04/04/2026
POPPY DAYS – On Flanders Fields
A limited-edition triptych of woven art pieces from Thomas Cooper Projects, exploring iconography and human connection, POPPY DAYS was inspired by an image of the Anzac Day poppy and John McCrea’s World War One poem ‘In Flanders Fields’.
Artist Sally Thomas Cooper:
"In New Zealand we grew up with the ghost of the World Wars. Every small town has a war memorial and annual dawn parades of returned servicemen – like my grandfather Charles Dudding with his fascinating artificial leg with heavy leather straps (the original having been left on a field in France).
POPPY DAYS represents memory – and studies the images held in our minds and dreams."
Natural wool thread and roving ‘poppies’ are hand woven on solid bronze frames, with hidden layers of wool and cotton thread creating criss-cross patterns of military webbing and camouflage netting.
The three poppies represent:
ONE Red Blood - Bright Life and Hope coursing through veins
TWO Reality, Loss of Dreams
THREE Decay and Death
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
