Peter Tully – Australian AIDS Memorial Quilt panel

Quilt panel, part of Australian AIDS Memorial Quilt, in memory of Peter Tully, 'Fierce Queen' cotton / paint / ink, made by David McDiarmid and Jack Allen, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 1992 Large square quilt panel, portrait orientation. The left side contains twelve colour printed photographs with 'PETER TULLY' screen printed in pink on a green background. On the right side of the panel is 'FIERCE/ QUEEN / DIES OF / AIDS / attitude / survives'. Lower right corner contains a large photograph of Peter Tully 1947 - 92.This panel was made by David McDiarmid and Jack Allen, Sydney, Australia in 1992. Reference: Yardley, A., & Langley, K., 'Unfolding:The Story of the Australian and New Zealand AIDS Quilt Projects', McPhee Gribble Publishers, Ringwood, Victoria, 1994, . "We'd done an obituary to Peter in the Star Observer that said Moody Bitch Dies of Aids' and that had created a bit of a stir. We wanted to do something that was a little different with the panel. I also wanted to make it jump out, very simple, plain and dramatic, so we made two panels - the first with the caption, and then an accompanying one with nine photographs of Peter in different outfits, because he was an artist and created costumes. Jack and I felt that the outfits that he made - not to go in galleries, but to dress up for a party or a particular night - conveyed his personality and his style and wit, all of that, so we used photos of him dressed up at home over the course of twenty years. The usual form for an obituary is one of respect, sadness, and for his best friends to describe such a well known public personality as a moody bitch - I mean, it took people aback. They weren't used to that sort of attitude, but it's just the way we talk about one another in real life, so it should be reflected in how we're remembered - and it was done with love. It's something that I wouldn't like to see a stranger characterise Peter as, but we have the right to claim that for ourselves. It was kind of our feeling at the time, but I think Peter wouldn't necessarily have agreed, so for the quilt we decide on 'fierce queen'. Fierce is a word that we used in the eighties and it refers to a confidence and an attitude that Peter would have identified with. I wanted to make it very bold, and also to have to word AIDS in it. I thought that was important because it's not usually acknowledged in the panels. .......I made the lettering very plain, very simple, so that from a distance people could see it and understand" p.113.