| Date of publication: | October 2023 |
| Published in: | The Stamp Forum Newsletter, Volume 8, Issue 1. |
I know not by what power I was made bold as to sit down today at this eleventh hour, writing this little piece on the art of stamp collecting to an audience composed of connoisseurs whose average age is double of mine and who are much more knowledgeable than I am in anything philatelic. Bold as I may appear, I have never been bold enough to call myself a philatelist. In my self-introduction to the Forum, I called myself at best a ‘part-time stamp collector’ whose collecting activities have always lain outside of the sphere of competitive exhibiting.
Figure 1: The Czech stamp celebrating the World Mathematical Year 2000.
I started pursuing stamp collecting seriously after seeing the black-and-white print of the Czech stamp celebrating Andrew Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s last theorem in a maths book while still majoring in pure maths at university. Before that time, buying new stamps and soaking used stamps were simply the by-products of my letter-writing hobby. For a very long time, this Czech stamp, which was not so often seen on the market, was the long-sought Holy Grail for me. I pursued it with the most ardent zeal and utmost patience. In years that followed, while waiting for its appearance on the market at an affordable price, I began to distract myself with other maths-related materials, which slowly extend to include topics such as sciences, arts, architecture, then landscape, etc. I guess I have become a topical collector of some sort. However, somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, the desire to acquire a copy of that Fermat’s last theorem stamp has always been lurking, and I would imagine myself so accomplished – in the highest sense of the word – once this goal is attained.
Alas, it wasn’t the case.
Finally adding this Czech stamp to my collection last year didn’t make me feel the kind of accomplishment I had imagined back in university when my eyes first fell upon this stamp in print. For 20 years later, this stamp is, cleverly designed as it always is, useless to my current collecting goal – for want of a better word.
In recent years, ever since I started producing artworks (called ‘philagraphs’, a new word coined in a vote by Forum members) using my stamp collection I would say, I have become more of an applied stamp collector instead of a pure stamp collector. This is to say, nowadays I acquire stamps based on their potentiality of being used in my artworks or social causes. Instead of studying the technical aspects of stamp production, design, and identification, or appreciate the timeless aesthetic allure of stamps for their own sake, I am more interested now in how they can be repurposed into a canvas for artistic expression.
To this end, I see the Czech stamp as useless because neither Fermat of French nationality nor the British mathematician Andrew Wiles has much to do with the country known as Czech Republic today. I can’t find any artistically significant way of incorporating different philatelic elements into one coherent visual storytelling with a concordant location-specific postmark issued in this country of Slavic ancestry.
I don’t know that much about past and present philatelists, but in my previous and current disciplines, there is a very clear attitude of disdain displayed by the purists towards the applied practitioners – pure maths/sciences vs applied maths/sciences, and even pure (fine) arts versus applied arts (design, craft, functional arts, etc.). Those who pursue something for that thing’s own sake generally think less of those who treat that thing as a means to an end. As an ex-mathematician whose Erdős number is infinity, I must confess that I was – and to some extent still am – one of these purists who scorn at all kinds of ‘worldly’ applications, when it comes to the dichotomy between the pure and the applied.
And indeed, my recent endeavour at using some of the rarest stamps I have ever handled might meet with a righteous indignation from the purists. They might be vexed at my breaking up a complete Ultraman philatelic collection to realise a maxicard that is not even FIP-compliant, or my using a 1919 set of mint stamps for a charity project that aims at promoting human welfare. These stamps of supreme beauty, a beauty cold, austere, and otherworldly like that of abstract mathematical structure, they may argue, should be best kept in their pristine condition to preserve their values. And they are most likely to be right, at least monetarily speaking.
Nevertheless, unlike a non-representational art that can be said to bear no relation whatsoever to the outside world or to the weaker nature of mankind, that hence is refined from all utilitarian coarseness, stamps, on the other hand, were invented to be used, to serve a certain pragmatic purpose, that is to mark to payment of the due postage. In addition, we all know that a stamp is not merely a piece of paper with adhesive back. At least in the case of Canada’s postage stamp program that is curated to highlight the country’s culture, history, and natural heritage, a stamp is always of national, socio-historical significance. By fusing philately and artistry to convey stories and messages beyond the stamps’ original intent in my works, I am also giving those stamps that were damaged by a turn of misfortune a second life, seeing that being hinged, thin, having no gum, and other defects on the back side of the stamps that void their premium values don’t matter for my artistic exploration.
Although shifting cultural trends and evolution in postal service are stripping off stamps’ functional utility, as they have increasingly become pure collectibles, beautiful objects of a philatelist’s contemplation, no sensible people would disagree with me that making use of postage stamps is an ordinary occasion for gratifying an utilitarian spirit, insofar as postage stamps remain functional objects. I have thus made a transition across the great divide, switching between two sides at ease from pursuing stamp collecting for its intrinsic value, to for the real-world-problem-solving potentiality this hobby can bring.
Figure 2: Left: The cover of the maths book in which I first saw a black-and-white image of the Czech stamp celebrating World Mathematical Year 2000. Right: Excerpt from the page in the book showing the image and description of Fermat’s Last Theorem.
LINDA’S ARTWORLD 