Ebu-Arts

Ebu-Arts is a new kind of stamp art in the form of a carefully composed mosaic of postage stamps expressing myriads of ideas, events, and stories. This is different from Artistamps, The Art of the U.S. Postal Service Stamps, or mixed media work involving stamps, as Ebu-Arts is composed using U.S. Postal Service issued stamps collected over a period of time to induce nostalgia.
The name of this art form, Ebu-Arts, is a shortened version of “Ebullient Arts” used therefor by its originator, Win Straube. Win Straube collected stamps coming to him on correspondence from various places around the world for more than 60 years. He then decided to let the messages contained in the stamps tell their own stories, as well as the story of the world during that time, via carefully composed mosaics.
Artistic aspects
The first pieces produced by Straube (in 2010 and 2011), "Ebu-Arts #1" and "Ebu-Arts #2" each are collages of approximately 800 or more canceled international postage stamps on a 20- by 30-, respectively 24- by 30- inch board (50x76 cm and 61x76 cm). The stamps are attached to the surface with archival glue and the entire artwork is over-painted with a matte finish. Since early 2011, Ebu-Arts pieces have been produced by others around the world, including in Europe by Dr. Gerd Straumer of Dresden, Germany.
“Ebu-Arts” is not an ordinary assembly of collected stamps. The stamps are deliberately organized according to people, nature, structures, ideas, colors, individually and as a whole. So each part of the mosaic has its own story to tell. In the case of Straube’s "Ebu-Arts #1 and #2," these pieces contain The Simpsons to Arturo Toscanini, from camels to seals, from wildflowers to orchids. In one section, statesmen are gathered, in another, a pair of happy fish keeping company with Mickey Mouse and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. There are flags and monuments, sports figures, queens, kings and Santa Claus, including U.S. airmail and domestic postage stamps that cost as little as eight cents, as well as a 10-cent U.S. airmail stamp commemorating the first man on the Moon.
Value
Some stamps in the "Ebu-Arts #1 and #2” pieces are from countries that no longer exist. Many are from the early part of the last century and some are rare and valuable. "Ebu-Arts #1" sold for $60,000.00 immediately after it went on the market.

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