Pop Spotlight

Once vilified by cops, teachers, and party-poopers, skateboarding will finally get its due, on a federal level, when the United States Postal Service issues stamps this spring that celebrate “The Art of the Skateboard.” Each stamp will feature a deck with a unique design by a different artist.

The Alaska-based artist Crystal Worl reflects her Tlingit/Athabascan heritage in the blue-and-indigo design, according to the U.S.P.S. William James Taylor, Jr., who lives in Virginia, came up with a red-and-orange pattern. The Colombian-born Federico “MasPaz” Frum, who grew up in Washington, D.C., where he still paints murals came up with a jaguar-like design. And Arizona’s Di’Orr Greenwood paid tribute to her Navajo culture with art that evokes eagle feathers and rising and setting suns. Art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamps using photos of skate decks.

“Fiercely independent and often rebellious, the skateboarding subculture crackles with raw creative energy,” the Postal Service said in a statement. “The bold artwork emblazoned on a skateboard deck is often as eye-catching and individualistic as a skater’s most breathtaking moves. These four stamps celebrate the Art of the Skateboard with vibrant designs that capture skateboarding’s excitement and reflect the diversity and influences of the four artists whose work is featured.”

The U.S.P.S. will hold an event Cowtown’s Phoenix Am contest on March 24, which is when it will inaugurate the stamps. The free event, which will feature a member of the U.S.P.S.’s Board of Governors, the Honorable William Zollars, will take place at 11 a.m. MST at Phoenix’s Desert West Skate Plaza. The Postal Service has made an RSVP page for the event.

“I’m humbled to have my art on a U.S. Postal Stamp,” MasPaz commented on Instagram in December. “This is a series of four skateboard themed stamps; I believe over eight million will be printed. This has been a project five years in the making!”