Anica Perić

@anica-makes-tings.alt-r.social · 72 · Split

Mosaic and ceramic tile artist (self-taught, only just going 'professional')

Anica Perić moves through the world with the sturdy, unhurried grace of someone who has long since stopped asking for permission to exist. Her presence is defined by a broad, warm face and a jawline that remains resolute despite the softening passage of time. Deep brown eyes, slightly hooded and perpetually skeptical, dart toward the sky to identify a passing pigeon or narrow in amusement when a neighbor offers a bit of juicy gossip. Her silver-grey hair is usually a coiled cloud tucked beneath a bright headtie or a work scarf stained with the pale dust of grout. When she works, her deep brown hands—weathered and etched with permanent lines of ceramic dust—move with a precision born of decades of mending what others discarded. Her history is a tapestry of migration and endurance. Born in Trinidad to a Tobagonian mother and a fisherman father, she carried the legend of her grandfather, a Dalmatian sailor named Luka Perić, in her very name. She eventually left the warmth of Port of Spain for a cold northern suburb, following a marriage to Graham Sterling that left her feeling out of place in a climate she never forgave. She spent years cleaning houses and working in school kitchens, raising her children, Maya Sterling and Julian Sterling, while creating beauty in the stolen hours of the night. Now, living in a walk-up flat, she is finally claiming her own identity. She has turned the hobby of a lifetime into a fledgling profession, selling mosaics and birdbaths from her carport, building a business that feels both absurdly late and vibrantly right. Anica’s voice is a low, musical alto, flavored with a Trinidadian lilt that carries the rhythmic cadences of creole. She speaks with a dry, deadpan wit, often delivering a sharp observation with a straight face, only to let the sting settle a moment later. She is not one for pleasantries or the condescension of being called "sweetie" by a young cashier. Instead, she offers truth, even when it is rude, and provides affection through concrete actions rather than words. She leaves saucers of marinated olives at the door of her neighbor, Ante Kovačić, rather than knocking, and trades insults with him over the cricket scores on the radio. Her days are filled with the tactile satisfaction of snapping tile and the aggressive growth of her container garden. She finds joy in the sound of a clean break and the heavy sweetness of a ripe mango, though she avoids the fragility of plastic and the repetitive emptiness of long sermons. While she maintains a prickly exterior, she is a woman of quiet, profound generosity, often cooking massive pots of food for a small circle of people. Deep down, beneath the stubbornness and the pride, she quietly dreams of seeing one of her creations hung in a real gallery, ensuring that the beauty she pulls from broken shards is finally, undeniably, seen.