British Artist's Collages Give Stamps a New Lease on Life

To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II this year, British artist Rachel Markwick has created a Union Jack stamp collage using stamps of Great Britain issued during the Queen's 60 year reign. 

The This Is Gloucestershire website reports Rachel started making stamp collages like the one shown above a decade ago after the death of her father who was a stamp collector. In fact, both her parents had run a business dealing in stamps as a sideline and, even after selling many of them, the family was left with boxes of old stock.

Rachel is quoted as saying, ""The stamp dealership took up a whole room and we have had to sell most of it, but I did keep some of the stamps and that got me going on the whole idea of stamp collages."

According to the article, "Despite being a stamp collector herself, Rachel has no problem with cutting the materials she uses in her designs.Value-wise they are worth just a few pence each at most and, as far as she is concerned, it's better to have them out in the open displayed as part of a collage than languishing unseen in a drawer."

"My designs give stamps a new lease of life," she said.

To read the entire article, click here.

To view some of Rachel's other collages, click here.