James Koetting - Postal Workers Canceling Stamps

I heard this awhile back on a Hearing Voices podcast from NPR - a recording of postal employees in Ghana canceling stamps.

3D Architecture Dutch Stamps

Postage stamps for philatelically and technology inclined architecture lovers.

Handmade Artist's Christmas Cards

Catching on on reading, and came across this article in the December issue of Smithsonian magazine about an exhibit of artist's handmade Christmas cards at the Smithsonian Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. An interesting note in the article is that the cards were selected from a collection of artist's ephemera, an archive that includes journals, photographs, and sales receipts. (Be careful what you save!)

Blockprint sent by William Zorach, Lithuanian-American sculptor, and his wife, Margeurite, to artist Alfred J. Frueh.


Frederick Hammersley's screenprinted Christmas card design.

More Artistamps

An homage to Wilson's in Door County, made to go with the postcard below. Just a cropped unedited photograph with text added. I think I had the pinhole perforator when I made this, but for some reason chose to use the old Fiskar's postage stamp edger instead. The perforator might have been buried under the leaf blower and other lawn-related junk as it lives in the garage right now.


A Wilson's hot fudge sundae (pencil/colored pencil, pen), with A- waiting for me to take the photo in the background. My kids are very tolerant of my quirks, generally speaking.

This is the first artistamp I ever made, I think. No graphics software, so just text printed on cardstock, and then the sisters were collaged together on top of gold tissue paper, glued onto the background, swiped with a gold inkpad, flicked with gold paint, and then reproduced by color copy. It was made for a book group invitation to a discussion of Wuthering Heights.

Artistamp Mailing List Anniversary

It's time for the annual AML (Artistamp Mailing List) anniversary exchange. This is the 10th anniversary, though I have only participated in three of the exchanges so far. At the moment I can't find the first one I did, but the last two years were still on my desk or by the computer.

9th anniversary: digital photo of watercolor/rapidograph (old college-era) piece and added text in Photoshop.

8th Anniversary: another re-purposed watercolor, this one was unfinished (for good reason), but fixed the bird's beak and added a background in Photoshop.

Owl Post

Take an plush owl. This one happens to be an Audobon Great Horned Owl. About 5 inches tall. (It also has a recorded "hoot" that plays when you press its abdomen...) Write a note, roll it up and enclose it, along with some glow-in-the-dark stars, in a "baby soda bottle" (a 2 liter bottle before it is blown up). Tie it securely to the owl's leg, attach a label and postage, and mail it to your kid at camp!