Artistamps are little works that mimic postage stamps. Sometimes they are issued for a nation of the artist's own design. This little set are experiments that explore US postage, informed by the USPS.
The top left is from a stamp collecting catalog. I carefully cut out the printed perforation and the printed subject. Now they are a pair of frames, to suggest that anything they frame is a forever stamp. The top right is made from a business reply envelope. I like that the security houndstooth suggests perforations as well as the
barcode that makes zazzle stamps (custom printed legal postage) usable. I love that barcode- if custom stamps didn't have a horrendous barcode I would have purchased hundreds by now. As for the rest of the artistamps, the blue ones are from a stamp I carved to plant as a letterbox. The mammoth is drawn on a gutter (blank square from the corner of a sheet of stamps) that is partly machine perforated and finished off with my hand perforations. The tin man is drawn on the back of a USPS forever stamp.
I am pretty excited about the tin man stamp. As far as I know, I have just invented using legal postage as a base for imaginary postage. On an envelope the artistamp becomes a secret, but a clear postcard displays both the legal and the fictional postage.
Here are both sides of the stamp, and here is the extremely awesome Kansas Statehood commemorative stamp. I just want to use these for everything. The colors are so fresh and bold.
These are for a swap, so I packaged them up safe in a glassine envelope taped to a clear postcard.
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