Enid marx

Enid Marx once pondered ‘whether postage stamps are fine or industrial art. In my view the question rests on the quality of a design rather than its purpose. It is generally agreed, for example, that the work of Thomas Bewick is fine art, even when it is merely the engraving of a “trade card”.’ Marx was a textile designer, book illustrator, lino-cutter, wood-engraver, poster illustrator and, yes, postage-stamp designer (‘The calling card of a nation’, as she put it) and in all these things, the quality was unquestionable. Her unique, memorable designs were absorbed, unknowingly, by any number of people. Her best-known work was the sturdy moquette fabric she designed for seats on London Underground in the 1930s.

It’s the thin end of the wedge, the slippery slope, the beginning of the end of a civilised Christmas. It is the first week of December and I still haven’t started my cards. My friend Charlotte was at it in October. She signed up for a lino-cutting class, cut holly boughs and robin redbreasts and printed her own cards. She sent me photos of the fruits (berries?) of her labours and very merry they were, too. Usually, I am a Charlotte. By November, I have made cards, addressed envelopes, applied thumbs to 80 stamps. But after an illness in the autumn, I’m feeling as uncreative as a turkey. Could I cheat and send emails with a pious little homily about how, for the sake of the planet, I’m forgoing paper cards this year?