Gee's Bend Quilts on Stamps of USA

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.

The S S Robin - the last British Coaster - my latest stamp collage

The S S Robin is the last of the British Coasters which plied their trade around the coasts of Britain. Built in 1890 in London, she was sold in 1910 to Spanish owners and renamed Maria. She was under Spanish ownership until 1974. In 1966 she had a refit and her structure was modified. She was discovered by the Marine Trust in 1972 but in 2002 she was purchased by David and Nishani Kampfner, who founded the S S Robin Trust and have been carrying out major restoration on her. She was towed to her original home in East London in 2001 to much celebration and work is nearing completion for her to be opened as an education centre and gallery in the Royal Docks, London Borough of Newham.   We visited London's Docklands last year and were able to see from a distance this amazing old vessel and my latest stamp collage is my version of her. I've used mainly British stamps in the construction of the ship, from the Victorian era through to more recent times.  The original is not yet framed but cards and prints are now available direct from me - you can visit my studio today, Sunday 12th May from 11 - 6pm and same time next week-end 18th and 19th May, or by appointment, during the Stroud Open Studios festival.

The Leaning tower of Pisa stamp collage

On 30th January, I mentioned that I had started to make a picture os the Leaning Tower of Pisa. My theory is that if I tell someone I've started, it puts a little bit more pressure on me to complete the task! Well, six weeks later, I've finally finished this one. Quite a lot of searching around for little figures to include in the foreground and on bell tower level.  I also got rather obsessed with trying to include Galileo in the picture as he was born in Pisa and there are many stories relating to his experiments in which he is said to have dropped objects of different weights from the top of the tower to prove that they would land at the same time. There is nothing in his own writings to prove that he ever did this, but it makes a good story!

Galileo Galilei was commemmorated on an Italian stamp of 1933 - and his portrait appears on the tower.  See if you can spot him.

Another set of stamps was issued in September 1942 to commemmorate the Death Tercentenary of Galileo.  Such a beautiful set of stamps, in perfect condition in my own collection that I didn't have the heart to cut them up!
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Instead, here's a picture of the four stamps featuring different events in the life of Galileo.
The tower itself is made from carefully cut pages of an old Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue.

People are so kind!

After seeing the article in the American Philatelist, a very kind reader from Massachusetts sent me a whole box of US stamps. Can't wait to start making some more collages, but will also keep some for my own collection!

This stamp says it all : Letters Lift Spirits.