Postcrossing Blog

A little while ago, Clarisse (aka Cstar9) managed to interview Kirsten Lubach, and we’re pleased to get the chance to share that now and introduce everyone to Kirsten’s work. Kirsten Lubach is an accomplished designer and engraver based in Vienna, Austria. As an engraver, she contributed to her first postage stamp in 2006. She has designed stamps for the Austrian national postal service annually since 2012.

Clarisse learned about Kirsten Lubach’s work via Sibylle (Robin67), so thank you to her as well for drawing this artist to our attention! So without further ado, over to Clarisse’s interview with Kirsten…

How did you begin engraving postage stamps?

I was trained by a master engraver who himself worked in the field of stamp creation. So, when I got the chance to work for the Austrian State Press, which was in charge of producing post stamps, I took it.

But actually, I had already tried to engrave my first post stamp, when I was an apprentice, as a Christmas gift for my father, who is a philatelist.

How does a stamp’s small size affect your artistic approach?

The size of a post stamp of course affects the approach: it shouldn’t be too detailed, as the lines would accumulate into a dark, unrecognizable “something.”

On the other hand, the post stamp has to show the topic or motif clearly. It transports a message and is an ambassador of its country: sometimes not an easy task!

When you have chosen a subject, what does research look like for you?

Research is of utmost importance for me.

For the subject of the sea, I visited the sea and coast, made drawings, sketches, and photos, did research in Natural Historic Museums, aquariums, in books and on the internet.

I love researching not only because of the topic but also because of meeting interesting people and getting to know stories and anecdotes related to the topic.

Several times a year, you host a Philately Day at your studio. Where did that idea originate, and what do you enjoy about it?

Philately Day was actually started by the Austrian Post itself. They visited my workshop and were so delighted about the location that they asked me if I would open the workshop for Philately Day.

In 2024, the event will be held four times a year (more info here). The Austrian Post puts up a little stand in my workshop and sells their products.

Additionally, I invented for this event special post stamps and specially designed and engraved copper print cards for sale.

I like Philately Day a lot. People drop by for a visit, talk about philately and other things, have a look at the workshop – it’s like a little party of friends coming over. When I decided to give Philately Day a break after the first two years, everybody was so sad that I had to change my mind…

What is your personal relationship to postal mail?

Postal mail is great! When I was young, I had several pen-friends and it was great writing and receiving mail. Unfortunately, it diminished over the years, so I was really delighted to hear of the Postcrossing community!

Postal mail is something special as it endures over time. It shows somebody’s care in choosing a nice card or paper and the right words, with nice handwriting and a beautiful post stamp on top, and then – finally – carrying it to a postbox nearby. That is much more work than sending a short notice by email or other digital messengers.

Post mail has a soul! And papers and cards are such great stuff to work with.

What is a hobby you enjoy when you’re not making art?

I like hiking, yoga, watching birds, and playing the double bass when I need a change.

How does a sense of place (being in Vienna/Austria) inform your artwork?

Austria is a great country to live in. Vienna is a city with a lot of different aspects: the Natural History Museum is one of the top-ranking museums and perfect for research and detailed motifs. I have been drawing there since 2000.

On the other hand, you find great ornamental art on houses in Vienna from imperial times. That’s a perfect surrounding for an engraver, as engraving has a lot to do with ornaments.

And last, it’s only an hour drive into nature: lakes, mountains, or whatever I need.

Can you share with us a decision you’ve made in your artistic career that has required courage, or a trust in the unknown?

Oh, yes!

In 2021, I got a phone call from a colleague who wanted to retire. He asked me if I would take over his machines and his clients. Immediately I said “yes!” without thinking – because I knew, if I wouldn’t do it, his great work and workshop would disappear, because there was no other engraver left.

After I had made this decision, it became clear that it wasn’t so easy: I needed a new, bigger workshop, and the big machines had to be moved by special movers. It was a completely new start for me, with all the typical bureaucracy involved.

In the beginning, I was unsure if it would turn out nicely, but it did. And nowadays I am already known as “the engraver from the Ungargasse.”

What is next for you as an artist/engraver?

Good question. Last autumn I started teaching engraving at a vocational school for goldsmiths, so that´s a step into a future direction. I think it would be nice to educate an engraver apprentice for the future, but for several reasons, that is not an easy task. So, this is a project for the next 15 years.

As an artist: there are some post stamps waiting for me, and I would love to publish my children’s book this year. We’ll see. The days are – as always – too short!

Thank you as always to Clarisse for arranging and conducting this interview, and to Kirsten for being kind enough to share her answers and some of the images used to illustrate the post! If you’re curious to learn more, you can check out Kirsten’s website, check out her work in this gallery… and if you read German, there’s also more info in an article here.

And now, for a very special giveaway! Robin67 has kindly offered to send 3 viewcards from Wien/Vienna, each franked with Kirsten Lubach’s latest stamp featuring the rare white Baroque donkey!

For a chance to receive one, leave a comment below and tell us about a stamp from your country that you’ve used recently. The giveaway will be open for one week, after which we’ll randomly pick 3 winners and contact them by email. Good luck!

Hurray, it’s Postcrossing’s birthday today!! 🎉 Sixteen years of postcards and friendly connections all over the world feels like a long, joyful adventure… one that we cherish immensely.

All these global ties have felt extra meaningful in the past year, and we’ve heard from so many of you, letting us know how much you appreciated having a happy hobby during these rough times. So our big thank you to all of you out there, feeding mailboxes with nice mail and spreading some joy in times of social distancing — you are what keeps Postcrossing going. We hope you’ll have a brilliant day, and treat yourself to an extra nice postcard, or a slice of cake! 🍰

The other good news of the day is that a new Postcrossing-themed stamp from Austria is being issued today! Designed by Theresa Radlingmaier, 165,000 of these have been printed (in sheets of 50) and they should be available in Austrian post offices and their online shop today.

If you’re in Austria and manage to find some of these shiny new stamps on your local post office, do share some photos of them with the rest of us on social media! We’d love to see how they look on your own postcards.

Good news, everyone! We’ve been biting our tongues and holding our breaths, but now we can finally share the news with you all: there are 3 new Postcrossing-themed stamps coming in the next few months, and they’re all great! 😍

First up, Guernsey! The three colourful stamps feature animal species that can be found on the Bailiwick: the Golden Guernsey Goat, the Chancre Crab and the Herm Puffin, all mailing postcards around the islands on Guernsey’s blue mailboxes. Such a clever way to mix Postcrossing with their own national living treasures!

These will come out on June 10th, and feature a cool easter egg… if you look really closely, you’ll see they’re being mailed to some of us at the Postcrossing team: the UK stamp is heading out to Nicky (aka shanaqui), the European one is coming to Paulo and me, and the Rest of the World goes out to Vicki (aka mundoo) in Australia. Those are fictional addresses, by the way.

They’re coming out on June 10th, ahead of Postcrossing’s birthday, and they’ll be available for pre-order from Guernsey’s online shop from May 27th, along with maxicards and other fun philatelic collectibles.

Next up, Belarus is issuing this fun Happy Postcrossing stamp! Coincidentally, this is another stamp featuring animals mailing postcards around the world, and it will be issued on July 10th.

Belpochta doesn’t have an (international) online shop, but if you’re interested in the stamp you can get in touch with them following the instructions on this page. Turns out, Belpochta does have an international online shop, where they sell stamps and other products — you can find it here. Thank you Lunushka and Capricorn_Belarus for letting us know!

And last but not least, Austria is issuing a Postcrossing-themed stamp in July as well. They chose a more abstract approach to the theme, which aims to represent how the postcard exchanges happen in Postcrossing:

The Austrian stamp will be launched on July 14th, which is Postcrossing’s birthday, but should be available for pre-order on their online shop from July 2nd onwards.

And that’s all the good news for today! We look forward to seeing all these playful stamps in many postcards traveling all around the world, filling their recipients’ mailboxes with color and spreading the word about our beloved hobby. 📮

Today, we’re happy to welcome Austria into the club of countries that have issued Postcrossing-themed stamps! Here’s what their shiny new stamp looks like:

The stamp was designed by Robert Sabolovic and depicts a stylised “wall of postcards”, with the word POSTCROSSING in front of it, painted in the Austrian flag colours.

To celebrate the stamp launch, a meetup was held on Hirtenberg’s Kulturehaus today, where postcrossers came together to write and send postcards with the new stamp and special first-day cancellation mark.

Photo by Eva (aka Meixi)

Mr. Sabolovic, who designed the stamp, was also in attendance, and autographed postcards and stamps.

Photos by Anita (aka honeybee)

Photo by Sabine (aka turtles)

In the end, a wonderful time was had by all, and hundreds of postcards were carefully stamped, postmarked and put on their way. Maybe one of them will land on your mailbox soon? 😊

Here is Sibylle from Austria. She has been collecting postcards for a long time, loves to travel and visits her favourite friends in the zoo frequently.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

About 5 years ago I had a surprise pen pal from the USA. Our penfriendship was short-lived, but she sent me the link to Postcrossing, which was, back then, only 1 month old. I got terribly excited, thought about it, got some opinions, then registered and my first 3 cards went to Hawaii, Italy and Germany. And after absolute impatience I received my first card from Germany after a while.

I have been collecting cards and stamps ever since childhood, because my dear granny was an avid traveller and sent us cards from everywhere she went! She usually collected them afterwards, cut the stamps off to add them to our collection, but eventually I didn’t give those cards away anymore, so as to keep them whole and as much as I love stamps, I love cards more and ideally with beautiful stamps on them! I still have those old cards that miss a corner!

I love sending cards to people, trying to make them happy! I make an effort with every card I send, recently almost all have gone out with first-day postmarks as an extra and I agonize over every card I send. However, no matter how much I try sometimes it is really hard to find the right card. Sometimes the sending seems more important to me than the receiving. I like to spread joy.

One of my dreams is to have a written, stamped and postmarked postcard from every country in the world, but I tell myself “dream on”, I am not putting enough effort into that, I am afraid. Still, it is a nice dream.

The fact that I now get mail almost every single day got me hooked. And many cards are really outstandingly beautiful and some are real works of art where everything is perfect: view, stamp, deco, the words, …

Thank you so much to everyone who made me happy and who will do so in future.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love to read and write (but cards are all I write these days), I am what I call an “indoor astronomer”, meaning I do more reading books and magazines and searching the internet about astronomy, than actually going out to look through a telescope (which is a fantastic thing to do though!), I collect elongated coins and I love to travel, like so many postcrossers do.

In comparison to many others I have not been to all that many countries, but maybe I can expand that list in the future, except that I find it hard to find a travel companion. Those dear to me love the British Isles above all other places, which I do too (Scotland is my absolutely favourite country!), but I would love to see other places too, and going to the British Isles always makes me sad as I know I’ll have to leave again!

So far I have been to: Albania; Belgium; the former Czechoslovakia; the Czech Republic; Denmark; Eire; England; France; Germany; Gibraltar; Greece; Guernsey; Herm; Hungary; Italy; Jersey; Liechtenstein; Luxembourg; the Netherlands; Northern Ireland; Portugal (Madeira); San Marino; Sark; Scotland; Slovakia; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; the USA; the Vatican; the former Yugoslavia and Wales.

The countries I would most love to see are: Chile, Iceland, Andorra; Armenia; Azerbaijan and Georgia as well as Romania. Alderney and the Isle of Man would be super to visit also, I am sure!

My main hobby equally as important to me as Postcrossing is visiting Vienna’s zoo, Schönbrunn, which is the oldest in the world! I have many furry friends there – and I mean FRIENDS. Animals that know me and come up to me, when they see me, like tiger girls Ina and Kyra, tomcat Jerry and Orang utan Sol. I love them dearly.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

That is my postie hiding inside a mailbox from my advances… haha. Seriously, this is outside Wien’s main post office, where I drop off most of my mail for first day postmarks. The mailbox with legs is from a fantastic advertising campaign by Austrian mail, where this mailbox roams Austria.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

My favourite postcards are those my family (mother, father, brother and until she died my granny) have sent me, because they absolutely hate to write so they are real signs of love, catering for my addiction.

Other than that my favourite kind of cards are stunningly beautiful landscapes (named nature only!) and (Russian) orthodox churches as well as tigers, that I love soooo much!