(JNS) American Judaica artist Jeanette Kuvin Oren is well-known for her work in many media.
She designs unique Torah mantles, ark curtains, chuppah wedding canopies, ketubah marriage contracts, papercuts, stained glass and many ritual objects or decorations for synagogues, Jewish homes or families..
On Oct. 20, Kuvin Oren added “designer of a U.S. Postal Service stamp” to her résumé. The “Hanukkah Forever” postage stamp is based on one of Kuvin Oren’s works.
“Jeanette’s art came to my attention several years ago and I am very happy to be able to bring her work to a very wide audience,” Ethel Kessler of Kessler Design, who serves as art director for stamps at the USPS, said. “Her work has a glowing and joyful spirit and that’s what I wanted to add to our U.S. Hanukkah series.”
A first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony for the stamp was held last Thursday at Temple Emanu El in Orange Village, Ohio, an eastern suburb of Cleveland. This year, Hanukkah begins on the evening of Dec. 18.
Kessler added, “Stamps are a joy for me to art direct. What it entails is getting familiar with people across the country who are making interesting art that can be used at stamp size.”
The USPS said, “The stamp art features the design from an original wall-hanging. The fiber art was hand-dyed, appliquéd and quilted to form an abstract image of a hanukkiah.”
The stamp is being issued in panes of 20. It will always be equal in value to the current First Class Mail one-ounce price (currently 60 cents). Kessler said, “First class mail may have dropped off in the past decade…But we still print over 10 million Hanukkah celebration stamps.”
Kuvin Oren has now received an education in stamp collecting and stamp releases. She explains that the first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony took place in Cleveland since the USPS wanted it to be in the Midwest.
She has also learned that the stamp date and location will appear on every 6-3/4 inch envelope with the state and date of issue and location. Stamp collectors traditionally go to the post office to buy new stamps, put them on a clean white blank envelope and mail them for a first-day-of-issue cancellation. These are known as first-day covers. Many aficionados also collect cachets, an illustration usually on the left side of the envelope.
“The USPS doesn’t create a cachet so it is up to the artist or a dealer to create one. It is a nice souvenir for the first day of issue so I created my own,” Kuvin Oren said.
Kuvin Oren, a resident of Connecticut and Jerusalem, recently offered a tour of her home studio in Woodbridge, Connecticut, and enthusiastically shared her many works in progress and stories of her artwork with JNS.
In describing the process of being discovered by the USPS, she said, “I sent a piece 30 years ago to the USPS and always had a dream of being on a stamp—this is the culmination of a lifelong dream. I am very honored and it is very emotional to see my artwork there. It is something so historical.”
Kuvin Oren said that a small wall hanging of her stamp will hang in the National Postal Museum in Washington.
The artist, a graduate of Princeton and Yale universities, has talents in many areas. She completed a master’s degree in public health and most of her doctorate in epidemiology. Since deciding in 1984 to work on commissioned art and graphic design full-time, she has created installation pieces for more than 400 houses of worship, schools, community centers and camps around the world. She specializes in large installations of glass, mosaic, metal, fiber art, calligraphy, paper-cutting and painting. Her Torah covers, ark covers, ark curtains and wall hangings can be seen in homes and Jewish institutions around the world.
Kuvin Oren plans to use the Hanukkah postage stamps on the invitations to the wedding of one of her daughters, which will take place in March 2023.
