Actual US Stamp Collecting Stamp? I Never Seen It Before??

Quote:
"ALPHABETILATELY": The origins of this previously mentioned presentation by Bill Senkus are discussed in his own words. "In February of 1997, about the time I was trying to decide what I needed to do to get ready for Pacific 97, my friend Alyson approached me, suggesting we put together "some sort of presentation to promote Pacific 97 and stamp collecting" for the local chapter of the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), of which she is a board member. She has a very enjoyable obsession for alphabets, so that seemed an obvious format. We enlisted our mutual friend Sheryn to help, and developed the concept further. We picked one philatelic topic for each letter, and envisioned a rather casual presentation in which I would talk informally, somewhat as though I were simply sharing my collection with my friends in my stamp room - something I enjoy doing with Alyson and Sheryn. The idea was to illustrate how rich and varied stamp collecting really is, while of course entertaining a very graphic-arts-oriented audience with imagery that they would enjoy. I agreed to prepare slides to show real examples of the topics, while Alyson said she would try to interest S. F. Bay Area designers in creating original artwork of some sort to illustrate the topics. I soon had far too many slides to show - some I prepared myself from material in my own collections, others I borrowed, or made from pictures in auction catalogs (some of which are amazingly good); and Alyson succeeded far beyond her hopes in getting local designers to join the project - we ended up with twenty-six rather extraordinary stamp-like images - the one for "R is for RPO" is my favorite, of course. The original presentation on May 14, 1997 was a great success. We used two screens, with the artist-created images on one, and my examples of the topics on the other. We had the sponsorship not only of the AIGA but of Crane Business Papers (for whom Alyson works), and they put on a gala reception before the show, and another after. I was far too nervous to enjoy either, of course, but I'm told the show went well. I decided I wanted to try it on a philatelic audience, so I got a last-minute spot at Pacific 97, and presented it again on June 2, 1997 - the audience was small, mostly friends from where I work, but they and the few collectors who showed up seemed to enjoy it. Then this April, on 4/22/98, we presented the show in Seattle, again for the AIGA, where the audience was very warm and appreciative. And on June 19, 1998, we presented it to a group of stamp designers meeting under the auspices of the USPS - it was part of a yearly conference they hold to get design input from all segments of the stamp creation process. I'm still not sure what they hoped to get out of it, but they were very polite, and seemed to enjoy it as well. We got to meet several members of the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee -CSAC (they pronounce it see-sack!), and saw some very hush-hush yet-to-be-issued designs (there will be a set of trains next year, though we did not get to see those). Finally, I've booked a slot in the program for the APS STAMPSHOW in Santa Clara, CA (Saturday, August 29, 5pm), to try it out on collectors again. As we've gone along, I've been creating souvenir covers for each showing - we've had not only the 26 artist images (which exist at this point only as slides), but show-specific cinderellas and engraved invitations for each of the AIGA presentations, with which I've created "first day covers". For the USPS event (in Newport Beach) I made covers using the new Trans-Mississippi stamps, which I had autographed by some of the CSAC members and other attendees, and intend to send in for First Day cancels. Meanwhile, Alyson has been working to get the rights to the artist images assigned to the AIGA, so that they can be reproduced as a set of postcards that the AIGA could sell. The issue of rights to the images has been the biggest frustration of the project, as it has prevented me from sharing it more widely. I'd like to write a set of articles, perhaps even a book, and while I could do that without using the images - the topics stand on their own - still I consider the artist images an essential part of the concept now, and any sort of publication is impossible until the legal issues have been wrapped up. So for now it remains a traveling slide show. Still, it's been a lot of fun - far more work than I ever envisioned, and expensive - I now have twenty-six additional collections! But fun!"