Inspiring Stamps

As I look back at 2012 I see that the 2011 Project continues to play itself out as a sketchbook for future work.  The stamp thing all started with this little piece back in January 2011 (shown above).  Now I’ve added a number of new and larger stamp pieces with certainly more to come in 2013.

101 Years of Airmail

101 years ago today the first airmail letters were sent. It was a short distance - from Santa Rosa to Petaluma, CA. Last year I commemorated the event with a piece for the 2011 Project. I used postage stamps, aerogrammes and other airmail labels throughout the year in many of the 365 pieces. Some of the examples are above. 100 years from now it may become difficult for artists to incorporate stamps in their art as mail becomes less common. In the meantime, I have a box of stamps to keep using.

December 14, 2011 – Brown Paper Packages Tied Up with Strings

I miss tying up packages with string. The post office started frowning on the practice and then they banned it years ago. I know, it messes up the machinery, but still, I miss it. Yesterday I mailed off Christmas cards and a few packages. And I have to wonder how long into the future this will go on. Less and less cards are being sent and the U.S Postal Service is struggling. In the meantime, I’ll keep buying Christmas stamps and sending Christmas cards.

September 28, 2011 – Stamp Collecting

Stamp collecting is one of those hobbies that few kids bother with.  When I was young, I collected stamps and still have most of them.  The collection is not particularly valuable.  Most of the unused stamps from the 1970’s are worth their face value, so when you adjust for inflation, they are worth even less.  But for most kids, stamp collecting was not about their monetary value.  It was about buying the latest commemoratives at the post office and always learning a little something about geography and history.  Stamp collecting was about older family and friends giving you the stamps they received on letters from foreign places.  It was a way kids connected with the wider world.

Over the course of the 2011 Project many of the postage stamps I have saved all these years have made it into the various art pieces.  Today I was going through old stamps and had a startling revelation.  Stamp Collecting made me into a socialist! 

My impressionable young mind was corrupted by the subversive messages on postage stamps.  I am not talking about the images of tractors and factories on stamps from Hungary or the DDR.  The red star emblazoning Soviet stamps had nothing to do with it.  It was all those left wing stamps put out by the U.S. Postal Service.  Under Nixon’s watch, stamps were promoting the U.N., the Peace Corps and even a whole series glorifying postal workers.  Gerald Ford allowed stamps promoting energy conservation and collective bargaining.  And that old lefty Ronald Reagan allowed stamps promoting public education, credit unions and celebrating social security.

Now, seriously, none of these stamps were controversial in their day and there was no reason they should have been.  And anyway, presidents have little say about postage stamps, but can you imagine if any of these stamps had been released during President Obama’s administration?  Fox News et al would be screaming socialism. 

Years later and I am still learning something from stamps.  They are a little history lesson, or even a time capsule.  40 year old stamps from a time when the United States was a country where most of us saw government as a force for good that was improving our country and improving our lives. 

September 18, 2011 – Orange

During the course of the 2011 Project there have been some mixed media pieces that are solely about a particular color. Today, with fall colors on the way in some parts, the color is orange. It’s all about orange.

August 11, 2011 – Your Pen Pal Olga

I am pretty much the last generation that had the pen pal experience. There might be a modern version via the internet. But the experience cannot be the same. There was a limit to the amount of information you could really put in a letter. It’s not just email — the forwarding of websites and images, instant messaging and social network sites would all make for a very different experience. Part of the pen pal experience involved time. The time between letters and waiting for responses was part of the experience. Young people with pen pals had an understanding of the size of the world and how long and tenuous those connections to other kids around the planet were. For many young people it was their first connection with different people in far away places.

So, when was the last time you wrote a letter to Olga?

July 30, 2011 – Defenestration

I was a freshman in college taking a class in Eastern European History when I first learned the word defenestration. I love that word. A word dedicated to tossing things out of a window and particular inflexible political leaders. I just don’t ever find occasion to use it. The first of the two defenestrations occurred on this day in 1419 back in Prague. Considering the state of affairs in Washington, it might be a time to teach the Tea Party crowd about defenestration. But I think the history lesson would be lost on the sort of people who can’t even get the basic facts of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride correct.

I wish I had more opportunity to use the word. This morning I actually defenestrated a set of house keys out my window. And, if I tossed scraps from the 2011 Project out the window, it would look something like today’s piece.

July 1, 2011 – O Canada!

Today is Canada Day, or for some of us old enough to remember, Dominion Day. I have been to Canada hundreds of times. That sounds like a lot unless you know that I lived in Buffalo until I was 14. We lived less than two miles from the border. At an early age, I understood that Canada was a different country and I knew that what meant. I believe that part of my fascination with maps is connected to the hundreds of border crossings I’ve made. When a border, an arbitrary line on a map, is part of your daily existence — it makes you more aware of maps and the role they play.

This piece is also featured on a print/poster available from Society6.

June 26, 2011 – Weekend in Havana

Back in 1941 Carmen Miranda helped glamorize the ultimate getaway – the weekend in Havana. As soon as the war was over, travel was easier and trips to Cuba came back into style. Maude and Jack got down there for a little trip in January 1946 to see the Caribbean Shore where the view and music is tropical. I imagine a trip full of fruity cocktails and dancing the rumba. I have surmised all this from a postcard they mailed to their friend Patty Ann Burdge on Mapleleaf Avenue in Cincinnati. The card read as follows:

Dear Patty Ann,

Jack and I are in Cuba, come over on a big airplane. Everyone is so nice to us and I can’t understand a word they say, so they smile, and try to tell me by going through the motions.

Lots of Love,

Maude + Jack

Before cutting up these Cuban postcards I preserved them in a scan (see below). Patty Ann received a card with a cosmopolitan image of Havana. I had another card from the same era that depicted the cutting of sugar cane. Perhaps I am reading too much into the image, but there is something foretelling about the worker armed with a machete in the foreground while the plantation boss wears a pristine white suite and sits astride his horse. I could not resist juxtaposing both images, but then again, historical hindsight is always 20/20.

May 19, 2011 – Tokyo

I like to travel, but my desire to travel is usually limited by both time and money, or the lack there of. Oh to have both so I could go and explore the places I want to see. People who love travel tend to keep a list in their heads of places they want to go visit again and places they still want to see. Like individuals, no two lists are alike. Japan and particularly Tokyo are high on my list.

So for today’s piece with the 2011 Project let me try an experiment. Can I manifest my desire through my art? Many of the new agey books claim you can have what you want if you wish for it. Could you imagine if it works? Some high-end gallery showing my work in Tokyo, yen pouring in, business class tickets SFO to Narita. Getting lost on the subway in Tokyo. Pointing to pictures on menus. And, if manifesting my desires through art really takes off, you’ll see me on PBS during pledge week in an infomercial like setting. Move over Suzy Orman, here comes Tofu.

April 20, 2011 – The Queen

Tomorrow is the Her Majesty’s birthday. What do you get for an 85 year old woman who, well, has everything? I am not particularly concerned, but I can imagine her family is always challenged. I picture Charles and Camilla schlepping around an Ikea outside of London. Mulling over a new set of plastic containers for her corn flakes. It can’t be easy.

As Her birthday is tomorrow, you might wonder why this piece today. Well, being the Queen, she doesn’t even really celebrate tomorrow. Her official birthday is in June. And while she is born on the cusp, you have to wonder if having an official birthday with a parade is just an Aries thing.

And, at 85, for most of her subjects, as well as the rest of us, she has always been the Queen of England (plus all those other places). Like the Elizabeth centuries ago and Victoria, the British make those queens to last. Happy Birthday Ma’am!

February 18, 2011 – Airmail

Yesterday I went to the post office to send something via airmail. In 2011 that seems almost quaint. But I do like to keep sending fun things via the mail. It was an appropriate thing to do yesterday. It was the 100th Anniversary of the first airmail letters, officially being sent by plane. On February 17, 1911 the letters made the trip from Santa Rosa to Petaluma. On February 18 (probably about the same time allowing for the international date line), the first letters were sent via air for a short distance in India. A century later, it’s obvious that airmail is towards the end of its life — in particular the airmailed letter.

Before 1911, correspondence was also sent via hot air balloon and courier pigeon. There was a brief time when you could send mail via zeppelin. If it were possible to send my mail via zeppelin, I’d run straight to the post office with a pile of letters.

When I was a kid I collected stamps. None of the stamps are of great value. I have a box of old commemoratives I bought at the post office. They have actually lost value when you adjust for inflation, but as they haven’t been cancelled, you can still use them. More of the stamps are beginning to turn up in my art. I also have those random foreign stamps on envelopes that people would give to a kid who collected stamps. My grandmother was a department store buyer in Buffalo. She would receive these small, hand sewn canvas packets from India with samples. I still have a few of those. Considering India’s role in airmail, it seems appropriate to dissect one for today’s piece.

January 21, 2001 - Postage Stamps

Is it a map? You may see a collage of old stamps. I see an autobiographical map reflecting the countries I have visited and lived in, so far. So yes, it is a map. A map made of stamps. The patchwork of stamps and the curves and lines of postmarks even create an appearance of some exotic country.

Many of the stamps used were received attached to letters and cards. Mail from friends I made and family I visited in those different countries. Email may be quick, efficient and free. But it lacks the magic of opening the mailbox to see a card or letter covered with stamps from some distant place. A real piece if mail, in your hand, from far away, carries the energy of the sender in a way that no email really can. I continue to send and enjoy receiving good, old fashioned mail.