States Series of Artistamps by The Olathe Poste

Series of Greetings Artistamps - Western U.S. States
by
W. C. "Bill" Porter
The Olathe Poste

Greetings from California - the first artistamp in this series by The Olathe Poste.

In the year 2002, the United States Postal Service issued a sheet of 50 stamps, one for each state in America with a message of "Greetings from" and the State name. This issuance was delayed because of an advertising snafu. But when the stamps finally were released to the public, you were forced to buy an entire sheet of 50 US Postage stamps in order to obtain just one that was of interest to you.

Several mail art friends, the first being Bev Dittberner, asked me to save any "Greetings from California" stamps for her and she, in turn, would save her "Greetings from Colorado" postage stamps for me. Having just returned from a trip to southern California. Where I only had enough spare time to take two photographs and one of which was a beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean, complete with surfer walking down the beach. I decided that I too had enough photographs in my collection to issue similar 'greetings from' state stamps and at the same time, help out my fellow artistamp makers and mail artists.

As usual, The Olathe Poste standards of stamp making apply. There are currently only nine stamps in this series -- so far. Because although I've lived in several of the western states and, visited all of them, these are the photographs I've made that are suitable for the project. The stamp sheets are printed on either C2S Litho or KromeKote™ dry-gummed papers with a high gloss finish in full, four color digital process and pin-hole perforated. Stamp collectors can safely remove these, like all of our stamps, by cutting the stamp off an envelope and then soaking the stamp that is affixed to the envelope in a bowl of tepid water to loosen the gum adhesive. Once the stamp has floated free from the paper it was adhered to, rinse the stamp in cold water. Dry the stamp on a non stick surface after patting off any beads of water from the surface. Mounting of the stamp in an appropriate album for stamp collecting can then be accomplished in normal fashion.


Greetings from Arizona One of my favorite sunset photographs that I caught in the late '70s.	Greetings from Colorado Photograph of the last sunset of the 20th Century Kathy and I captured between Ouray and Silverton, Colorado; December 31, 1999.	1978 Self portrait is the image used for my Greetings from Montana artistamp. Little doubt why Montana is known as 'Big Sky Country.'	Greetings from Nevada artistamp by The Olathe Poste. Open spaces, buttes and large bodies of water are beautiful to behold anytime of day in Nevada.

Greetings from New Mexico St. Michael's Cathedral in Socorro, NM. Photographed near sundown in 1979.	The original, unaltered sunset photograph of this oilfield pump just didn't lend itself well in stamp form. So the colors were altered for drama and impact in the Greetings from Texas faux postage stamp.	Greetings from Utah Utah in the spring is a place to view light and shadow transforming Mother Nature's wonders with even more splendor.	Greetings from Wyoming An image of an antelope that didn't know I was following him is what I used for the faux postage stamp sending out greetings from the State of Wyoming.

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The Olathe Poste
P.O. Box 707
Olathe, Colorado 81425
Telephone 970-252-1212 * FAX 970-252-1211

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