The Million Edition Rubber Stamp

Erratum (29th April 2019)

I visited Boekie Woekie in 1993, as an 18 year old graphic design student from Ravensbourne College. I discovered Michael Gibbs postcard…

Limited edition of one million

Unable to afford to buy it, I made a note in my sketchbook. Approx a year later, I copied the work and made my own rubber stamp, and used it to stamp the back of my handmade greeting cards.

Looking back, I did not think anything of taking and using another artists work. In fact I did not remember who had made it or where I had originally encountered it. Coming from the context of design, it was very common to browse design annuals and magazines and copy layouts and compositions.

Today I feel embarrassed, and ashamed. It is this work that seeded the idea for The world’s largest signed and numbered limited edition artwork.

26 years later, how do I correct and apologies for copying an artwork as a naive teenager? If it was not for my friend and avid artist postcard collector Jeremy Cooper, who recently discovered Gibbs postcard and who shared with me, I probably would never have returned to consider or have remembered. I would have lived in self denial, that it was I who was the author, forgetting I had copied, stolen and replicated Gibbs work. As time passed I really thought I had made the work.

I owe a lot to this work, I should have been pointing to it, and sharing, not taking credit and fake authorship.