First Showing - AIGA - 5/15/97

Alyson Kuhn was on the board of the SF chapter of the AIGA, and was the prime motivator and organizer of our first outing, as she has been for every presentation since. For that initial event, Alyson recruited local SF Bay Area artists and illustrators to create the images that accompany the letters of the alphabet, plus the image below, which was part of the invitation to the event. Our friend Gigi was the only one of us with the presence of mind to create First Day Covers for the stamp! (Click on the image for more)

Second Showing - Pacific 97 - June 2, 1997

Our second showing was at Pacific 97, which had been the inspiration for the whole project, so seemed an appropriate venue. The audience was mostly our friends, since the people attending the Expo were too busy waiting in line to buy stamps and get FD cancels applied at the USPS booths, where it took up to several hours to reach a clerk. It was like Disneyland without the scenery or the rides. But the two postcards below were released that day, so I created my own souvenirs of the occasion, by waiting in those endless lines myself. (Click on the image for more)

Third Showing - Seattle - April 22, 1998

The following Spring, Alyson arranged a presentation of the slide show for the very active and hospitable Seattle chapter of the AIGA. Two local designers, Jon Cannell and Greg Morgan, created the sheet of Cinderellas below for the occasion. We spent half the day creating souvenirs, and had the good fortune to find an excellent Philatelic counter at the Seattle Post Office. (Click on the image for more)

Fourth Showing - USPS Stamp Design Conference - June 19, 1998

The stamp and invitation created for the first showing of our alphabet in SF were published in PRINT magazine, where Terry McCaffrey, the director of stamp design for the USPS, saw them. He called Alyson to learn more about the project, and soon we had been asked to put on the show for a committeee of USPS stamp designers. It coincided with the the release of the Trans-Mississippi stamps, so I created souvenirs of the event, though I confess I had to mail in to get the cancels, as we were too far from the stamp show where the release took place. (Click on the image for more)

Fifth Showing - Vancouver - May 31, 1999

The counterpart of the AIGA in Canada is the GDC, or Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. Their Vancouver chapter invited us to put on the slide show, and its president, Matt Warburton, created the invitation below. While there we created a few mementos. (Click on the image for more)

DICKSON'S OF ATLANTA - EPHEMERA PHILATELICA