A while ago a friend who is a quilter mentioned the Gee's Bend quilts to me as she knew I was making some stamp collages based on traditional quilt designs, after reading about the Franklin Roosevelt Postage stamp quilt made in the 1930s by Estella Weaver Nukes as a gift for the "stamp collecting president".
I was looking through a bag of US stamps yesterday, in my search for suitable material for my latest collage, when I found a stamp I had never seen before, and interestingly it features a Gee's Bend quilt! This one won't go in a collage, it will be added to my own collection, along with the other stamps in the set of Gee's Bend quilts issued in the USA in 2006.
I just love the vibrancy of the colours and designs, so different from the "pretty" quilts which African American slaves traditionally made to order for their owners. Many books and films have been made about the inhabitants of Gee's Bend in Alabama and their quilts, both from the past and present have been widely exhibited. One of the books features a contemporary quilt incorporating denim pieces, and this gives me further inspiration on colours from which to make future work. Stamp collecting and collage together seem to be a perfect combination for yet more inspiring projects to complete, and areas to research.
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