A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
You may not have heard of artist Di'Orr Greenwood, but you may already have one of her works in your home. She's among the four artists whose designs appear in a new U.S. Postal Service stamp collection called the Art of the Skateboard.
DI'ORR GREENWOOD: I knew I had to create something that my community would be proud to say, like, yes, she's part of our community.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Greenwood's design reflects her Navajo culture and features a skateboard decorated with eagle feathers.
GREENWOOD: We use them to pray. We use them to just bless our food, our water, our existence, really.
MARTÍNEZ: That design will appear on millions of stamps.
GREENWOOD: Me being allowed to, you know, express our work on this level kind of will put the Navajo Nation back where they need to be, and that is on the map, so people know where we come from.
FADEL: The stamp also reflects Greenwood's love of skateboarding, which she says came from her younger brother.
GREENWOOD: It brought my brother pure joy. And I figured, like, oh, I want some of that. Like, let me try to get into that. So I would steal his skateboard every now and then when he wasn't around.
MARTÍNEZ: The Postal Service says the stamp collection's vibrant designs capture the excitement of skateboarding.
WILLIAM GICKER: There's a lot of great creative energy in the skateboarding subculture, and we thought it was time to recognize that.
MARTÍNEZ: William Gicker is the USPS director of stamp services.
GICKER: What goes on to our national stamp program is really representative of the full nation.
MARTÍNEZ: And skateboarding, once seen as a rebellious sport, now gets the Postal Service's stamp of approval.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADRIAN QUESADA'S "STARRY NIGHTS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
