, "First, you must learn to blow this thing at every opportunity."

LINKS
Blog - http://starfishrona.blogspot.com