Postcards in the Air : WHY ARTISTS COLLECT

Thursday, February 20, 2025

WHY ARTISTS COLLECT

A page in a sketchbook using stamps as a focal point

Stamp collecting as a child opened my eyes to other worlds. I loved the feel of the old, thin paper and the designs printed on them. Looking at one-color small portraits of historic figures or events led me to discover the history and culture of a person or place. I grew to love history by collecting stamps. I ran to the mailbox in hopes of finding unusual stamps in the stack of mail. I wasn't a stamp collector who put a monetary value on my stamps, but I did keep an eye out for the Inverted Jenny, that rare upside-down airplane stamp that is now worth millions.

To save the stamps, I cut them off their envelopes and soaked them in water till they slipped off the paper. I dried them on a paper towel under a book and then placed a hinge on the backside so that I could adhere the stamps to the pages of my stamp book, which was sectioned into countries. When I went to college, my stamp book sat in a closet at home. Over the years though, I found myself drawn to stamps as I stood in line at the post office and looked at the stamps on display.

While we lived overseas at the turn of the century, I collected the stamps in Japan and France. I wandered through Marche aux Timbres, the outdoor stamp market in Paris, and stood in line at the local Japanese post office where I was flabbergasted to see people drop off shopping bags to be sent through the mail with no additional packaging. I also had to learn not to lick envelopes or stamps there. Instead, I used two-sided sticky tape. By that time, the stamps around the world had become colorful and designed by artists. While looking for flat objects to include in mixed media projects, I bought small bags of used vintage stamps that I sprinkled throughout some of my mixed media sketchbooks. I found that placing a stamp somewhere on a blank page lets my imagination flourish.

I sat this weekend in a workshop led by Annie Cicale, a noted calligrapher and artist. She offered various ways to create art books with the idea that the content is the most important part of the book, leaving the construction of the book to the end. As I was sifting through my pile of paste papers and scrap papers, I rediscovered an envelope full of used vintage stamps. An idea erupted: I could make a Stamp Book!

First draft of my Stamp Book

I created a first draft of the book and decided that I would make the graphics stronger on the next try. (I will soak off the stamps to reuse them.) And then I thought about the last couple of years as we downsized and gave away items that we no longer used, including all of our stamp books. We had agreed that they might be a spark in someone else's life to discover history and culture. Thinking of those books, I had one of those moments of recognition as to why artists collect things to the point of being hoarders when really those collected things might turn out to be the next big idea.