Stamp Category:  Commemorative

Set:  Art of the Skateboard

Value:  63¢ First Class Mail Rate (Forever)

First Day of Issue:  March 24, 2023

First Day City:  Phoenix, Arizona

Quantity Issued:  18,000,000

Printed by:  Banknote Corporation of America

Printing Method:  Offset

Format:  Pane of 20

Self-Adhesive

Why the stamp was issued:  This stamp, along with the other three Art of the Skateboard stamps, was issued to celebrate the artistry of skateboard decks.

About the stamp design:  The design was created by Alaskan Tlingit/Athabascan artist Crystal Worl.  It pictures a blue and indigo salmon design expressing her cultural heritage.  The stamp was created using a photograph of Worl’s skateboard deck design.

First Day City:  The Art of the Skateboard stamps were issued in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Desert West Skate Plaza during the Cowtown Phoenix Am skateboarding contest, an appropriate choice for the stamps’ First Day of Issue Ceremony.

About the Art of Skateboard set:  According to the USPS, “These four stamps celebrate the Art of the Skateboard with vibrant designs that capture skateboarding’s excitement and reflect the diversity and influences of the four artists whose work is featured:

Crystal Worl, an Alaskan artist used a blue and indigo salmon formline design to express her Tlingit/Athabascan heritage.

William James Taylor Jr., a self-taught Virginia artist created an energetic red and orange graphic abstraction.

Federico “MasPaz” Frum, a Colombian-born, Washington, DC-raised muralist painted a stylized jaguar.

Di’Orr Greenwood, of Arizona represented her Navajo culture with a turquoise-inlaid skateboard that features eagle feathers and colors of the rising or setting sun.”

History the stamp represents:  Crystal Worl is a Tlingit, Athabascan, Yup’ik, and Filipino artist from Alaska.  She and her brother own the Trickster Company, which started out selling skateboard decks but now offers many other products.  In 2023, the US Postal Service pictured one of Worl’s skateboard deck designs on a stamp.

As an artist, Worl takes much inspiration from her Native American heritage.  Many of her works explore the relationships between her people, the land, and the animals.  When approached about using her art on an Art of the Skateboard stamp, the Postal Service’s art director asked her to incorporate a salmon into the design.  Worl said “I’m always down to do a salmon.  I’m from the Lukaax.ádi clan, the salmon Sockeye clan, and I never get bored of drawing it in a different way.”  In Native American cultures of the Pacific Northwest, salmon represent prosperity, renewal, and fertility.  They are a traditional food source and have many stories told about their importance.

When Worl began working on the blue salmon design for the 2023 stamp, she said:  “It’s always like a really satisfying thing when you spend all this time designing something… and it’s finally finished and you get to hold it in your hand.”  One can only imagine this is especially true when the finished product honors traditions that have great meaning to so many people.