Big Idea on a Small Canvas : Stamps: Artists earn up to $3,000 for philatelic designs honoring people, places, events, movies, and even love.

“There is more behind stamps than just glue . . . .” --Gordon Morison, assistant postmaster general

Frank Thomas was talking about the “think big, draw small” artists he deals with every working day as program manager, philatelic design, U.S. Postal Service.

Thomas, 39, from his office in Postal Service headquarters at L’Enfant Square in the nation’s capital, is involved with postal stamps from inception to sale at 35,000 outlets nationwide.

He sat beneath a huge blowup of this year’s “Love” stamp, two blue lovebirds hovering over a red heart and a sprig with six tiny green leaves. The Love stamp was released in ceremonies on Jan. 18 at the Romance, Ark., post office.

“The public has no idea who the artists are who design postage stamps. They are anonymous celebrities. Their names never appear on the stamps,” Thomas said.

Jayne Hertko, 28, a New York City graphics designer, did the Love stamp.

A few artists have created scores of stamps. Some, like Hertko, have designed only one.

“Designing a postage stamp was something that had never entered my mind when I enrolled in Bradbury Thompson’s class at Yale four years ago,” Hertko said in an interview.

She said she was one of 18 students in Thompson’s class, working toward her master’s degree in fine arts graphic design. “Prof. Thompson has been the artist for many postage stamps. He had an arrangement with the Postal Service for a class project to try to design a postage stamp. I submitted five drawings, one was the Love stamp.”

The Postal Service’s 13-member Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee, appointed by the postmaster general, accepted Hertko’s design and four years after she painted the lovebirds, heart and sprig, it became a reality.

“Creating that stamp is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me. Now my parents understand what I do,” said Hertko, who grew up in Palos Heights, Ill., where her father is a doctor.

This year is the 150th anniversary of the postage stamp; the “Penny Black” first circulated in London, May 8, 1840.

The first two U.S. stamps featured portraits of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and were issued in 1847.

To date, there have been 2,500 different U.S. stamps. Each is pictured and described in the Postal Service Guide to U.S. Stamps, a collector’s bible that sells for $5.95.

“Stamps are a way to pay tribute to people, places and events that are part of the history and culture of this nation,” Thomas said. “The Postal Service receives upward of 30,000 letters a year with suggestions for new stamps.

“Each year, the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee considers all the suggestions at bimonthly meetings and approves 30 to 40 new stamps. The artists are selected by a four-member stamp design coordination committee.”

Rejects include stamps honoring the 100th anniversary of the pretzel industry, with beer-flavored glue on the back; the anniversary of the outhouse; and Whoda Tom, champion hog caller.

“When Whoda Tom lets go of one of his calls, strips of bacon jump from the frying pan,” wrote one of his fans. Another writer, noting that the post office has the Love stamp, asked, “Why not have a hate stamp?”

An artist receives $3,000 for a stamp design. In a series of three or four stamps, the payment is $2,500 per stamp; five or more in a series, the fee is $2,000 per stamp.

Stamp artists are called “think big, draw small” folk because their finished product is only five times the size of a typical 1-by-1 1/2 stamp.

Last year, the Postal Service printed 42 billion stamps. A commemorative issue has a run of about 160 million stamps, which sells out in 30 to 60 days. However, the stamps are available at the service’s philatelic centers for up to a year.

“It has been a thrill for me to go to the post office the last couple of months to buy stamps because the most exciting stamps offered for sale just happen to be my husband’s,” said Ami Blackshear, 35.

Thomas Blackshear, 34, did the popular classic film series now on sale.

The performers and films featured are: Judy Garland holding Toto, “The Wizard of Oz”; John Wayne, “Stagecoach”; Gary Cooper, “Beau Geste,” and Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, “Gone With the Wind.”

The artist, who has done numerous movie posters for Lucas Films, Disney, Paramount Pictures and United Artists, says he did the stamps in the style of old movie posters.

Blackshear, who lives with his illustrator-writer wife in Novato, 28 miles north of San Francisco, has done four other stamps--of Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, Ida B. Wells, A. Philip Randolph and James Weldon Johnson for the Black Heritage Series.

The artist has also designed 29 collector’s plates for the Hamilton Group Plate Co., including “Star Wars,” “Wizard of Oz” and classic comedians’ series.

“I am the first artist in my family. I have been an artist all my life. If I wasn’t an artist I don’t know what I would do,” said Blackshear, who considers being a stamp artist “truly a blessing, the highlight of my career.”

For Howard Koslow, 66, of Long Island, N.Y., who did the five-stamp lighthouse series now on sale, being a stamp artist “is a great honor. I feel like I’m participating in history in a small way.”

A professional illustrator, he has been the artist for 16 stamps since 1971. His favorite was his 1983 stamp of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I grew up in Brooklyn and went to school in Brooklyn, so you can well imagine how excited I was when I was commissioned to do that stamp,” he recalled.

Paul Calle, 62, and Chris Calle, 28, of Stamford, Conn., are father-and-son illustrators and stamp artists. Paul has done 20 stamps. He said his claim to fame is the stamp honoring the first man on the moon: Neil Armstrong walking down a ladder to the moon. It was released two months after the Apollo 11 mission.

Chris was the artist for the $2.40 stamp released last July marking the 20th anniversary of the moon walk. He has done 12 stamps since his first, a 20-cent of Harry S. Truman, was issued five years ago.

“The most exciting time I have had with postage stamps was the first-day ceremonies held at the Air and Space Museum when the 20th anniversary moon stamp was released. The President, vice president, three Apollo 11 astronauts, 27 other astronauts and several cosmonauts participated . . .,” Chris Calle said.

“For postage stamp artists, the personal fulfillment is far greater than money earned,” he continued. “Millions of copies of pieces of art that I and others have done are floating around all over the world, pasted on letter envelopes. The thrill and excitement of it all is unbelievable.”

I’ve shared in that rare experience.

Photographer William Murphy shot a picture for The Times of Sen. John F. Kennedy at Peter Lawford’s Santa Monica home two years before Kennedy was elected President.

A few weeks after Kennedy was assassinated, Jacqueline Kennedy was asked to select a photograph of her late husband to appear on a stamp.

She chose the candid photograph taken by Murphy as he was looking at and talking to me.

For millions of Americans, that photograph on the 1964 stamp was a poignant reminder of the popular young President.

For me, it captured one of the most memorable moments of my career.