Art of making memories

St Marys School pupils Collette Mullen (15) and Taylor Daily Jones (14). Photo / Chris Gorman

Danielle Wright takes a look at the workshops for At Home At War show on at the Navy Museum

It seems odd to be celebrating the start of a war, rather than the end, and less likely to call the war "great", but there's no doubt that the stories from the war are both great and worth celebrating.

It's these intimate stories and traditional home crafts that the Navy Museum has been taking to Auckland high schools with workshops to create a public art exhibition. Almost 300 students and 13 teachers have participated in the project, part of the wider exhibition At Home At War.

I visit the girls at St Mary's College in Ponsonby on their last of four workshops and find them hard at work putting the finishing touches to their artist statements. As part of the project, they've also spent time thinking about the way domestic life in New Zealand was changed by the war, as well as learning practicalities on how to put on a public exhibition.

Previous workshops included an object handling session where the Navy Museum took a "museum in a box" of objects for the girls to take a closer look at -- each chosen to illustrate different war themes -- one on identities, where students explored the range of responses to the war, and one on learning new fabric art techniques.

Individually, each student created a piece that explores an aspect of New Zealanders' lives at home and at war. Each class then brings the pieces together to create one finished quilt work that will be on display in the Navy Museum's temporary galleries until November.

"The real heroes have been the teachers," says the museum's programme co-ordinator, Charis Boos, who is delivering the workshops. "We see ourselves as a community place for both sailors and for schools. A place to converse in lots of ways, this time it's through art -- we do love to engage people through our collection."

Alongside the many navy artefacts on display at the museum, there's also a fine art collection, including beautiful paintings and prints, as well as embroidered postcards, craftwork, posters and memorial scrolls. Colin Wynn, who became the official artist of the Royal New Zealand Navy in 1992, also has a presence in the museum.

As I chat to the girls, it's evident that the excitement of having their work displayed to the public is one of the best things about the project, but they are also genuinely moved by, and knowledgeable about the topic of war and its effect on New Zealanders.

One of the students (all aged 14), is Ashley McGregor. She tells me her uncle is fighting in the war in Afghanistan and that, "it's quite hard for him. He's not the same as he used to be, he changes with each visit home."

She shows me one of her squares, which focuses on the love life of the soldiers, with two silhouettes and a small patch of floral fabric at the bottom to show a little bit of home is always brought with the soldiers into a war, and that there's always an element of war on the minds of the people back at home.

The St Mary's School pupils prepare textile art work for display at the Navy Museum. Photo / Chris Gorman

Another student, Rachel D'Souza, has picked the "objection to war" theme in her quilt squares. She says she looked through lots of war images and saw riots and peace signs, as well as soldiers. That's what grabbed her attention the most.

She has chosen the peace sign as her main image on one of her pieces and camouflage material on the other, explaining that it's a comment on the military. She was surprised how much craft was done at home in the war years and admits to doing none in her own home.

Nearby, Rachel Budgett has set her piece on navy blue gingham material and has recreated a real letter on one of her squares. It reads: "Dearest Mother, ...I dare say this will be the last letter that you will receive from me..."

There's also a cluster of buttons, which she says represents all that women had to do by themselves during the war.

Rachel enjoyed imagining what life would have been like during the war and says her granddad was in England during the bombings and had an underground shelter. She'd heard all his stories -- one about the rugby field being bombed into a massive crater came to mind -- but she says doing this project has given her more perspective on wartime life.

Each student works on their individual quilt patches, no two alike, to be put together as a form of traditional handicraft and storytelling. An object of warmth and comfort, the quilt is most often connected to homelife. This quilt will bridge home, school and the past -- it should be worth a visit.

THE ART OF WAR

The exhibition At Home, At War is on now at the Torpedo Bay Navy Museum, open 10am to 5pm, seven days a week -- free admission