2025 Lunar New Year • Year of the Snake Forever First Class Postage Stamps

Description:

Antonio Alcalá, an art director for USPS, worked on the Lunar New Year series of stamps with artist Camille Chew to create imagery that is fresh, fun and celebratory.

Calling to mind the elaborately decorated masks used in the dragon or lion dances often performed during Lunar New Year parades, Chew’s three-dimensional pieces are a contemporary take on the long tradition of paper-cut folk-art crafts created during this auspicious time of year.

Using greens and blues as the predominant colors, the snake mask incorporates elements of symbolic meaning. Blue accents represent the wood element in Chinese culture, a choice befitting the Year of the Snake. Paper flowers for spring are adorned with gold leaves and orange blooms. Decorative purple baubles on blue strings hang from the mask.

Chew constructed the three-dimensional snake mask out of hand-printed paper, then cut, scored and folded it into shape. She then embellished the mask with acrylic paint and other paper elements, such as flowers and tassels, and covered the back of the mask in a layer of papier-mâché. Sally Andersen-Bruce then photographed the mask on a white background for this series.