Stanley Gibbons

This is going to sound like sour grapes but...

Earlier this year I entered a competition for a work of art on the Hoe to commemorate 150 years since Stanley Gibbons set up a business in Plymouth which ended up becoming a world leader in stamp collecting.

I was quite disappointed when I didn't win this commission because I thought I had a good idea - one that made an oblique reference to the fact that Gibbons is suspected of being a serial wife-killer.  Here's a photo of the key aspect of my proposed design:

Gibbons was born in the same year as the Penny Black stamp was issued so I proposed a sheet of Penny Blacks with selected stamps replaced by Gibbons' portrait to create a question mark - one that hangs over his private life.

The image on the Penny Blacks, of Princess Victoria, might also be seen as a reference to Gibbons' four young wives, all of whom died in mysterious circumstances - possibly poisoned by Gibbons who was trained as a pharmacist and had access to chemicals in his father's pharmacy.

My view was that Plymouth City Council should celebrate Gibbons' achievement in the stamp-collecting world but also acknowledge the suspicions about his private life - which were the subject of a BBC documentary a few years ago.  If they ignored it, they risked being made to look foolish.  Also, the public would be much more interested in Gibbons' possible "dark side" than in stamp collecting!

Wrong!

I went and had a look at the winning project today and (a) it makes no reference to the suspicions about Gibbons and (b) it really is quite disappointing.

It's just some flags put on the existing flag poles.



There's going to be different sets of flags designed by the artist, Joanna Brinton, working with local schools and community groups.  I suspect the community involvement was a big positive for the selection committee.  (I tried a similar idea, without success, on the Energy from Waste sculpture - see previous post).

If you didn't read the board explaining the project (below), you'd be hard pressed to figure out from the first set of flags that this had anything to do with Stanley Gibbons or stamp collecting.

There's also a long strip of polished stainless steel further back.  It's supposed to reflect back different aspects of the surrounding environment as viewers walk around the site, but I don't think it works.  The mirror is too far away from the flagpoles for people to realise it's part of the installation.

Also, it's hard to work out what's being reflected in the mirror.  It's angled so you can't see the flags or the Hoe's fantastic waterfront (missed opportunity?).  All you can see is, er, maybe it's the top of some trees?