Ruud Janssen (9)

Sent by Ruud Janssen from the Netherlands, this awesome artistamp. The artistamp is showing Ruud himself and has been designed by Domenico Ferrara Foria, in honour of the 35th anniversary of the International Union of Mail Artists (IUOMA), which takes place this year! Ruud is the founder of this great network.

The artistamp arrived in this envelope, which is an alibi to post the mail art here: there are animals on it!



Funny detail might be the fact that the snail mail snail and Year of the Dog stamp have been designed by me :-) Always nice to see them travel.
I've sent the original stamps to Ruud Janssen, because he also is curating the TAM rubberstamp archive.


Also in this envelope this bright work of art arrived:



Created by Ruud Janssen. I guess it is named bits and bytes, or some other name?!?

Thank you very much, hartelijk dank, Ruud!

Mail Art Martha (9)

I love comics, and those of Mail Art Martha are great. See how Ali Khat and Vermina Rat are chatting. And wonder, with us, whether Vermina will succeed in entering the IUOMA Orange group or not :-)

Created and sent by Mail Art Martha.
She added also a tiny book in which there is an explanation about apples, Celts and Halloween. Interesting!



And well-known artistamps on the envelope! The Fish by Keith Chambers (see also here), and the Clowns project stamp, from the collaboration between Mail Art Martha and Cascadia Artpost.



Thank you very much, Mail Art Martha!

Katerina Nikoltsou (29)

Katerina Nikoltsou spool knitted this marvelous cute Snake Snail and I am happy she send him'/her to me!

On the back side she added a nice text and these pretty artistamps:



Inside the envelope an other collage, showing time and a Giant Panda:



All camearrived in this blue anvelope, watched by Katerina's famous Greek Cat:



Thank you very much, Katerina!

Katerina Nikoltsou (22)

Always a pleasure to receive Katerina Nikoltsou's original works of art and to add it to this 'real weird animals' mail art collectiom. The Snail Mail Snail I recognized immediately, but for my records I'm happy that she wrote the names of the unidentified animals: 'Strange Critters'.

On the back artistamps, among them the Fish dada artistamp by Keith S. Chambers, and Katerina's selfie by "E":



The postage stamp on the envelope is issued in honour of the 'Greece in Russia' year:



And on the back Katerina's (and Athena's) famous wise Owl on a stamp print:



Thank you very much, ευχαριστώ, Katerina!

Linda French

These friendly Cats were created and sent by Linda French from the USA.

They arrived, accompanied by circles:



And flowers (do I see Snail homes in these?):



In a beautifully coloured envelope:



Thank you very much, Linda!

Claudia / Creative Shell

On instagram of course I get attracted by Snail pictures, of Mail Snail, common Snails and all kinds of Snails more.
One very interesting snaily account is Snail a Day. I was so lucky to exchange snail mail with the creator, Claudia from Scotland. She drew me this wonderful Snail party. Besides the Snails, you also can see Worms and Bees being happy!

Also the envelope is great:



Inside the envelope, among a kind message and more pictures, Claudia added these wonderful Snail photos:







Thank you very much, Claudia!

Snail Mail Snails - 2015

Today is 21-12, which means the last '21st' of this year. Time flies...
Also 21-12 usually means the shortest day and longest night of any year.

About one year ago I sent Mail Snails to several mail art friends to wish them a Happy 2015.
I've sent these on postcards, to keep it that way or to colour, and to keep or to send it to whoever they wanted to send it to.

To my surprise I received some of them in return, via snail mail or email, and I love the way all artists added their 'handwriting' to the Snail Mail Snails!
Also a few mail artists, who hadn't received an original card, printed the snail and coloured and sent them.
Thank you very much, all of you!

The one above not only was coloured by FinnBadger, but also has been turned into an envelope. Which I think so suitable: FinnBadger has a mail art blog on Envelopes!

Here some other great contributions:


From Bruno Chiarlone


From Suus in Mokum


From Ana Marta Austin


From Dean (here in process)


From Katerina Nikoltsou


From Richard C.

Thank you very much!

P.S. I've received a few more coloured Mail Snails, but in the past year some of them crawled away to some hidden place. I'll post them as soon as I'll have found them back...

Paloma Paprika

Great mail art envelope...



... containing a kind message, at the backside of this interesting human / ape hand collage:



... and goodies and three great mini zines, among them this one:



... of which this is the inside:



... and this one:



... created and sent from Australia by Paloma Paprika. Thank you very much!

Mail Art Martha (8)

I always love Mail Art Martha's Snail Mail Snail. This time the Snail came along with a well-known Owl on the envelope.



Inside the envelope Martha sent me a portrait, drawn / rubbed by Martha herself. And lots of coffee!

And she added music!! It's the second song I ever read and heard about mail art. The very first song I happened to hear yesterday, named 'Mailart dada skank' by Rod Summers and Tom Winter. You can find it at Rod's page, then scroll down and click the link to the song. I think Martha and I should collaborate to make Martha's mail art song into a hit, too :-)



Thank you very much, Martha!

John Edwards (4)

The regular postcard below wasn't the reason for posting this great mail from John Edwards, even though it shows British Wildlife, because a regular card isn't mail art. But look at that drawn Snail on the backside (see above)! Great Snail Mail Snail!



Thank you very much, John!