The artist on balance, mathematics and filling a red mesh sack with seeds for three weeks

Michelle Mayn’s fingers move deftly, taking the fine flax fibres in her fingers and binding them tightly together, focusing intently on the small weaving positioned on a piece of MDF positioned at the edge of her kitchen table.

Around her workstation there are little boxes full of various fibres and feathers, smooth stones and shells; there’s a petri dish and a glass of water she has been observing. She asks herself how it might change in the ebbing light or with the movement of air.

The artist looks at the materials around her not only as a source of inspiration or as possible additions to her weavings and three-dimensional artworks, but also as having a lifeforce (mauri) of their own.

“I’m really interested in what it is that makes a work have a kind of energy, a tangible presence, even though this might be beyond our perception.”

But she believes it’s the materials themselves that bring this quality to the work — when and where they were harvested and their connection to humankind.

Te Harakeke, Te Korari, 2021, dried harakeke, steel post, stainless-steel cable, stainless-steel turnbuckle by Michelle Mayn. Photo / Supplied

Michelle works primarily with harakeke (New Zealand native flax) and employs traditional Maori techniques of weaving, binding, twining and knotting, often incorporating found objects like wood and stone.

“It’s interesting that New Zealand was originally colonised for its flax, so it has a very strong connection with our land and culture.”

Michelle has no Maori whakapapa — her grandfather was a Scot — yet she was strongly drawn to weaving after a friend recommended a class. Previously she had been working in the family textile business.

“Finally I found something that was so me! Raranga [a weaving style used for food baskets and other small objects] is so mathematical, so precise and it’s also three-dimensional — you create the form as you weave. It’s a magical process whereby things start to happen on their own accord.”

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Michelle’s dedication to weaving saw her go on to study traditional and contemporary Maori weaving at Unitec in 2011, a stint at studying mixed media at The Art Students League of New York in 2017, followed by a Masters of Visual Art at AUT.

This week she exhibits Seeds and Sack, 2021, a work originally commissioned by her Auckland gallery “mothermother”, an exhibition space and network that encourages female artists to invite other artists they admire, in an effort to activate a supportive curatorial practice, and gallery representation for like-minded women.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Michelle Mayn (@michellemayn)

A post shared by Michelle Mayn (@michellemayn)

The sculptural work consists of a recycled red mesh sack from a wood fire Michelle enjoyed with her family during the winter of 2020. The sack was filled with flax seeds by the artist’s cupped hands over a three-week period — allowing the work to develop in its own way.

The red sack is held open with the counterbalanced weight of the pebble suspended from the ceiling, referencing the tension and fragile balance of any given moment.

“Once you take a work into a gallery it can become quite static, I’m always trying to change that.”

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The work grew over time as she returned to the space on a weekly or daily basis, until she felt the work had arrived.

Other recent works reflect Michelle’s diversity of practice and materials, most of which she gathers around the country — wood from waterways, shells and stones from the beach, flax and recycled items wherever she can find them.

Her flax sculpture, Te Harakeke, Te Korari, is displayed in the Auckland Botanical Gardens Sculpture exhibition and it stretches boldly across a lake and interacts with the elements to form an ever-changing picture.

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