Gisteren (= yesterday) I happened to have received a special, 3D mail art elephant. One of the coming days I'll post it on my animals mail art blog. But there is a reason to share some part of it here today with you: two stamps showing a 'gebouw' (building; 'bouwen' means 'to built').
When receiving this piece of mail art I was immediately attracted by this gebouw:
Not because of the gebouw (building) itself, but because of the name. In my twenties I loved to listen to so-called new wave music, and the band 'Bauhaus' had a song I really liked. Later in life I learned about the art movement 'Bauhaus', including architecture. But seeing this stamp made me think of my own geschiedenis (= history) and I was pleased to welcome this gebouw-stamp.
On this piece of mail art there was an other stamp showing a gebouw, which happens to be a galerie (not to be confused with a galerij), namely the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany.
(It was impossible to put the 3D mail art object in my scanner, so I hope that these photos will do.)
The following stamp sheets depict the geschiedenis (history) of Spain in a grappige (funny) way.
Although geschiedenis is no grap (grapje, joke in English), and although it is a sad fact that people don't seem to learn from history and invent bad wheels again and again, and despite of some of the cartoons making me sad because of the depiction of disgusting deeds, I think this 'light' way of sharing historical facts is a good one. Maybe people will learn easier from images than from spoken or written facts.
(By the way: the English word for 'grap(je)', 'joke', has a false friend, too. In Dutch Joke (written the same way, but pronounced 'yoe-ke') is a normal, not necessarily funny, girl's name!)
See more stamps on the letter 'G' at and via today's Sunday Stamps!
