STAMP HAPPY : First Purchase Seals the Fate of Collectors With a Lasting Image of Being Easy Marks

Karen Heeger is a typical rubber stamper.

Four years ago, the savings and loan official discovered a rubber-stamp shop in Santa Barbara and walked out with a reasonable six-stamp purchase.

Today Heeger has 1,750 stamps (most of them purchased for $4 to $7) in her Saugus home, where she has turned a spare bedroom into a collector’s paradise. She uses the stamps to create cards, stationery--even fancy baby clothes. And, almost monthly, she makes a pilgrimage back to Mecca--Stampa Barbara--the Santa Barbara store that boasts it has the world’s largest selection of stamps (70,000) and accessories.

“Most of the people I know in stamping are consumed by it. It sort of takes over your life,” Heeger said.

“Rubber-stamping doesn’t make people compulsive,” added Cathy Endfield, a Sherman Oaks artist who uses stamps in some of her assemblages and prints. “But compulsive people are definitely drawn to rubber-stamping.”

$30-Million Business

The rubber-stamp industry is expected to do more than $30 million in business this year, with 250 companies nationwide manufacturing the stamps. Most stamps are sold through mail-order catalogues, but such stores as Stampa Barbara--which has grown from 100 square feet to 2,000 square feet in five years--report that business is booming.

According to Rubberstampmadness, a bimonthly newspaper, Southern California has the highest concentration of stamp shops in the country (A Stamp in the Hand in Long Beach, Stamp Stamp Stamp in Santa Monica, See Spot Run in the Farmer’s Market, The Lady and the Stamp in Fullerton and two Stampa Barbaras, one in Santa Barbara and a satellite shop on Melrose Avenue).

At a recent rubber-stamp convention in Carson, which drew people from all over the country, a large crowd arrived an hour before the doors opened to get first crack at the new designs, then lined up three and four deep at tables to sort through the stamps for sale. Heeger overheard a woman bemoaning the fact that she was spending her food money on stamps and would be eating tofu for the next two weeks.

“Stamping is quick,” Heeger said. “You can do a really eye-catching piece in a few minutes to an hour. I think that’s what people are looking for today.”

Typical stamped artwork is brightly colored and whimsical. A basket is filled with lifelike yellow sunflowers. Mona Lisa (a popular image) is seen rising from a bathtub. Butterflies flutter; mice scamper.

There are stamps for cute teddy bears, surrealistic Dali clocks, Sgt. Bilko, the Chrysler Building and sushi--something for every taste--and a far cry from the utilitarian stamps in many stationery stores. With thousands of images and dozens of colored ink pads and felt-tip pens to choose from, the possibilities seem endless.

The stamped image can be colored with felt pens and augmented with glitter. Stampers can make one image appear to be behind another (like a bunch or balloons) or convey the feeling of movement across the page. There are bookmarks, invitations, greeting cards, even wrapping paper to be made.

“It’s perfect for people who are heavy-duty creative but not artistic,” Heeger said.

Addictive Hobby

Sue Nan Douglass is a Bell Canyon resident who carves her own stamps from erasers, sells her designs to a commercial stamp company and has stamped artwork exhibited in several museums. “My husband says I’m like the camel who just wanted to put his nose in the tent,” she said. “But it’s so easy to get hooked.”

Her most ambitious works are wall hangings that show dozens of species of wildflowers--bird’s beak, Dutchman’s breeches, prairie coneflower--stamped in rich springtime colors and interspersed with a carefully drawn and alphabetized list of the names of even more wildflowers. She has exhibited these pieces in a one-woman show at the Long Beach Museum of Art and had them reproduced in art books.

“Anyone can learn to carve erasers,” Douglass said as she showed examples of designs her students carved on their first attempts. A registered nurse who works part time at Kaiser Permanente, she recently taught a class of 20 Los Angeles school teachers at a Barnsdall Art Center workshop. She also demonstrates her techniques to senior citizen groups.

Decorating Envelopes

One of the most popular uses of stamps is in mail art. No self-respecting stampers would allow a plain envelope to leave the house.

When Douglass’ daughter Dina recently mailed a resume to a record company, she asked her mother to stamp the envelope that contained her job query. “She was calling me from Fresno with directions. ‘Use this stamp. Don’t use that one.’ ” Her daughter got the job.

Most stampers are content to produce clever cards and mail them to friends. But a few have turned their hobby into a business.

Sharon Jaczek’s successful mail-order stamp business began by chance when she discovered old metal engravings at the Saugus and Rose Bowl swap meets.

“Old men would be selling them for a dollar each. I liked them but I didn’t know what to do with them. I tried stamping directly on paper but it didn’t work too well.” A Simi Valley graphic artist, Jaczek eventually had rubber stamps made from the engravings.

Southwestern Designs

Jaczek began Rubber Stamp Express a year ago with 300 designs, a mix of her swap meet engravings and original creations. She specializes in Southwestern and postage stamp-size designs, drawing inspiration from outside her drafting table window. The ocotillo plant in one stamp was drawn from a plant near her pool. While most of her mail art is stamped directly on envelopes, she sells perforated sheets of blank stamps and perfectly scaled images to fit them.

Jaczek still works a few days a week as a free-lance graphic designer but is increasingly satisfied to spend her workweek processing mail orders.

Working part time, Jaczek did $12,000 in business the first year. Although she has been urged by stamp store owners to sell wholesale, Jaczek likes the mail order and convention business best. It allows her to meet stampers, in person or through the mail. And, of course, no orders, or even requests for catalogues, go out without colorful stamped images across them.