Darko Rakic
Sabac, 17.04, 2015
My story
Dear friends,
My name is Darko Rakic, born 27/9/1979 in Sabac, town
which is in Republika Srbija. Srbija was one of the six republics in former Yugoslavia. Sabac
is 80 kilometers to the south - west of Belgrade,
the capital.
Zoran Rakic, my father, was a JNA officer (Yugoslav
National Army), mother, Milanka, was a clerk. After I was born I lived with my mother for a
year in the house of my maternal parents’ home in Metlic, a village 18
kilometers far from Sabac. My father, at that time, was in Croatian town of Pula; 1980 mother and I moved to Pula to join my father. We were renting an
apartment in Pula
till after the second part of 1983. I could not remember the life in Pula. In the second part
of the 1983 my father was transferred to Ljubljana,
capital of Slovenia.
That was the time when we started all over again, new people, new culture, new
customs; it was very hard for me being a child, it was necessary for me to get
used to the new environment.
We lived in Siska, part of the capital Ljubljana. It was very
nice part, all former Yugoslav officers’ families lived there, and they were
from different parts of former Yugoslavia.
Ljubljana was
the town were my childhood and growing up started. Our apartment was in 39 Siska Street, on
the third floor. It is there that I met a lot of friends; I started to learn
Slovenian language with them. All this was wonderful till 1986 that was the
year when I had my big emotional setback, my mother and father divorced. I was
given to my mother’s custody and my life continued with my mother, who, just
after the arrival to Slovenia,
started working in the army, but as a civilian.
The same year I was enrolled to Rihard Jakopic elementary school of Siska. Whether by accident or fate the
school was named by famous Slovenian painter. As a child, I was different from
my peers, when drawing a person I would start from the legs and work my way to
the head, but finished drawing had the proper proportions. It was very strange
to my peers and teachers at classes. As well as having a peculiar way of
drawing I had photo memory, and could properly draw anything I had seen. My
free time I was spending in drawing everything I had seen or imagined which
fulfilled me with peace and calm. Looking back now I see that it was a way of
me coping with my parents’ divorce and absence of my father who I missed and
needed a lot.
I was helping my mother in everything. At an early age
I learned to cook with the help of my mother; in return I helped her when she
needed to go grocery shopping, because official language was Serbian at my
mother’s work and to do the grocery shopping Slovenian was needed. I was a very
good child.
My happy and good life, childhood and youth, in Ljubljana was interrupted
with the war of 1991, when Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia broke
apart, all republics separated from the federation. That was second major
emotional setback of my life. Over night we lost our apartment in Ljubljana and all our
possessions. My mother took me to Metlic to her parents’, on my winter break; I
was in fifth grade at that time. Mother brought one bag, all my things and the
next morning she returned to Slovenia
to her job because she was required to.
That year of 1991 I started again from the beginning,
new life in my native country which I didn’t know that well. My education was
continued in Serbia.
Slowly I started to learn Serbian language and
grammar, getting used to Serbian curriculum. The school, I enrolled in Serbian village of Metlic, was named Dositej Obradovic. I
was noticed for my drawings and at history classes. On my art teacher’s
suggestion, my sixth grade teacher of drawing and painting Ljiljana Kekic (who
is now professor at the Art Trades School in Sabac), I took part in Vukov sabor
Trsic’s competition of elementary schools of Republic of Serbia and Montenegro
(now separate republics) and Republic of Srpska (part of Bosnia and
Herzegovina). My six paintings were sent to the competition. I was pronounced
one of the six most talented elementary school painters.
My work was inspired with my childhood sufferings,
hard life growing up without money, war, all that I transferred onto the paper.
That led to my remarkable results in painting and drawing. Seeing my work
materializing into good painting gave me an inspiration and zeal to do more.
That was my ticket to better life. I was doing what I loved.
When I finished elementary school I decide to go to
Kaona monastery, which was 20 kilometers far from Sabac. The decision surprised
my mother a lot, I was still a kid. All my relatives believed I would become an
army officer, as my father. But my decision was different. If somebody would
ask me why did I make that decision I wouldn’t know what to say; only God knows
why. Upon arrival to Kaona monastery I met a monk whose name was Dorotej, who
was known as a Swede who, on his first visit to Serbia, fell in love with Orthodox
Christianity and took the name Dorotej and became one of the Kaona monks. He
didn’t only bring his culture and tradition to Kaona but his knowledge of wood
carving, which attracted my attention immensely. Being with monk Dorotej I fell
in love with wood carving and got my first instructions. Dorotej, whose real
name I didn’t know, left his mark in Kaona monastery; walnut wood curved
iconostasis, the big door on the major monastery church. Dorotej left monastery
and returned to Sweden,
married and had family. Monastery brotherhood could give more details about
him. During my stay in the monastery my spiritual teacher was prior Milutin
(now Bishop of Valjevo Eparchy). My mother and family visited me very often
while I was in the monastery, so I found out that in Sabac the School for Art
Trades was founded. On my first visit to the town I found out about the school
and all the trades they were teaching. Among them was wood curving which I was
interested in and learned from the monk, Dorotej, in the monastery. In the year
of 1994 I decided to go to preparation classes which were the condition for
acceptance into to the school.
I have to mention that the school is unique in Serbia, it teaches all lost and forgotten
trades, dead in Serbia and,
I can say, Europe as well.
On my test I had the best results. When I was enrolled
into the school my nickname became “father” or “priest” because of my stay in
the monastery. In the school I had classes of sculpting, anatomy, calligraphy,
and my favorite wood curving. The school I attended was very specific, apart
from regular subjects like: math, biology, geography, chemistry, computing,
musical education we had drawing, painting, sculpting, calligraphy, etc.
professors in the school were famous and prominent academic painters. The
professor I learned about wood curving from was Mr. Sveta Samardic- Ginger
(Yellow in local language); the nickname came from us, students, because he had
red hair that reminded us of sun.
Apart from being happy as a student of the school of
my choice we, mother and I, were facing a lot of hardships. Our life and all
our belongings were lost in Slovenia, in Serbia we were forced to rent (living
in different parts of the town of Sabac), often in very poor conditions:
apartments which windows couldn’t close in winter, houses with outhouse toilets
and baths, some of them had outhouses 30 meters far from the main house. We didn’t
have money, my mother worked and we saved every dinar (RSD, Serbian currency)
for my education and tools for my trade. During the war my country was facing
embargo, which affected all of us especially us poor people of Serbia.
Bombing, by NATO, deteriorated already bad economic situation in the country,
it lead to increase of crime rate, unemployment, drug trafficking and
humanitarian catastrophe. Living in Serbia was like living in ghetto,
completely isolated.
To release the stress, I was under, I started to train
boxing and it helped me a lot, as well as being able to protect myself from the
criminal mafia that many of my peers were fallen under. All my summer breaks I
would spend selling gas and cigarettes in the native village of my mother, and
it helped me to earn some money for my education since my mother’s salary was
not enough for my education and life. I was very diligent in educating myself
as best as I could, participated in all municipality and republic competitions
in painting and drawing.
My father, who was Serb as well, since the divorce in
1986 had never contacted me and never helped with my upbringing and education
expenses.
I was working hard and hoping for better life, but
during my high school education I found out that my mother was suffering from
very serious illness. In spite of that I finished my high school education as
valedictorian of the class of 1999.
Upon finishing high school I could not join the
university because I did not have money to pay for the academic education which
was very expensive and only a few could afford, high class kids and the new
high class, which came out of war profiteers. The parents of those kids gave a
lot of money to the parties in power.
There was an opening for wood carver in Matica Srpska
of Novi Sad, an institute in charge of
renovating cultural monuments in Serbia, after the NATO bombing. My
high school officials applied for the position and I almost got the job, later
on I’ll explain why “almost”. When I went for an interview to the institute, a
man with the name Ratomir Kulic (who was a restorer in Matica Srpska) met me at
the door of the institute and showed me places, took me to the cellar where the
workshops were. When he saw my documents and works he asked me: “My son, what
do you think about Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia?” I told
him I had the same opinion as the majority of the people in Serbia. That
was why I did not get the job, because I was not a member of Socialist Party of
Serbia, I was not a member of any, at that time, leading party. Politics was in
every aspect of life in Serbia.
At the age of 20 I decided to, voluntarily join and
pay my debt to the country, I went to the Army (which at that time was
obligatory still). It took one year of my life and in 2000 I hoped for better
future. That did not happened, since the politics was important in Serbian life
and I was not interested in any of that, I never got a job in the furniture
factories and other places I applied for the job.
Since I couldn’t get the job I was educated for, I
took any job I could get because I had to live on something, mainly those were
the worst paid and the hardest jobs one can get. Years went by, our rental life
continued, because the government and the army, my mother worked for, never helped
us with our housing problem. Our agony continued. Every earned dinar (RSD) I
saved for the tools I needed for my wood carving and it was hard to get the
tools in Serbia,
because there was no shop you could buy such tools from. In all my hardships at
that time, and with God’s help, mom and I found an apartment with a very nice
Sabac family Radivojevic, who lived in Canada. They helped me get a
catalogue of the tools I needed from the Montreal
shop which specialized in selling that kind of tools. I got my first tools in
2003 and that was the beginning of my wood carving work. All my wood curving
pieces were done in that apartment on the kitchen table, because I couldn’t
afford a workshop.
To get getter knowledge of wood carving of iconostasis
I visited monasteries and churches whose iconostasis were very elaborate and
very precious, worth a lot of money now days. Visiting the monasteries gave me
a chance to meet a lot of people. In the year of 2008 I got a chance to visit
Romanian monasteries which I took gladly. The same year my family was struck by
very big tragedy, my mother got a massive stroke; her life was hanging by a
thread the first seven days in the hospital. I was very involved in her
recovery and upon her exit from the hospital all house works and other
responsibilities were on me. Right at that time I was presented with a souvenir
from Zlatibor by a friend of mine. There I noticed letters which looked as if
burnt; on the internet I started my education in that technique of tracing of
designs by burning. Come to find out that for that technique I would need a
tool called “wood burner”. There was one more problem, how to get that very
expensive tool from the States, Canada
or England.
Since I couldn’t afford to order the tool I found it here in Serbia, a man was
making it as an amateur. The major pin of the “wood burner” was made out of wire
which was used in hair drier or electrical stove under the plate; that amateur tool
didn’t cost me a lot.
That was the beginning of my work in woodburning technique,
making icons and other works. My second love, apart from wood carving, was
pyrography. Two years into my work, I was suggested by the local journalist to
make a documentary about my new work, pyrography. The documentary was aired on
local television of Sabac in the year 2010, but because it was not seen by many
people a few knew what my work was about. Although I had a lot of hardships in
my life wood carving and pyrography give me the strength to go on. Every work
of mine had its story. The story that made the biggest impression on me is: “One
sunny afternoon I was walking and thinking what to do next when St. Petka icon
came into my mind. I came home and found the best reproduction of the icon,
went to carpenter to get the wood. It took me 10 days to finish the icon, and
now I needed the buyer. In the evening the phone rang and I was invited over
for a dinner at my friends’. Their other friends, a family, from the building
joined us for the dinner. In the conversation I was told that the neighbors were
looking for an icon of Sv. Petka, their daughter got better because they prayed
to Sv. Petka and that the icon would mean a lot to them. I told them I had just
finished the icon and that I wanted to sell it. That was how my first icon found
home in the house of people who really needed it.”
My every pyrography work left the trace in my life and
has a story to it. After I had finished the icon of Valamska Presveta
Bogorodica, as a price, I got a trip to Russia
where I was forking for a month in the monastery Optina Pustinja which was 45
kilometers from the town of Kaluge.
Everybody in the monastery was satisfied with my technique. When I returned to Serbia
I continued my pyrography work with more zeal.
My mother, who became an invalid, and I still rent, now
we live in the house of Margita Rabic which is in a very busy part of the town.
I am now 34 years old, an artist who is struggling to make ends meet. It is
very hard to be an artist here in Serbia, especially not known one. There
certain kinds of artists that the government helps but the rest of us are on
the verge of existence. I have so many ideas, plans and visions which I cannot fulfill because of
the situation I am in, having to provide for the two of us, buying the tools,
paying for the rent, and nobody wants to help us.
I am still hoping for better future, and every morning
I wake up with new ideas which I am transferring to the paper so I would have
them when, one day, I can afford my workshop where I would be able to fulfill them.
Very few people know my work. I dress modestly and nobody would thing of me as
an artist.
My greatest wish is to have an art show where I would
present to the world my works in wood carving and pyrography, to show everybody
who I really am. Part of my being would like for my father, who left us 1986,
to hear about my art show and to make him and the rest of his family proud of
whom I became. Today I feel very lucky man. I have my wife, her name Galina. It
is my great fortune, destiny put us together. I do not have my wife I would be
poor. Every day would be dying out like a flower. My work would not have been.
Great gratitude for my life story, I give my love, my
wife, Galini. She encouraged me to write the data for export brief story of my
life.
Добар дан драги пријатељи. Нешто мало речи о мом раду. Икону сам радио на стаклу, ручна гравура.
.jpg)
