THE ART OF ANNEMIEKE MEIN To establish flight action, speed and the airborne moth’s purpose, I angled the beating wings to almost point at the January 2020 Exhibition 5 emerging moth. Not all four wings can be seen equally. The Gippsland Art Gallery shadow-like wings are only painted on the canvas and the stitched lines running over and around them indicate where FACE ON DESIGN they were split-seconds before. 1992 Pencil, ink, pastel on paper. SUPERB BLUE WRENS 109 x 75 cm. 1981 Private collection. Pencil on paper. Colour and texture plan for the work Face On. 70 x 68 cm. Private collection. FACE ON 1992 SUPERB BLUE WRENS COLLAGE High-relief textile wall panel. 1981 165 x 112 x 10 (relief) cm. Pencil, ink, watercolour. Private collection. 70 x 68 cm. Inspiration for this textile work is loosely based on the Private collection.

Common Grass-blue butterfly (Zizina otis labradus), which is SUPERB BLUE WRENS found throughout Australia. Face On portrays an unusual 1981 view of a newly emerged female Common Grass-blue Low-relief textile wall panel. butterfly at rest and leaning into a gentle breeze. 120 x 140 x 5 (relief) cm. Her wings are closed, and her eyes are alert. She is recovering Gippsland Art Gallery collection. from the struggle of breaking out of her pupal case. Her Up to seven layers of fine silk organza, and intricate pheromone (scent) is already attracting male butterflies from embroidery, were used to achieve the desired feather effects near and far. of hard quills, soft down, dark shadows, highlights and colour Surface and underlying fibres gradings of this work. • Surface – silk and crystal organza fabric, metallic and An audio-visual presentation is available on the making of cotton embroidery threads, glass beads, dyed rabbit Superb Blue Wrens. fur and felt.

• Underlying fibres – homespun and dyed silk fabrics, HERE HE COMES! (Superb Blue Wren) commercial silks, combed wool, metallic fabric, felt, 1994 dacron filler, interfacing and millinery wire Painted silk, machine embroidery on canvas. This is one of the earliest works where I employ the paint- 76 x 60 cm. wash techniques taught in Master Classes by Charles Private collection. McCubbin. Techniques • Textile paint and machine embroidery on silk PHEROMONE FRENZY (emerging moth) organza and backed with cotton canvas. 1989 • The grasses in this work vary in both colour and Pencil on paper. construction technique. Some are just painted. 30 x 41.5 cm. Others are painted and stitched. Some have Private collection. underlying slivers of coloured organza to give them more density. And a number of the foreground PHEROMONE FRENZY grasses are separately made and then attached on 1989 top of the others. High-relief wall panel. • Many of the grass seed-heads are hand embroidered 155 x 120 x 10 (relief) cm. along with finer details such as bird eyes, beaks, feet Private collection. and the grasshopper. Pheromone Frenzy portrays a captivating personal • The nest is lightly padded and quilted from behind. experience. I was observing a group of pupal cases at soil So is the male wren’s cheek and jaw angle. level in long grass when one case spit open before my eyes. With a great deal of leg kicking and delicate manoeuvring, the moth freed itself and prepared to pump up its wings. Within two or three seconds of emerging it was ‘dive-bombed’ by another moth and fertilised.

FEMALE SEAL LEAF CURLING SPIDER 1993 1979 Painted silk, machine embroidery on canvas. High-relief textile wall panel. 76 x 60 cm. 104 x 130 x 8 (relief) cm. Private collection. Gippsland Art Gallery collection.

This work was inspired by a holiday at the coastal town of The portrayed leaf-curling spider (Phonognatha graffei) has Flinders in Victoria. It was there near the pier, the kelp and netted a moth and is in the process of ‘wrapping it up’ in silk the rocks that I encountered the seal. She was lolling about in for future food. This spider has cleverly combined the wheel- the tidal water and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying web with a eucalypt leaf for shelter, for camouflage and as an herself. Hence my portrayal of a relaxed cheeky seal with a observation point. feminine grin. Is she a siren? The waves splash on her back The web was made of hand spun wool, and only partly and the water swirls all around. embroidered to the backing fabric. The ‘silken’ wrapping is of combed sheep’s wool. The spider is completely relief to add a SAWFLY menacing dominance to its pose and impact. 1980

Pencil on paper. BUTTERFLY A (Orange) 40 x 33 cm. 1974 Private collection. Hessian, cotton collage with embroidery. Sawflies (Perga affinis) are wasps, not flies as the name 46 x 56 cm. implies, and are one of Australia’s many primitive insect Private collection. species. The background of the butterflies is still of hessian, but now experimentation included a variety of different fabrics, SAWFLY – emerging from cocoon textures and fibres. Only machine stitching adheres the 1980 fabrics to the hessian and no more glue is used. Pencil working drawing. Note that in Butterfly A (orange) I’ve signed my name ‘A. 40 x 30 cm. MEIN’. That was the last time. In Butterfly B (pink) it’s AM and Private collection. it has been so ever since.

SAWFLIES - crawling out BUTTERFLY B (Pink) 1980 1974 Pencil working drawing. Hessian, cotton collage with embroidery. 28 x 28 cm. 46 x 56 cm. Private collection. Private collection. The sewing is all done in black machine thread. I had no idea SAWFLIES about ‘free-sewing’ then so all the curvy lines around the 1980 butterfly wings are jerky due to the regular stop-and-start High-relief textile wall panel. and turning the fabric to go around a corner. 130 x 95 x 10 (relief) cm. The fabrics used include hessian, gauze bandage, corduroy, Private collection. felt, linen, towelling, stretch-knit synthetics and cotton. All Over two years I had nurtured and ‘hatched’ hundreds of the fabrics used were a plain colour (i.e. unprinted) but many sawflies – collecting the caterpillars (larvae) in boxes of soil as have textural variations that make them more interesting and they descended from the trees to pupate. Glass partitions in tactile. Several of the fabric pieces were frayed a little to the soil allowed me to observe their construction of densely blend or bleed into the adjoining fibres. clustered silk-and-soil cocoons and, months later, their noisy emergence as adult sawflies. Many sketches of their determined scramble to the light gave me the empathy to give this work credibility from a human view. Mentally, I place myself in their position underground, fresh with the instinct for reproduction and new life, then seeking daylight and escape!

DONKEY BUTTERFLY WEARABLES (4 parts) 1973 1989 Hessian and cotton collage. Textile sculptures 56 x 46 cm. 26 x 25 x 3 (height) cm. Private collection. Private collection. Hessian fabric was relatively cheap to buy in the 60s and 70s. I collected all the colours available and set to designing FACE ON (Showcase) various animals using different colour combinations. The 1992 quality I so liked about hessian was its versatility in creating METHODS, TECHNIQUES, SAMPLES, TRIALS. different texture effects by distorting the warp and weft, BUTTERFLY fraying edges, twisting, shaping and snipping. 1. Colour highlight paint wash on paper. In Donkey, the outline shape was cut from black cotton (at 2. Wings – combed fibres used under top layer of the time, black hessian was not available). This cotton was organza. torn, frayed, stretched and twisted, then glued in place on 3. Wings – plied fibres used under top layer of organza. top of the pale hessian (using PVA glue). Pieces of blue, 4. Wings – fabrics used. ‘Leftovers’ after trimming. orange and yellow hessian were also frayed, distorted and 5. Stitched experiment showing glitter fabrics, combed glued to ‘fill in’ some of the open spaces in the donkey. Eyes and plied fibres. and nostrils were left until last. A lot of experimentation was 6. Stitch trial for two eyes. done to get the expression ‘just right’. 7. Sketch of Common Grass-blue butterfly.

8. Sample of dyed rabbit fur with colour plan. ROOSTER 9. Antennae – wrapped ribbon over millinery wire, 1973 Hessian and cotton collage. then stitched. 56 x 46 cm. 10. Legs – dyed pipe cleaners. Private collection. 11. Feet – plied cotton threads The rooster’s body was cut out in one main piece of cream GUM LEAVES hessian and glued to the brown background. Snippets of 12. Colour plan on paper. frayed cream hessian were glued on top to resemble feathers 13. Tissue leaf patterns. at the tail and breast. The yellow and orange comb and 14. Two painted canvas leaves showing front and back. wattle and the black eye were also glued in place. Green 15. Centre vein millinery wire insert. hessian and black cotton were used to represent the sheen 16. Stitched leaf. on the wing and tail feathers. 17. Design for A.M. signature area. A splash of colour on the ground helped balance the rooster’s heavy orange comb. Note that there is no sewing in both Donkey and Rooster.

LEPIDOPTERA OLYMPIA AUSTRALIS 1989 INSPIRATION Freestanding textile sculpture. Sale, and our surrounding district of Gippsland, has an 55 x 49 x 12 (height) cm. abundance of magnificent habitats. Many major rivers and Private collection. hundreds of creeks wind through Gippsland on their way to This sculpture was inspired by the magnificent Butterfly the sea, while huge inland lakes with their associated flood- House at the Royal Melbourne Zoo and by the brief from Cato prone grasslands and wetlands are dotted all over the region. Design outlining their requirements for the ‘Melbourne Bass Strait, at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, washes our Olympic Bid Exhibition’ to the 1996 Olympic Games. coastline, which includes the Ninety Mile Beach. To suit their display stands, the butterfly had to fit easily into An astonishing array of Australian flora and fauna make this a circle 60 cm in diameter, as their theme was ‘The Rings of area their temporary or permanent home. There are the Olympics’. countless representatives from most known families found Construction techniques included dyeing merino wool, on Earth including birds, fish, insects, spiders, reptiles, mohair and silk fibres, padding, quilting, pleating, trapunto, marsupials and other mammals, amphibians and crustaceans, beading and machine embroidery. Metallic fabric and as well as a wondrous variety of plants. metallic machine threads were used extensively to give the The beaches, waterways, wetlands, forests, plains and brightly lit glittery effect. mountains of Gippsland have been a source of inspiration to me for over 60 years. All my textile works are a direct response to my personal experiences.

Annemieke Mein O.A.M.