Panel A09 Trumpington Postboxes

TRUMPINGTON POSTBOXES
by Katherine

What’s your name? Katherine McGilly

Where do you live? I have lived in Great Shelford for nine years

Can you tell us a bit about your panel?

My panel is made up of four individual post boxes stitched to their backgrounds.

What inspired you to make a panel on this topic?

Clare Collier suggested making a panel of a bright red telephone box, but there isn’t one in Trumpington, so I volunteered to make a post box. I intended finding a post box set into an interesting wall full of moss, ivy, different textures and colours of brick. However, although the post boxes vary in age, the walls were consistently dull, including the hedge at Gilmerton Court.

I therefore made four small post boxes set into their walls and the hedge: one on Rutherford Road; one opposite the parish church on the road to Grantchester; one in the wall of the old post office in Trumpington; and one in the hedge outside Gilmerton Court on Long Road.

What materials & techniques did you use?

A9 Katherine at workshop wsAt the mono-printing workshop led by Clare Collier I printed a wall on calico as a background for the post box on Rutherford Road.  The post box opposite the church is set into a wall of mixed colours and canvas-work stitches (my favourite panel!). After experimenting with various stitches and textures for the white-painted wall outside the old post office, I eventually decided they were too dull. I therefore introduced some colour by threading torn strips of fabric randomly through an interlock canvas.  The hedge at Gilmerton Court was another idea from Clare. Layers of various shades of green organza were machine stitched with a fine, random leaf pattern for the Gilmerton Court post box.