Stamps !

Little by little my secrets are coming out here in these pages, but we're far from done, in fact we've hardly begun, barely scratched the rusted surface, hardly glimpsed the tip of the iceberg. And never seen the lava deep below the surface that heats the geyser that blows its spout every so often.... Stamps ! I love old postage stamps ! I know, an old fashioned hobby for total nerds... well so be it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the truth is, there was a golden age in stamp printing back around the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. To my amateur eye, some postage stamp engraving and etching artists from that period were among the finest artists of any breed who ever lived. And their art was handled and looked at, even licked, by millions. How's that for success? Nobody licks the Mona Lisa, for example. This series of US National Park stamps from 1934 are high on my list of beauties. Click image for bigger view. There's Zion... (see Slickrock Art below). And how I would love to return to Crater Lake and see Wizard Island again... there's magic in the air there... as for the Grand Canyon stamp here, you could almost step right through into that warm red desert landscape... just like a magic wardrobe was a gateway to Narnia...