Souvenir stamp sheets of naked athletes at the Olympic Games; 3-D postage stamps of underground cult writer Charles Bukowski; a commemorative edition honoring the hooded Mexican rebel Commandant Marcos; these were some of the unusual philatelic items to be found at the Pacific Rim Artistamp Congress.

The Pacific Rim Artistamp Congress attracted some twenty participating artists, making it the largest gathering of its kind. Held over the weekend of February 22nd and 23rd, at the San Mateo Expo Center, some twenty miles south of San Francisco, the Congress was held in conjunction with The California Art & Rubber Stamp Festival, sponsored by Heirloom Productions.

The Artistamp Congress was held in the middle of some forty rubber stamp company exhibitors. Organized by Picasso Gaglione and John Held, Jr., of The Stamp Art Gallery in San Francisco, the Congress drew an unprecedented number of exhibiting artists from Vancouver, Canada; Seattle, Washington; the San Francisco Bay Area; and throughout the United States, as far away as Arkansas, New York and Florida.

The list of artists included Anna Banana (Sechelt, Canada), Aglaia Handcrafts (Oakland, CA), buZ blurr (Gurdon, AR), Bugpost (Seattle, WA), Marilyn Califf (Memphis, TN), Joel Cohen (New York, NY), Dogfish (Seattle, WA), James Felter (Vancouver, Canada), Picasso Gaglione (San Francisco), Harley (Guernville, CA), John Held, Jr. (San Francisco), Eleanor Kent (San Francisco, CA), Tom Kerr (New York, NY), Tim Mancusi (Rohnert Park, CA), Steve Smith (Gulfport, FL), Patricia Tavenner (Oakland, CA), and Ed Varney (Vancouver, Canada). Other practitioners of the field, such as Sandy Jackson (San Diego, CA), and Melanie of Serendipity Post (Fontana, CA), were also on hand.

A year in the planning, the Artistamp Congress was a continuation of similar events held in the Seattle area at the MARS Expos. Allied to the rubber stamp field through their use in the mail art network, artists postage stamps have begun to develop their own following. A new issue of The Artistamp News, edited by Ed Varney, was released at the Congress. Begun by Anna Banana, this newsletter connects various artists around the world active in the field.

Many of the participating artists at the Congress created special philatelic items for the occasion. Joel Cohen, The Sticker Dude of Ragged Edge Press was particularly active in this regard, producing promotional postcards and stickers before the event, and three special rubber stamp cancellation marks for use during the Congress. Harley and Dogfish also contributed special cancellation marks, as well as special stamp sheets marking the occasion.

The Congress brought together practitioners both old and new. James Felter, who organized the first exhibition of artistamps in 1974, was on hand with other veteran creators in the field from the Northwest USA/Western Canada axis: Anna Banana, Ed Varney, Dogfish and Bugpost. Harley, who created one of the largest exhibitions of artistamp at Oberlin College in 1967 attended from his home in Northern California.

Patricia Tavenner, the "Mail Art Queen" from Oakland, who has been producing artistamps since the early Seventies, presented a number of new editions, and an earlier series of seashell stamps she has produced during the past several years.

buZ blurr, who traveled from Arkansas for the event, is well known in the field for his stencil portraits created from Polaroid photographs. He has documented many meetings between mail and artistamp artists, and his mere presence always casts an historic glaze over events such as these. blurr will be the subject of a large retrospective at The Stamp Art Gallery in April/May 1977.

Recently cited as one of the "founders of American mail art," in an Italian mail art catalog essay, Picasso Gaglione, the director of The Stamp Art Gallery, presented many of the boxed sets of rubber stamps and catalog essays produced at the Gallery in the past year. The items included documentation of such pioneering artistamps as Yves Klein, Roberts Watts and May Wilson. After presenting twelve exhibitions of artistamps artists in 1996, the Congress could be seen as a culminating act of unprecedented activity at The Stamp Gallery.

Steve Smith of Florida, only recently exposed to the field of artistamps, although a producer of artist postage stamps for several years, attended to see what others were doing. The more experienced artists were in turn delighted to see such talented creativity enter their ranks. Smith's creations are based on actual United States Postal Service issues - with a twist. His nude parody of Olympic athletes, the combined images of Marilyn Monroe and Richard Nixon, and his LUST stamp mirroring legitimate LOVE adhesives, were a big hit with fellow artists and the Congress audience alike.

Some two thousand attendees of The California Art and Ribber Stamp Festival were made aware of the artistamp field through the Artistamp Congress. There were many questions asked about this field that many were exposed to for the first time. Exhibiting and selling artistamps at rubber stamp conventions seems a natural combination. This has been done with much success in the Seattle area.

The two fields share many elements, as well as the nomenclature of the word 'stamp'. Both fields grew out of the mail art movement. They are both grassroots art forms drawing on commonplace objects of popular culture. Most importantly, they both provide a standard structure on which artists are able to elaborate and express their personal, artistic and political concerns.

In addition to the artists on hand, an exhibition of work sent in from artistamp artists from around the world was on display. Eleven countries were represented in the exhibition including Russia, Uruguay, France, Spain, Chile, Switzerland and Germany. John Held, Jr. displayed a number of important publications pertinent to the field, including the catalog from the 1994 Timbres d'Artistes exhibition at the National Postal Museum in Paris.

A dinner was held following the activities on the first day to celebrate both the Congress and the birthday of Anna Banana. A surprise guest was mail art pioneer Dana Atchely, who produced stamps in the late Sixties. More important, Atchley was the producer of the Ace Space Atlas, an assembling zine soliciting multiple pages from his correspondents, which were then compiled into one work.

In an unusual twist on this concept, Atchley then hit the road to hand deliver the finished copies. As the first mail artist to systematically visit his correspondents, Atchley became a model for mail artists expanding beyond the postal medium to meetings in real time and space. His presence at the Pacific Rim Artistamp Congress lent an air of historic continuity to the affair.

Plans are underway to hold an East Coast version of the Artistamp Congress in 1998. Momentum seems to be building for this new art form, inspired in part by The Artistamp News, bourses (a philatelic term for the sale of postage stamps at conventions) and James Felter's artistamp website. For information concerning future events featuring artist postage stamps, contact Felter on the web , or John Held, Jr. via snail-mail at P.O. Box 410837, San Francisco, CA. 94141.