The Bulgarian Stamp

The still life with an enlargement of an old Taiwanese stamp seemed to beg for a companion. Perusing my stamp collection from the 1960's, I came across a Bulgarian stamp that incorporated an art deco looking fish. The Latin words on the stamp identify this as a Hake fish, native to the South African coast. Could it have been part of a series of stamps depicting fish from around the world?

This stamp set the stage for everything that now surrounds it in the final composition. The old antique Encyclopedia of Embroidery yielded some designs with fish motifs, which I painstakingly rendered stitch by stitch. A fossil shark’s tooth served as a three dimensional "buckle" to unify all the paper and fibers in the composition. Finally, I transcribed from The Book of Songs, a poem about fish in a quiet pool.

In a final quirky finish, I signed my name in Cyrillic on the stamp, matching the Cyrillic script for Bulgaria.