The makers of Cabinet magazine sometimes do bigger projects- like books. For this book they asked 15 artists (or artist groups) to come up with a set of postage stamps. The artists did some really interesting concepts. My favorites (images below) include: the artist collective Line Up’s stamps of things that USPS prohibits being sent through the mail (glue, scabs, blood, kittens), Sandra Eula Lee’s stamps of stills from movies where important letters were being opened, written or mailed, Melissa’s Brown stamps of misprinted money (bad alignments, ink smears, overprinted parts) and how much it’s worth, and Vandana Jain’s stamps of security envelope patterns (home page image). The stamp set are printed on real stamp paper so you could actually rip them out and stick them onto things. There is a disclaimer in the beginning of the book that warns you not to try actually putting them through the mail. This book is a beautiful object all together- the clothbound hardcover and gold foiling on the cover remind me of fancy stamp collecting albums. I picked this book up at my favorite local shop but you can get it here too.

© Julia Rothman 2007