Local artist painstakingly creates flag out of fabric poppies
Kristy Gold’s thumbs are still sore, but she’s proud of her accomplishment.
Gold spent the better part of a week creating a 52-inch-by-36-inch Canadian flag made out of fabric poppies.
And she had handed it over to the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 642, to display.
Gold, who works at the Elephant’s Nest in downtown Chatham, is artistically inclined and an annual participant in the downtown Remembrance Day ceremony.
It only made sense that these two passions of hers would collide.
Gold said she’s responsible for the window displays at the Elephant’s Nest.
“I do all the displays for the different holidays,” she said. “I had just taken down the Crowfest pieces and I decided I wanted to do a Remembrance Day one. I figured it would be nice to do some poppies. But I was conflicted. I wanted to do a flag as well. Then…what if I did a flag made out of poppies?”
With that combination in mind, she set to the task. It involved cutting out about 700 poppies from red and white fabric.
The poppies I cut by hand. They’re all different sizes. I got two different types of red and one of white,” she explained. “I spent hours cutting them out. You’ve got to fold them a certain way to give them depth.”
From there, the poppies were pinned to the 52-inch-by-36-inch piece of plywood that holds it all together. Gold said her mother helped her with cutting the plywood to size.
The family effort continued, with her daughters helping by putting the black tacks through the centre of each poppy.
And then Gold put them in place on the plywood; 700-plus times.
“My thumbs…I felt it after the first day,” she said of pressing the tacks into the wood again and again.
The initial plan was for a display to go in at the Elephant’s Nest, but chatting with patrons changed Gold’s mind.
“A lot of our patrons are veterans. I showed some of them my progress,” she said. “Then I decided to donate it to the Legion. It felt important.”
She also expanded her initial plan to make the larger flag.
“The feedback and reaction from the veterans I know personally…I wanted to make it bigger and put it at the Legion,” she said.
Gold attends the Remembrance Day ceremony at the cenotaph on Sixth Street in Chatham every year.
“Remembrance Day, for me, is a day of remembering those who fought for our freedom, who fought in our past and will fight in the future,” she said. “If I can contribute to bring back the memories or keep the conversations going, great.”
