Artist transforms bullets of battle into poppies of peace

Poppies handmade from the brass of battlefield bullets are as ever, says their visiting creator symbols of remembrance for the families of the fallen.
Dunedin-based artist Stephen Mulqueen is in Wairarapa for the next fortnight as artist in residence at the New Pacific Studio at Mt Bruce, and will be speaking tomorrow night at the Aratoi Museum of Art and History in Masterton on "the beauty and terror" of the keepsakes, and the history of the poppy as a remembrance of soldiers killed in battle.
His lecture, entitled Poppies and Cartridges: War and Collective Memory will be a 45-minute illustrated talk preceding discussion at the Wesley Wing from 7pm and all are welcome, he said.
Mulqueen said his talk would address a growing body of work that investigates the image of the Flanders poppy as a worldwide emblem for commemoration.
Two women, Mona Michael and Anna Guerin, are responsible for the wearing of the poppy as we know it today as a symbol of remembrance, he said.
In November 1918, Mona Belle 'The Poppy Lady' Michael distributed poppies to businessmen to wear as a tribute to those who died in battle. The American Legion adopted the poppy the next year as its memorial flower and decreed funds from the poppies be used for the sole purpose of aiding veterans and their families.
Veterans in sponsored Poppy Shops make each nine-piece poppy in a programme that still gives them physical therapy and direct pay for their efforts.
Funds from the sale of the first hand-made red paper poppies were distributed to orphans, Mulqueen said, and in Britain, Canada and South Africa poppies are sold to commemorate Remembrance Day on November 11.
In New Zealand and Australia the Flanders Poppy is the public symbol of the Anzac Day commemorations held annually on April 25.
Mulqueen, who started out as a jeweller, has spent years collecting military .303 and current Nato brass cartridges and examples of trench art from the two world wars, he said.
As a result of a journey to Passchendaele, Belgium, in 2001 and 2002 he began to explore a new kind of commemorative emblem using the brass gun cartridge and the poppy symbol.
"The resulting work is a hybrid, combining the fragile poppy with a discarded metal fragment, a residue of war where terror meets beauty," he said. "It carries its own in-built ironies and poetic resonance and is at once a signifier for death, mourning and new life."
Mulqueen said each of his commissioned poppies costs $530 and comes in a presentation rimu case bearing a legend on the inside of the petals that records the name, rank, serial number, and theatres of war of the soldier for whom the poppy stands.
He said he is looking to expand his bullets to blooms operation and is hopeful of establishing a website and travelling the US later this year on a lecture tour to gauge interest in the poppies, which each take about a day to make.
Mulqueen is a sculptor who resides between Dunedin and Manorhamilton County Leitrim in Ireland. He is an Honorary Associate in the Department of Human Geography at Macquarie University in Sydney and is a graduate of the Australian National University, Canberra School of Art and holds a Master of Fine Art out of the Otago School of Art.
In 1994 he was commissioned by the Department of Conservation Te Papa Tawhai to design the new viewing platform for Motupohue/Bluff Hill 1994-2000 and is the present holder of the Jeanette and Robin Fellowship at New Pacific Studio.
He met New Pacific Studio director, Kay Flavell, at the opening of the Passchendaele: The Belgians Have Not Forgotten exhibition in Wellington last month, he said.
The exhibition is now touring New Zealand and includes a six-week run in Featherston at the Anzac Hall from July 17.