COURTESY U.S. POSTAL SERVICE
Two stamps relating to Hawaii will be available in January: the Year of the Dog Forever stamp, by graphic designer Clarence Lee, on Jan. 11 and the Byodo-In Temple Priority Mail stamp on Jan. 21. The temple in Kaneohe is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
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Two new stamps being launched by the U.S. Postal Service for the new year have connections to Hawaii.
The Year of the Dog Forever stamp — the first stamp of the new year, to be issued Jan. 11 — features a cut-paper design of a dog by late Hawaii graphic design icon Clarence Lee. Art director Ethel Kessler worked with illustrator Kam Mak, a Hong Kong-born artist who now resides in Brooklyn, New York, on the new stamp. The stamp design also incorporates grass-style calligraphy by Lau Bun. The Byodo-In Temple Priority Mail stamp featuring the local landmark in Kaneohe will be issued Jan. 21 and available for sale nationwide Jan. 22.
Lee’s designs have graced every USPS Lunar New Year stamp since they were introduced in 1992. The stamp also depicts an arrangement of lucky bamboo along with an intricate, cut-paper design of a dog. It also features a piece of red paper with the Chinese character “fu,” meaning good fortune, rendered in calligraphy, and the Chinese character for “dog,” drawn in grass-style calligraphy. It is the 11th of 12 stamps in the “Celebrating Lunar New Year” series.
The Byodo-In Temple Priority Mail stamp features a colorful illustration of the temple at Valley of the Temples Memorial Park in the Ahuimanu region of Kaneohe to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Built in 1968 to commemorate the centennial of the first Japanese immigration to Hawaii, it is a smaller-scale, concrete replica of a wooden Buddhist temple in Uji, Japan, that dates back to the middle of the 11th century.
A ceremony is scheduled to commemorate the issuance of the Year of the Dog Forever stamp at 11 a.m. Jan. 11 at the Chinatown Cultural Plaza in Honolulu. Those in attendance will be able to purchase sheets of the stamps and have them hand-canceled for free with a special commemorative postmark.
The Postal Service will also commemorate the issuance of the Byodo-In Temple Priority Mail stamp with a dedication event at 2 p.m. Jan. 23 at the temple. Those in attendance will be able to purchase the stamps and have them hand-canceled for free with a special pictorial postmark.
Both events are free and open to the public.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the artists of the Year of the Dog Forever stamp.
