PORTLAND (AP) – The Portland artist and illustrator who designed the new Kwanzaa stamp will be honored today with a key to the city in a City Hall celebration of the seven-day holiday that runs from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

Daniel Minter will sign stamps at the event, which also will feature musical performances and speakers explaining the non-religious African-American holiday.

The stamp design, which Minter began while living in Brooklyn, N.Y., represents the seven days of Kwanzaa and the principles they signify with seven figures in colorful robes.

Each day of the holiday recognizes each Kwanzaa belief: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

“The ideas of a culture become one as the (robes) are different patterns in fabric,” Minter said.

Just as Minter doesn’t like to corner himself into one artistic style, he doesn’t want Kwanzaa to be recognized by only one culture.

“Being recognized by the city beyond the African-American culture makes it more acceptable to the wider community,” he said. “It has to grow outward, or you lead to extinction.”

After hearing that the Postal Service wanted to update the Kwanzaa stamp, which was first issued in 1997, he sent samples of his work, including a copy of a children’s book that he illustrated, “Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story.”

The free-lance artist and illustrator felt honored when chosen to design the stamp and spent a year on the project.

“It’s not doing a piece representing a company, but the ideas of a culture,” he said. “It’s things I think about all the time. I would have given more ideas for the stamp.”

Minter’s family moved to Maine in September 2003 when his wife accepted a job with L.L. Bean.

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