About This Stamp
The U.S. Postal Service® celebrates a favorite backyard bird with the issuance of the Barn Swallow Stamped Envelope. When summer is in full swing, almost anywhere in the world, many species of swallows can be seen darting and gliding through the air, doing what they do best – hunting insects on the wing.
The barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) originally nested in caves. As man-made structures began to dot the North American landscape, barn swallows adapted by building their mud nests under the eaves of barns, houses, and bridges, thus becoming a familiar sight in farmyards. Even today, having barn swallows nest on your property is considered good luck. Barn swallows are acrobatic flyers and can easily catch and consume insects in midair. These graceful birds can also cover long distances. Some barn swallows that summer in Alaska fly to Argentina for the winter–a migration route of more than 7,000 miles.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
William Gicker
William Gicker served as Director of Stamp Services for the U.S. Postal Service from 2020 until his retirement in 2023. In that position he oversaw stamp development, stamp products and exhibitions, stamp manufacturing, stamp fulfillment, and the Postmaster General’s Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC).
Gicker began working for the U.S. Postal Service in 1998. Initially assistant editor of USA Philatelic, the quarterly stamp catalog produced by Stamp Services, he soon became editor where he oversaw the catalog’s award-winning program until 2013.
Named creative director of stamps in 2001, Gicker became manager and creative director of Stamp Development in 2015. Working closely with Postal Service art directors and CSAC, he managed the creative development and quality control of more than 800 stamp issuances and 1,700 individual stamp designs.
He has served as art director for some of the most popular stamps issued by the Postal Service: the five-year Art of Disney series; Star Wars; Holy Family; Harry Potter; and Hot Wheels. As both art director and designer, Gicker lists among his many stamps, Holiday Baubles; the first international rate Global stamp in 2013; and the Gifts of Friendship joint issuance with Japan. He was also art director for the first stamp to celebrate Diwali, eight more Global Forever® stamps, and several Christmas Madonna and Child issuances, the most recent in 2024.
A native of Pennsylvania, Gicker graduated from West Chester University with a bachelor of arts degree in English Literature. He and his family live in Washington, DC.
Stamp Artist
Matthew Frey
Matthew Frey grew up in Phoenix, Maryland, where he destroyed every pair of shoes that his mother bought him tromping through the surrounding streams and lowlands in search of salamanders, crayfish, and other wild things . . . of the irresistible variety.
Indoors, Matt found vicarious adventure in natural history books borrowed from the local library. His love of illustration began in these quiet times, cultivated by the paintings and photos that graced the pages of those now-classic books.
After graduating from high school in Connecticut, Matt attended Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, where he earned a degree in illustration in 1996. Returning to familiar territory after graduation, Matt serendipitously found employment with Wood Ronsaville Harlin, Inc., a traditional illustration studio in Annapolis, Maryland, that specializes in, among other genres, natural history.
In 1998, Matt began training and flying birds of prey in pursuit of their natural quarry as a licensed falconer. He held the station of Master Falconer and was a founding officer of the West Virginia Falconry Club.
Matt applied his creativity as both an illustrator and a graphic designer. His work appeared in many of the publications and institutions that originally roused his love of illustration and visual communication, including National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
Given his particular affinity for birds of prey and avifauna in general, Matt took particular interest in illustrating Purple Martin stamped envelope (2012), Bank Swallow stamped envelope (2013), and Barn Swallow stamped envelope (2017).
Matt Frey died on November 8, 2020.