Unnatural History Series: echidna quills woven on fireline, by Mandy Gunn By Liane Arno
A THIN naked man, with blue painted finger nails and a skin so white that it was almost luminescent sat before 16-year-old Mandy Gunn. He called everyone “Darling”. Mandy’s first life drawing class at the Bromley Art School was not what she had expected. She was to learn that the model was none other than Quentin Crisp who famously said that being a model in life drawing classes “was like being a civil servant except that you’re naked”.
A THIN naked man, with blue painted finger nails and a skin so white that it was almost luminescent sat before 16-year-old Mandy Gunn. He called everyone “Darling”. Mandy’s first life drawing class at the Bromley Art School was not what she had expected. She was to learn that the model was none other than Quentin Crisp who famously said that being a model in life drawing classes “was like being a civil servant except that you’re naked”.
Coming from a fairly conservative background, Mandy used to thrill in getting pens and pencils each birthday. One of her first drawings was in blue biro of a ballerina with ever so pointy legs and an ‘x’ for the ballet shoes. She gave it to her aunt who kept it for many years and recently returned it to her. And then there was the neighbour who used to design stamps who encouraged her to try painting with oils. She tried her first – an abstract design at 11 years of age. Attractively Bohemian though the art school was at the time she was completing her A levels in art, she decided to follow her other great interest and become a physical education teacher instead. But then, true to her artistic nature, she specialised in creative dance and drama.
Like so many who had been through the deprivations of post-war Britain, she decided to emigrate as a £10 Pom. She left a country where, in the not-too-distant past, she had experienced a “hoo hah” when bananas made it to the shops, where egg powder was a poor replacement for eggs and where she needed to have a coupon to buy lollies. Her first port of call was in Sydney where she eventually met her now husband, Ian. Ian was a veterinarian who, among other things, worked pro bono overseas in such places as Timor and Sudan. Mandy would have loved to join him but as they started to have children she wasn’t in a position to go. Instead, when her first child was six months old she learnt to weave.
She started to learn what would be her lifelong passion at a Melbourne University Summer School, experimenting with weaving all sorts of different materials and went on to TAFE to further study her craft.
Thirty years after starting her diploma of education, Mandy started a bachelor of fine art at Monash University in painting and tapestry. And wanting to broaden her art education she went on to a graduate diploma in painting at the Victorian College of the Arts and then ultimately a master of fine art. Among other things she became excited at the idea of weaving the commonplace (and often discarded) to make the unusual, such as the two bibles she wove together into a long scroll. She tells me that as she cut up the tomes she couldn’t help but read the passages and concluded that in fact much of the Old Testament was instructions for living.
Like so many who had been through the deprivations of post-war Britain, she decided to emigrate as a £10 Pom. She left a country where, in the not-too-distant past, she had experienced a “hoo hah” when bananas made it to the shops, where egg powder was a poor replacement for eggs and where she needed to have a coupon to buy lollies. Her first port of call was in Sydney where she eventually met her now husband, Ian. Ian was a veterinarian who, among other things, worked pro bono overseas in such places as Timor and Sudan. Mandy would have loved to join him but as they started to have children she wasn’t in a position to go. Instead, when her first child was six months old she learnt to weave.
She started to learn what would be her lifelong passion at a Melbourne University Summer School, experimenting with weaving all sorts of different materials and went on to TAFE to further study her craft.
Thirty years after starting her diploma of education, Mandy started a bachelor of fine art at Monash University in painting and tapestry. And wanting to broaden her art education she went on to a graduate diploma in painting at the Victorian College of the Arts and then ultimately a master of fine art. Among other things she became excited at the idea of weaving the commonplace (and often discarded) to make the unusual, such as the two bibles she wove together into a long scroll. She tells me that as she cut up the tomes she couldn’t help but read the passages and concluded that in fact much of the Old Testament was instructions for living.
Yellow Pages Scroll, 10 metres And who would have thought that the Yellow Pages could create a 10-metre scroll? She sent this work to a triennial in Poland to which only three Australian artists had been invited. You will note that I referred to her sending her work there – because unless there was a slow boat going to Poland – she wasn’t going to get there. There are very few occasions where Mandy can be persuaded to board an aircraft. Instead she prefers the experience of living on a container ship for weeks to get to her destination. She likens travelling on a container ship to being in a desert. One has to be resourceful – and punctual! Don’t be like Mandy who was 20 minutes late getting back to the dock to find the ship had sailed without her. If you do – make sure you find the shipping agent damn quickly as well as the pilot ship and be prepared to climb 40 metres or so up the side of a moving vessel.
Despite this scare, she went on to take a boat to the Antarctic, travelling via the sub-Antarctic Islands to get close to Mawson’s Hut. They couldn’t walk the whole of the 9km ice sheet required to reach the hut because it would take too long and there was always the potential of severe weather changes and so they returned. Not so the travellers on the same ship just 12 months later. You will remember the expedition that got stuck a couple of years ago trapping 74 people for more than two weeks.
It really says it all about Mandy; she takes the slow boat to travel and the slow method to produce her art.
Despite this scare, she went on to take a boat to the Antarctic, travelling via the sub-Antarctic Islands to get close to Mawson’s Hut. They couldn’t walk the whole of the 9km ice sheet required to reach the hut because it would take too long and there was always the potential of severe weather changes and so they returned. Not so the travellers on the same ship just 12 months later. You will remember the expedition that got stuck a couple of years ago trapping 74 people for more than two weeks.
It really says it all about Mandy; she takes the slow boat to travel and the slow method to produce her art.
Australian Story (For the Term of his Natural Life): shredded and woven book pages Mandy finds the whole repetitive process of weaving or cutting and piecing together quite meditative. She says she goes into an almost semi-conscious state as she weaves whatever material she is using. “There is repetition in almost everything I do.”
Painting is her antidote for the slow stuff, she says. With weaving she knows what the outcome will be – but with painting she never knows.
So how is it, you ask, that Mandy came to live on the South Gippsland Coast? She really has Susan Hall to thank for it. They knew each other in Lilydale and Mandy and Ian decided they wanted to live in a smaller community. They spent many an exciting weekend searching for a new home. Their dream was for a wonderful, welcoming community as well as enough land to provide space for a huge studio. They found such a place along the old Tarwin Lower/Walkerville sand dunes of Cape Liptrap, and built their quite sculptural looking home with the help of architects and local builder Gil Trease. Even though no longer teaching in an institution, once the studio was built, Mandy started up a now well-attended art group. She can’t seem to stop wanting to teach.
Painting is her antidote for the slow stuff, she says. With weaving she knows what the outcome will be – but with painting she never knows.
So how is it, you ask, that Mandy came to live on the South Gippsland Coast? She really has Susan Hall to thank for it. They knew each other in Lilydale and Mandy and Ian decided they wanted to live in a smaller community. They spent many an exciting weekend searching for a new home. Their dream was for a wonderful, welcoming community as well as enough land to provide space for a huge studio. They found such a place along the old Tarwin Lower/Walkerville sand dunes of Cape Liptrap, and built their quite sculptural looking home with the help of architects and local builder Gil Trease. Even though no longer teaching in an institution, once the studio was built, Mandy started up a now well-attended art group. She can’t seem to stop wanting to teach.
Architext: shredded book pages on collage construction She doesn't wait for “inspiration”. For her, creativity comes from doing. She will “muck about”, find out things that work, and then keep at it. There are no one-offs for her. She creates a whole body of work, at the end of which the problems of the piece are solved. “Art,” she says, “should say something about life and the context that we live in.”
Her challenge is to use the things around her – anything from shopping bags to train and tram tickets, even echidna quills. And what she has now discovered is the joy that her friends have in collecting for her. I, for one, will be looking around me in a different way as I walk the trails of Bass Coast to see what I can collect for Mandy.
You can see some of Mandy Gunn’s works at ArtSpace Wonthaggi.
Her challenge is to use the things around her – anything from shopping bags to train and tram tickets, even echidna quills. And what she has now discovered is the joy that her friends have in collecting for her. I, for one, will be looking around me in a different way as I walk the trails of Bass Coast to see what I can collect for Mandy.
You can see some of Mandy Gunn’s works at ArtSpace Wonthaggi.