Putting her stamp on art

KERERU: A kereru perched on a pohutukawa branch features among New Zealand postage stamp artworks created by Janine McDiarmid. Picture by Rebecca Grunwell

A STAMP album unearthed while helping clean out her father’s garage gave Gisborne woman Janine McDiarmid an idea for an artwork.

She covered a sheet of paper with the stamps and laid a sheet of cut-out cardboard over it.

The handicraft became a hobby. She made the postage stamp stencil artworks for family members and friends. She exhibited a selection in a cafe and sold several.

McDiarmid uses only New Zealand stamps and now sources most of them online.

“Some of the stamps are pieces of art in themselves. That’s what hooked me at the beginning, the colours and the details and the intricacy.”

The stencil-like cut-outs include kiwiana such as Mini Morrises, Kombies, tractors, tiki forms, and native birds and plants.

Having left teaching last year after 20 years in the profession, McDiarmid recently completed her studies in viticulture and winemaking.

“But the art has taken off and I enjoy is so much,” she said.

Janine McDiarmid’s New Zealand stamp-based artwork is on exhibition now in Muirs Bookshop Cafe.