It took a lot of toying with initials before he decided on KK Karmacharya. "Just enough K's," laughs Kancha Kumar Karmacharya, the 57-year-old artist and Nepal's most prolific postage stamp designer. As he nears retirement this year, KK has been counting all the postage stamps he has designed and there is a grand total of 389 stamps since 1967.
His first stamp was the International Tourism Year stamp on 14 October 1967. "Its hard to choose my favourite," he says when asked to point out the stamp he is most proud of. "I wasn't happy with all of them," he says. The ones he enjoyed doing the most were those reflecting Nepal's biodiversity: blocks of four flowers, butterflies and birds. "They were quite popular," he recalled. Then there was the strip with Mt Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse that were unique when they came out in 1979.
Karmacharya is no philatelist but he has collected all his first day covers diligently. "It's hard enough trying to collect my own," he smiles, "I never was interested in collecting stamps anyway, just designing them." His most expensive stamp costs Rs 25, and sells for Rs 80.
Painting on canvas and designing stamps are very different, says Karmacharya. "When I first began, I was a little baffled because you design on A4 size and then it gets minimised, all the space just disappears. "You have to think little while working big," he says. As an artist, it took quite a while to get used to the miniaturisation, but he did.
As emails replace snail mail, technology has also overtaken postage stamp designing. "All attention has moved to the technical and this has not necessarily been helpful to creativity," he says. Despite all his years at the post office, KK never took to letter writing. His passion remains with brushes and colours. He is well known for his larger water and oil works on canvas. Contemporary abstract compositions are his forte but he likes experimenting with modern figurative works too. KK Karmacharya is designing his last few stamps before retiring in April and he is already looking forward to painting fulltime.
ABHA ELI PHOBOO
