A Patchwork Quilt Presented to a Stamp Collecting US President and my Stamp Collage version

Franklin D Roosevelt's Postage Stamp Quilt inspired this stamp collage piece.

Back in the 1930s, a very special quilt was made by an African American,Estella Weaver Nukes, as a gift to President Franklin D Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. Estella was a talented quilter and knew of FDR's love of Stamp Collecting so, with a team of helpers, made a huge bed cover using postage stamp sized cotton pieces.    I read about this in Kyra Hicks' book "Franklin Roosevelt's Postage Stamp Quilt" and having received a parcel of stamps from the USA containing many 6c stamps with FDRs portrait, was inspired to use these and other US stamps to make a stamp collage version!  It's a large picture and I don't often have occasion to display it easily, but it can now be seen in my latest exhibition at The Vault, George Street, Nailsworth  until 30th December 2017.  Together with Diane Young I'm  exhibiting a variety of work: Stamp Collages with subjects ranging from Flags, landscape, hearts, flowers and Quilts, and Diane is showing acrylic paintings including birds, animals, and fables. (www.dianeyoungartist.com)  The Vault is open from 12 noon until 11 pm every day.

Pushing the envelope - Patchwork quilt collage with envelopes and stamps

Messing around with the design for another stamp collage based on a patchwork quilt theme , I found myself cutting up some old air mail envelopes I'd recently picked up in a local charity shop to use as background for the flower basket motif which would appear in each square of the new piece. I had initially been  attracted by the postmarks from far away places with romantic sounding names such as Sacramento, Boulder City, Buffalo and Albuquerque, not really knowing what I was going to do with these old and somewhat tatty pieces of postal history, other than store them away to look at until inspiration should strike!  The stamps on the envelopes were mostly "nothing to write home about" - excuse the pun - but some were a bit more intriguing, such as the air mail envelope sent from California in 1938 which has the 6c American eagle Air mail stamp designed by President Franklin D Roosevelt himself, and which also has an interesting logo in red, showing  Placerville Calif. Pony Express Station and another logo slightly hidden by two green George Washington 1 cent stamps. It appears to be commemmorating National Air Mail week 1918-1938.
I never cut up anything I'm even slightly concerned might be "collectable" so this will end up in my own album!  However, some of the others have now been cut into squares and are being laid out for the background to the main design, complete with their red, white and blue air mail striped borders.

Rather liked this envelope so it's one to be kept!

Pushing the envelope is a phrase we often hear and I  wondered where it originated. In fact, it was first used in the 1950s when the space race began and the term, "pushing the edge of the envelope" came into being. The "envelope" referred to the atmosphere surrounding the Earth and to reach its edge was to reach space. Pushing the envelope is really about pushing boundaries or going beyond what you have been safely used to doing. In a small way, I'm pushing my own personal envelope, incorporating new, or in this case rather old or vintage,  materials into my  work, which just happen to be envelopes! Artists do this all the time really and often change their style. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but it's good to push those boundaries and experiment!

Still experimenting with a flower basket motif to add to my background of envelopes

Fronts and insides of envelopes form the basis of my latest "postal" patchwork quilt

Latest stamp collage inspired by the Franklin Roosevelt Postage stamp quilt

Two weeks ago I started to sort out US stamps for my latest stamp collage, inspired by Kyra Hicks's story about Estella Weaver Nukes who created a Postage Stamp Quilt for Franklin D Roosevelt.  This excellent book, Franklin Roosevelt's Postage Stamp Quilt tells the story of an African American woman from Indiana who presented her gift to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s. Each cotton fabric piece was just the size of a postage stamp, hence its name. Having spent the last two weeks designing, sorting stamps, placing them in a pattern which at a distance would possibly resemble an American patchwork quilt, I've finally settled on the pattern and stuck down the many stamps. Just imagine how long it must have taken to make the original stamp quilt in fabric, and how many pieces it must have taken,

 sewing each tiny square by hand! I  wanted to feature the 32nd US president himself prominently in my stamp collage, also including the Liberty Bell, American eagle, yellow roses, mixed roses and four different birds, including the Eastern Bluebird which proved rather elusive and was my final stamp to be stuck in place necessitating another search  through the enormous pile!

detail showing Franklin D Roosevelt in centre

 

US Bird stamps including the Eastern Bluebird 3c

Franklin D Roosevelt's Postage Stamp Quilt (in cotton fabric and stamps!)

I recently referred to a connection between stamps, stamp collecting and quilts, all of which I'm interested in. Learning that the 32nd President of the USA, Franklin D Roosevelt was known as the Stamp collecting president, I've been reading about his love of the hobby and how he learned so much about the geography and history of the USA from stamps and went on to become involved in their design.  He was instrumental in the first stamp issued to commemmorate Mother's day in 1934. This stamp featured the painting "My Mother" by the American artist Whistler - and the president said it would be great if Americans could send a card to their mother with this 3c  stamp on the envelope on Mother's Day.  FDR was responsible for advising on the issue of approximately 200 US stamps during his presidency, including some of the first Airmail stamps, and stamps commemmorating some of the National Parks of the USA which would help to boost tourism.
The link between this and my own work, creating a "quilt" design made of stamps has been the result of another discovery relating to Franklin D Roosevelt and his stamp collection.  I've just read a very interesting book by the author and quilter Kyra Hicks, who has carried out research about a presidential gift to FDR of a "Postage Stamp Quilt".  This was a quilt made by an African American named Estella Weaver Nukes from tiny, postage stamp size, pieces of cotton fabric.  This quilt has never been found but it is thought that Estella made several quilts.

Franklin Roosevelt's Postage Stamp quilt by Kyra Hicks

 My second "Stamp Quilt" is now in the design stage and I'm hoping to incorporate more American stamps and maybe include some of the many stamps I have showing the Stamp Collecting president, FDR.

I've spent hours today sorting out a huge bag of stamps from the USA with the iconic images of the Stars and Stripes, Statue of Liberty, Presidents of the USA, and the American Eagle in many different shades. It's just a case of deciding which to choose to make up a quilt design!

Star Spangled Banner - Flag of USA Stamp Collage

Work going on in the studio means it gets rather untidy ...  but the latest USA flag collage is almost completed, having searched for suitable stamps to include.

I finally found a stamp showing  Franklin D Roosevelt, mentioned in previous post, as he was an avid stamp collector. He's in the top left hand corner of this detail of the flag.