By ARIADNE WILL
Sentinel Staff Writer
For Juneau artist and business owner Crystal Worl, designing skateboard decks is nothing new. But designing a postage stamp is.
Worl, who is Tlingit and Athabascan, will have her art featured alongside three other artists on the U.S. Postal Service’s “Art of the Skateboard” postage stamps, available beginning today.
“I hope that this stamp can connect loved ones with one another,” Worl told the Sentinel, adding that she is “thrilled” to soon be sending letters with postage featuring her art.
Other artists featured in the series of four stamps are Federico “MasPaz” Frum, William James Taylor Jr. and Di’Orr Greenwood.
Worl is the only one of the four artists based in Alaska. Her stamp features a blue and indigo salmon formline design.
Frum is a Colombian-born, Washington, D.C.-raised muralist. His stamp features a stylized jaguar. Taylor is a self-taught artist from Virginia and designed a red and orange graphic abstraction. Greenwood — who is Diné (Navajo) and based in Arizona — designed a turquoise-inlaid skateboard that features eagle feathers and colors of the rising or setting sun.
Though this is the first time Worl has had her art on a stamp, her brother, Rico, had his work featured two years ago on the USPS “Raven Story” stamp.
Worl co-owns Trickster Co. with Rico. The company — whose co-owners both used to longboard — began by just selling skateboard decks, Worl said.
“Rico (first) started the business Trickster Company Skateboards,” she said. “We later opened Trickster Co. so that we could manufacture printed decks and other products at a more accessible cost.”
She said that this allowed the decks to be used for actual skating, instead of for display as the previous, hand-painted ones had been.
“We love to see the kids in our community getting outdoors and being excited to rep fresh formline designs,” Worl said.
Aside from skateboard decks, Worl is the artist behind several murals around the state, including in Sitka at the basketball court near Crescent Harbor.
“This journey being an artist has been hectic chaos and also so exciting,” Worl said. “I want Indigenous art that is created by Indigenous artists to be not just a trend, but a norm.”
The stamps are available for purchase online at USPS.com/ShopStamps.
Artwork on skateboards is featured on new postage stamps. Juneau artist Crystal Worl’s design is shown top right. Other designs are by Federico “MasPaz” Frum, top left; Di’Orr Greenwood bottom left; and William James Taylor Jr., bottom right. (Photo provided by USPS)
