About This Stamp
This additional ounce stamp from the U.S. Postal Service features a brush rabbit (Sylvilagus bachmani). It is available on a pane of 20 stamps or in a coil of 100.
The stamp art features a pencil-and-watercolor illustration of a brush rabbit from pre-existing artwork by Dugald Stermer (1936–2011), an influential magazine designer and wildlife illustrator. His penciled calligraphy on the stamp indicates the animal’s common name and scientific classification.
A small brownish cottontail rabbit of the U.S. West Coast and Baja California, Mexico, the brush rabbit lives mostly west of the Sierra Nevada range and south of the Oregon–Washington border. Adults are about a foot long and generally weigh between one and two pounds. Over the course of several litters, a typical female bears about 15 young each year.
The brush rabbit shelters in brush and thicket and feeds on grasses and greens, favoring clover and enjoying berries in season. Gregarious only while feeding, a brush rabbit warns companions of danger by loudly thumping a hind foot on the ground. Predators include bobcats, hawks, great horned owls, minks, weasels, and snakes.
Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp.
The words "ADDITIONAL OUNCE" on this stamp indicate its usage value. Like a Forever® stamp, this stamp will always be valid for the rate printed on it.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Ethel Kessler
Ethel Kessler is an award-winning designer and art director who has worked with corporations, museums, public and private institutions, professional service organizations, and now, the United States Postal Service.
After earning a B.F.A. in visual communications from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Kessler worked as a graphic designer and project manager for the exhibits division of the United States Information Agency. Her work was distributed internationally on subjects such as Immigration, Entrepreneurship, Renovation of American Cities, and the Bicentennial of 1976. She was also responsible for exhibits in Morocco, Botswana, and El Salvador.
In 1981, she established Kessler Design, Inc., for which she is creative director and designer. Clients have included the Clinton Government reorganization, the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Television, the National Park Service, and the American Institute of Architects.
She has been an art director for the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp development program for more than 25 years. As an art director for USPS, Kessler has been responsible for creating more than 500 stamp designs, including the Breast Cancer Research stamp illustrated by Whitney Sherman. Issued in 1998, the stamp is still on sale and has raised more $98 million for breast cancer research. Other Kessler projects include the popular and highly regarded Nature of America 120 stamp series, a collaboration with nationally acclaimed nature illustrator John Dawson, the 12-year Lunar New Year series with Kam Mak, the American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes 10 stamps issued in 2003, a 2016 pane of stamps celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, and the 2023 stamp honoring Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And many, many others.