The title of my Christmas exhibition is I Saw Three Ships to tie in with the well known carol but it also has a very personal link.
The first stamp collages I made were the three ships featured in the poem Cargoes by John Masefield, the Quinquiremen, the Stately Spanish Galleon and the Dirty British Coaster. I have prints available of all these three but for sentimental reasons will never part with the originals! Ships seem to have become a recurring theme for my stamp collage work over the years and I've produced quite a few!
Inspired by visits to the banks of the River Severn at Purton - known as the Ships' Graveyard, I made The Dispatch and the Severn Trow Norah, just two of the many ships' hulks now resting there. It's a great place to visit. Britain's last remaining coastal steamer, the S S Robin, now restored and shortly to be opened a s museum and ehibition centre in the Royal London dock was another subject for a stamp collage, and recently I've also made my version of the S S Great Britain. Two clipper ships, the Sower (La Semeuse) and The Blue Lady have been named for the French stamps used in their sails .. there is a whole collecting area dedicated to this little definitive stamp and a book has also been written about it.
"I Saw Three Ships" is a Christmas Carol and each year I make a Christmas card to send to friends and family. These have included an angel, a Christmas tree, a Christmas wreath, a robin and a dove of peace, and Saint Nicholas, whose own story as Saint Nicholas of Myra, a town in Turkey, included his performing several miracles, one of which featured using the wheat cargoes of three ships to save the starving people of the town.
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