The Postage Stamp As Art And Inspiration For Art.

Here are four paintings done in the shape of postage stamps. The top stamp was inspired by the cover from VANITY FAIR a few years ago. The second stamp was part of the design for a poster I designed for a fund raiser in Dayton, Ohio for The Other Place. The last two stamps were painted in oil on gesso covered paper and were done before May, 1992. (The reason I know that is because they were in my first art show in May, 1992 at the Carnegie Art Center in Covington, KY.

I first started collecting postage stamps when I went on a cruise on a Norwegian freighter out of New Orleans in the summer of 1964. I wanted to collect something from each country I visited and not having any room for objects of any size, I decided on postage stamps because I could put them between the pages of the few paperbacks I took with me. Later in 1964, before going into the army, I started a stamp album of American postage stamps. I like stamps because they are like a very small piece of art. And since at 21, I did not have the money to collect bigger art, I collected the art of postage stamps. I still have my American stamp album and I even have a few foreign stamps that I have held onto along the way. I still have the first stamps I bought at the post offices in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Columbia, and the Dominican Republic.

Stay tuned.