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> Crops of the Americas
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> By: Maria Teresa Villaverde Trujillo
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> Artist Steve Buchanan, of Winsted, Connecticut, -New England-, created each of the next five stamp designs.
> As reference, he used slide photographs made by his wife Rita Buchanan's research in the late 1970s on indigenous agricultural methods in the southwestern United States. The crops depicted in the stamps
> —corn, chili peppers, beans, squashes, and sunflowers— had been cultivated in the Americas
> for centuries when Europeans first arrived in the New World.
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> apple and orange
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> The U.S. Postal Service also selects familiar fruits for first-class stamps,
> which were issued for general mail use on and after March 2001.
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> The stamp art by Ned Seidler continues the theme of his earlier illustrations
> for the Peaches and Pears on 1995.
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> NOTE
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> The Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee,
> is a group of 12 to 15 members appointed by the Postmaster General, considers about 50,000 ideas a year, most of which come from the American public. The Committee then recommends about 35 new subjects for commemorative stamps each year
> to the Postmaster General. The Postmaster General makes the final decision. To ensure consistent and fair consideration
> of all proposals, the Committee has established standards of eligibility for stamp designs. One such standard is that no living person can be depicted on a U.S. stamp and, except for former Presidents, an individual cannot be commemorated until at least
> 10 years following death. This allows the person's accomplishments to be viewed in the appropriate historical perspective.
> The exception allows a means of special recognition for past Presidents each of whom is honored with a memorial stamp
> on the first birthday following their death.
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> Art of the Postage Stamp opened in November 2000 at The Norman Rockwell Museum
> Stockbridge, Berkshire mountain, Massachusetts.
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> Friday, December 15, 2006
> Crops of the Americas
> ashiningworld@cox.net
>