COLUMBUS, Miss. (AP) — You may soon be getting some big news about Mississippi State art professor Alex Bostic in the mail.
Check that. Bostic’s news is on the mail, not in it.
On Wednesday, Bostic — a New York native who has now been on the MSU College of Architecture and Design faculty for 11 years — traveled to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. for the dedication of the U.S.Postal Service’s Edmonia Lewis commemorative forever stamp, based on Bostic’s portrait commissioned by the USPS.
The Edmonia Lewis stamp is now available in sheets of 20 at usps.com/shopstamps. It is one of several new stamps being issued this year and is the 45th stamp in the USPS Black Heritage Series, which recognizes the achievements and contributions of Black Americans.
“Growing up in New York, I grew up during the Martin Luther King era and all that was happening then, and civil rights and the history of Black Americans was something I was always interested in,” Bostic said. “So it was a great honor to be selected for this project.”
Bostic was well-suited to the project.
An artist for 40 years, this is not the first experience Bostic has had with creating portraits to be used as a postage stamp.
“I had done some stamps before, most notably a stamp for the 75th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but this was the first stamp I’ve made for the United States, so it was a special honor,” Bostic said.
Bostic began work on the project in July and began researching Lewis in preparation for his painting.
“I was familiar with her as a sculptor, but as I began researching her I learned so much about her and my admiration for her grew and grew,” Bostic said.
He was struck by how much he and Lewis had in common, something that goes beyond their shared race.
Like Bostic, Lewis (1844-1907) was born in New York. She was also an artist, a sculptor who honed her craft in the U.S. before moving to Rome, where she had the opportunities and freedom to flourish as a Black artist that were limited back home.
“Edmonia Lewis was a perfect subject for me because of what she went through to be an artist, particularly as an African American,” Bostic said. “I was so excited to learn that she had done so much of her work in Rome. Italy also is one of my favorite places on the planet — I taught a summer study abroad course there for seven years — and that’s where she was.”
Bostic said he hopes the new stamp inspires people’s curiosity about Lewis’ life, and he encourages others to find and discuss books or information about the sculptor.
“Educating the public is something that is greatly needed in the Black community — people need to know about our heritage and what we’re capable of achieving,” he said. “I’m a big proponent of art, and I hope that more of our children will be artists. I want kids who grew up like me to get more support from their families, from the ground up.”
Bostic worked from a photograph of Lewis taken between 1864 and 1871 when the artist was living and working in Boston.
But it wasn’t as simple as sitting in his studio, painting from a photo.
“The process had so many stages,” Bostic said. “I think there wound up being six reviews during the course of the project.”
Bostic’s original artwork was painted on a 30-by-40-inch canvas using casein paint, a nod to the period in which Lewis lived. Casein is an opaque, fast-drying durable, water-soluble, milk protein based paint. Casein is one of the oldest art mediums in the world.
Reducing a standard-sized portrait to an image that is reduced — literally — to the size of a postage stamp is a challenge, Bostic said.
“One brush stroke can ruin the image when you’re dealing with that kind of scale,” Bostic said. “That’s where my previous work doing stamps was really a benefit.”
A native of Brooklyn, Bostic developed a love for the arts attending weekend lessons at the Pratt Institute, from which he earned a bachelor of fine arts in illustration in 1979. He also holds a master of arts in illustration from Syracuse University.
During the dedication ceremony, Bostic picked up a stock of his Edmonia Lewis stamps, but he doesn’t plan to keep them as a collection necessarily.
“I’m a stamper,” he said. “I love putting stamps on mail and I still pay all my bills by mail. I think that’s one of the fun things about doing this. My artwork will go far and wide. It’s quite an honor.”
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