Juanita Pöhl 

AUSTRALIAN RAIN

Some of my friends have wanted to know more about the process of wire sculpting – and some showed interest in my inspiration for the project. I love to ‘talk art’ and will gladly share:

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Poppy was meant to be a little girl who held her dad’s hand as she jumped into a puddle of water.

 

We would’ve seen the dad’s hand holding Poppy’s left hand, with his arm fading artistically into the air. The water would’ve made a big splash around her feet (which would’ve been challenging to create, but spectacular if successful!)

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The inspiration for the project came from an art show that I wanted to take part in. Micah 6:8 was given as the stimulus for the project:

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“He has told you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice,

to love kindness

and to walk humbly with your God?”

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Mulling over this portion of scripture made me feel calm and free.

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How simple the answer to such an important question: What does He require? Do good, be kind, stay close… Isn’t that what any parent would ask from their child?

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Just as a parent delights in the joys of their child, so too God takes pleasure in our happiness.

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With her hand in her dad’s, and her freedom to utterly enjoy what is pure, Poppy would’ve encapsulated my interpretation of this verse.

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I couldn’t finish the project in time, however, as I had a deadline before the art show deadline: I was going back to South Africa to visit friends and family for the first time after immigrating to Aussieland.

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I tried my utter best to work as fast and efficient as I could, but another big deadline at work demanded priority. A lack of sleep and fear over going back to South Africa had me emotionally and physically drained.

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I hugged her and left her.

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After returning to Aus it took several months for me to find the courage to finish the project. I wasn’t going to continue with the initial concept and decided to draw inspiration from the artwork itself, instead of trying to impose meaning on it.

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My sculpture was just a happy little girl with curly red hair.

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Only in the last few weeks of working on her, did the meaning emerge: she’s a poppy in a field.

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Most Australians would be able to link the red poppy to respect for fallen soldiers in World War I. I’m not sure if that’s true for South Africans. I certainly didn’t have an understanding of the significance.

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I now know that the red poppy became a Remembrance Day symbol because of a poem that was written by a brigade surgeon, John McCrae, who was ‘struck by the sight of bright red blooms on broken ground’. He wrote “In Flanders Field” in which he ‘channelled the voice of the fallen soldiers buried under those hardy poppies’:

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‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row…’

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But that’s just the first two lines of the three-stanza poem, Juanita… Why stop there?

‘Between the crosses, row on row…’

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I have to stop.

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Because

I

. . . have . . .

. . . . . . seen . . .

. . . . . . . . crosses . . .

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row

. . . on row . . .

. . . . . . on row . . .

. . . . . . . . . on row . . .

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White crosses

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Hundreds of them.

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Each representing a farmer that was recently murdered in South Africa in a very current and active war.

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No… this post won’t turn into propaganda about the ‘white genocide’ in South Africa (as some refer to it). There would be too much to say, and very little to be done… My mentioning of this is merely as part of my own exploration of what it is that I created.

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One of my friends, Willem Bezuidenhout, commented: “Art actually tells us so much more about the artist than it does about the art itself” (freely translated), and there is truth in that… and herein lies that truth for me, for this project:

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I’m a poppy in the field,

swaying in a breeze;

I’m not broken by the battle;

to the guilt I will not yield

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I’m the little one with curly hair

who jumps for joy and freedom

in a land abound’ in nature’s gifts

of beauty, rich and rare…

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I will embrace your history, Australia, and I will pray for your future.

And I will wait with you, South Africa, for the end of your war.

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