Once long, long ago (18 months ago, give or take), and in a land far, far away (Southern California), I was a working artist.
This was before "the project". I think I still had a life then. I can't quite remember.
But I do remember the day in early 2005 when one of my brothers called to tell me about a piece of art that he had seen hanging in the offices of a large philanthropic organization. This piece of art had really mesmerized him, and he had been quietly obsessing about it ever since.
And the reason for this obsession? Stamps.
He has had hundreds of them. He was careening perilously close to having thousands. From all corners of the globe. He and his family have been doing humanitarian work for many years, and it has taken them all over Central and South America, as well as several parts of Africa, Asia, and Russia. I have been with them to Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, but I am still anxiously waiting for the mission trip to the opera house in Sydney, Australia. So far, that particular trip hasn't materialized.
Anyway, on these dozens of trips over these many years, he began to collect stamps from the countries they were visiting, and sometimes the countries they were just passing through. Easy to obtain, easy to pack and carry, relatively inexpensive. Then word spread that he was collecting, and people began to send him stamps. And the little manilla envelopes that held them all began to bulge and spill over. What to do...he couldn't just toss them, but really, how many stamps can a grown man have in a filing cabinet at work just lying around?
And then he saw it. A map of the world collaged in stamps. And he knew just who to call, because he knew I would be intrigued by the challenge. When he explained it to me on the phone that first day, I immediately knew just how it would look completed, even before I saw any stamps. He emailed me a very grainy image of the one he had seen, taken by someone's camera phone and emailed to him. What I could make out was a much more impressionist version, with simple changes in stamp color hinting at the land masses. It was beautiful, but as all artists do, I had my own vision for the project.
Of course, my vision was going to require tracing and cutting hundreds of tiny stamps into hundreds and hundreds of teeny-tiny pieces. Sometimes I wish my visions were simpler.
So he sent me the stamps, and I got to work. (Actually I got to work about six months later, after he called and gently prodded me. I'm going with "creative block", because I have no other excuse, really.)
This piece is large. It measures about 44" x 60". You have no idea how small some countries get if the scale isn't large enough. I mean, Sri Lanka might have gotten left on the cutting room floor!
My goal was to represent each country with stamps that actually were issued by that country. That added greatly to the stress level challenge involved in this project. I would seriously have mild panic attacks about losing my one and only Madagascar stamp, and there were many times in the two months that it took me to complete this that I would lose track of my prized floral Indonesian stamps or my favorite statue of David stamp that was perfect for the boot of Italy. Ack! My studio space at that time was small to say the least, and stamps were Every.Where. Luckily, they were all ultimately found, even if sometimes it was on the bottom of a shoe.
Needless to say, my brother did not have stamps from every country in the world, and with his permission, I supplemented his supply with ones I needed from online auctions and private sellers. Stamps are surprisingly inexpensive when you don't need collector quality, and the small packages that arrive in the mail are magical in their diversity and diminutive beauty.
I have to say, I am really grateful for the way that this project reminded me about the details of world geography that I had become "fuzzy" on, and I was amazed at how connected I felt to the different countries as I was cutting and gluing their shapes to canvas all those weeks in my tiny studio. It was so interesting to observe the artwork that had been chosen by each government as a representation of their culture. Stamps from the African nations, for example, are very colorful, while the South American ones all have a vintage-y feel, very much like old cigar bands. Makes for very cohesive continents.
You may notice that all of the USA stamps are the traditional flag design, with the exception of the one along the Gulf of Mexico. I was working on this piece in the fall of 2005, while watching television coverage of Hurricane Katrina, so I used a "Love" stamp for the Louisiana/Mississippi region.
All in all, I used just over two thousand stamps. The distressed border is painted as part of the canvas, and there are many thin coats of an antiquing glaze applied as a finishing element, to sort of bring it all together.
This collage now hangs in the lobby of my brother's business. When I visited him last month, it was the first time I had seen it since I rolled it up and shipped it off to him. I am told that visitors love to stand up close to it, and are often surprised when they notice the detail. I am happy that it is well received. But mostly I care if he loves it, and I'm pretty sure he does. He was emotional on the phone when he first received it, and that made every stamp stuck to the table and every glue jar dumped on the floor totally worth it.
I had seriously sworn off of stamps forever after this project, but now that it has been nearly three years since I finished, I actually think I may want to do another one for The Boy. Cause now I'm the one with hundreds of stamps. Maybe close to thousands.
In a filing cabinet.
