To create an arboreal masterpiece requires great patience, skill, and attention to detail. So when art director Ethel Kessler was tasked with featuring the art form of bonsai on a stamp, she knew that the assignment would require the same commendable traits.
Luckily, she knew just the person for the project. “John was the perfect candidate,” Kessler says of artist John D. Dawson, with whom she worked on the 12-year Nature of America series. “He can create a stamp that is pretty — but he also makes sure that it’s accurate.”
And while the Bonsai stamps appear less complex than the involved illustrations of Nature of America, there were still plenty of details for Dawson to focus on.
Dawson lives in Hawaiʻi, a central location for the horticultural hobby of bonsai. But despite his interest in art and nature, Dawson was unfamiliar with the elaborate processes of the art form.
“It was a big learning curve,” the artist says. “The first thing I did was buy a good number of books, and read about the history and principles of bonsai. I also attended a bonsai show in Hilo and talked to the members of the society here.”
In his research, Dawson discovered a variety of bonsai styles: formal upright (trunk is straight and tapers evenly from base to apex; branches are symmetrical); informal upright (trunk bends slightly to the left or right); cascade (trunk evokes a stream flowing down a mountainside; tip extends below the pot’s base); semi-cascade (tip projects over pot rim but does not extend below the base); and multiple-trunk (several trunks emerge from one root system).
Dawson wanted to show these trunk variations in the stamp illustrations, as well as portray different species of plants. He created rough sketches of four stamps on tissue paper, then started the back-and-forth exchange with Kessler and a number of consultants.
“At the time,” Kessler says, “we weren’t sure what the format for the stamps would be: a block of four, a coil, or a booklet. One issue I did concentrate on was making sure we didn’t just have green bonsai. I wanted some color.”
When bonsai experts suggested replacing the winter jasmine with a banyan, only one colorful stamp remained. Eventually, Kessler and researchers decided to add a fifth stamp depicting a maple — one of the trees Dawson originally sketched — but this time, the maple was displayed with beautiful foliage.
Consultants carefully examined the artwork, ensuring that each style of bonsai was realistically represented — and also checking for any cultural nuances. One needed revision was changing the number of azalea trunks from four to three, as four is considered unlucky in Asian cultures.
Kessler paid subtle homage to bonsai’s Japanese origins by placing the denominations in red chops, seals commonly used to sign papers or pieces of art. When the denomination changed to Forever®, Kessler adapted the design, placing “USA” in a vertical chop.
Kessler chose a white background and a light, condensed font for the necessary type on each stamp. She then added a thin line to tie the elements together and also to give the pots something to sit on.
“The beauty of the design is in the bonsai itself,” she explains. “This was a fabulous opportunity for John and me to get rid of any superfluous background, and focus on the exquisite details and shapes of the actual plants.”
Listen to John D. Dawson discuss the Bonsai stamps in a radio interview here.