WooMoo and Poppy
Artists: Meg Viney and the community of Wooreen
Materials: Hay and disused farm equipment

Artists

On Wednesday 3 February, a group of Wooreen residents were invited to Black Duck Farm to discuss the Great Southern Bale Trail Project.  Several of us sat around the table chatting about what it meant. I sat quietly, summoning an image that could comply with what was being bandied about. An image of a cow and calf popped into my mind, so I spoke up: ‘I have an idea’. Silence as heads turned.  I said ‘How about a cow and calf?’ Nicole, who had initiated this meeting said ‘Brilliant!’ Then others chimed in ‘But how?’

That evening I went home and drew up a cow and a calf, just standing to have its first suckle. Next morning I showed it to the few folk at the Farm and they reiterated ‘But how?’ The ensuing two weeks gave clarity to ‘just how’ as we gathered silage wrap, bail twine, silage netting, chicken wire and, of course, hay. The boys created the skeletal form from the scaled up drawing, and we looked on with admiration - they got it just right.

People were keen to see if this could be done, so put themselves on a roster to come and help, and before a few days had passed, were making suggestions, showing initiative, and WooMoo, so named, took shape.  Large shape. How to seal her?  I remembered rabbit skin glue - a substance I used to coat and strengthen my pine needle baskets.  It was perfect.

Being an experienced felt maker, and knowing we needed definition for the face, ears, nose and tail, I set to work and soon put those together. It was decided that the udder was sufficiently important to justify several women knitting squares to create the form over an old feather pillow. The day we put it together there was much laughter as we put knitting inside her nostrils, jacked up the udder and fiddled with the placement of eyes. And so to Poppy, the calf, who had just ‘popped out’.  One of the lads decided that gender equity required that he have a ‘fine pair’ as they were called. Again, with much mirth, Poppy came into being. A mere seventeen days after that meeting on 3 February, we had given birth to WooMoo and Poppy, but perhaps more importantly, we were a tightly knitted community.

megviney.com

Farmers
The Community of Wooreen

Located Mick and Jackie Thorn’s dairy farm
460 Leongatha – Yarragon Road, Wooreen

There is nothing small about the hearts of the 89 residents of Wooreen. The community came together to restore the Avenue of Honour in 2009 as a tribute to the Anzacs and in 2011 petitioned to reinstate the historical town’s name Wooreen, the small town on the verge of being swallowed up by Hallston and Leongatha North.  

So it was no surprise that as the Great Southern Bale Trail was announced that within just one week, a beautiful sculptural piece was dreamt up over cups of teas under the tutelage of their own local resident artist and sculptor Meg Viney. Together, the collaborative group went to work.

The piece is called ‘WooMoo and Poppy’ – a tribute to mother cow and baby calf and the farming community. Over 15 families across three generations dropped in daily at Tom Daffy’s and Deb Brown’s Black Duck Farm and cottages to lend a hand. Affectionately dubbed ‘Meg’s minions’, the group comprising of dairy and beef farmers, local residents both long timers and newcomers all contributed in various ways from donating hay bales and time, knitting udders, collecting fallen tree limbs and building a movable structure to allow for ‘WooMoo’ to be relocated to her final destination.

Local farm materials were reused for the 3 metre long sculpture - the silage wrap and local pasture straw were used to form the body of the cow whilst the skin was fabricated from the bale twine where lots of helping hands twisted and shaped the contours of the cow. The defining features of mumma and bubba are beautifully hand crafted by Meg in chocolate and black felt work and buttons whilst one senior resident who could not attend the working bee knitted pink wool udders, which stand out magnificently against the golden straw. At night, the piece is backlit.

Meg’s passion for gathering and featuring what she calls ‘nature’s cast offs’ is evident in the delicate structures. She has indeed reinterpreted and brought back to life what would have been either eaten or discarded.  

To complete the installation, Nicole and Tom Pouw and their children from Pouw’s Cows Beef farm have constructed a two sided hay couch where you can sit and be photographed with ‘WooMoo’ and ‘Poppy’ either in the back ground or you could choose to sit facing the girls in their natural habitat amidst breathtaking vistas. The sculpture is located on Mick and Jackie Thorn’s dairy farm, the duo instrumental in the making and the hosting of the cow and calf sculpture.

Nicole Pouw refers to the winding road from the creek, the boundary for Wooreen as the tangles, in aboriginal, it loosely translates as a place in the sun. Indeed you will find ‘WooMoo and Poppy’ perched on top of the hill across from the old dairy at 460 Leongatha -Yarragon Road. The meandering road is picture perfect amongst the ancient oaks and elms avenues, hillside vineyards and 360-degree panoramic pastures. We suggest a picnic lunch or a hot thermos of coffee to enjoy whilst you pause on the couch or further up at the picnic area at the Avenue of Honour where a bale installation complete with poppies awaits. If you come across any village locals, don’t hesitate to say hello, chances are they have had a hand in an udder or tail.

Above all, you will get to experience the perfect blend of community spirit and country hospitality – the farmers and residents of Wooreen are young at heart, inclusive, hardworking and have a humble welcoming spirit – it is the sort of town where roads are named after their family names and where families leave a legacy. WooMoo and Poppy is not just a work of art but also a work of love.
 

By Beatrice Imbert

Artist
Meg Viney with Pam Derrick

Farmers
Tom Daffy and Deb Brown