Evrika Junglle / Planer

I always am very happy when receiving mail art. However sometimes it isn't easy to find out who has sent it. Which is both a nice puzzle and frustrating :-)
Sometimes I never get to know who the creator / sender is, and sometimes there is doubt.
The latter is concerning this beautiful rubberstamp-drawn-written piece of mail art, of which it took me three days to try to find more info about the sender. And still in doubt.

Is it from Planer (who is Planer)? Is it from Vladimir Tolstov? Do I read well that the first name of the drawing artist is Evrika? Evrika Junglle??
The stamp reveals (viva los postage stamps!) that it has been sent from Russia, so probably not sent by the one who added an artistamp and suitable postage stamp, A. Moreno.
While 'Prolaventa' combined with Maya (see below) reminds us of Evrika Junglle.



Enough about question marks. Let's start to enjoy the mail art! Probably not meant for this mail art project, there are so many great animals shown that this mail art needs to be shown here. too.
The interesting drawing above. Alas I don't speak Russian, but this round-mouthed person seems to say 'ОПЯТЬ ДЫРЫ!?', and according to online translators this means 'Another hole!?'! Good work by the Rodent.
The human being is shown both on the artistamp and the postage stamp, and see the Mail Turtle rubber stamp, the Turtle hard working delivering snail turtle mail!



Inside the envelope beautiful ancient Maya art, combined with contemporary Maya art rubberstamp prints.

Great rubberstamp prints on the back of the envelope, too. The Kangaroo, an extraordinary Marsupial from Australia, and a Jaguar, I think it is, from the fact that this dotted Feline is located close to the word Jungl(l)e.



The word RUSFORMA stands for Russian Uncommercialy Sociocultured Formation Of Reunion Mail Artists.

Thank you very much, спасибо!!

Eva (8)

Yay, the Platypus! Holding a letter, so a post-platypus, even!
Drawn and sent by Eva.

Inside this beautiful envelope two lovely hedgehogs, who resemble of course the Platypus' cousin: the Echidna.



And inside the letter, this interesting text about monotremes.



And while I always get a big smile when seeing a platypus, I guess Eva is smiling when she sees a laughing cow. Check her website, and whenever you find laughing cow, send it to her!



Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

Tiziana Baracchi

Nice combination of visual poetry and collage. Showing animals who usually seem to be common, to us. But in fact they're great - and weird!
The striped zebra, the long nose of the elephant, and whoever would wear branches on his head?! And see how pinguins resemble humans.

This fine mail art has been created and sent by Tiziana Baracchi from Italy.





Grazie mille, Tiziana!



Tiziana has an interesting mail art project, dedicated to the late Italian mail artist Guglielmo Achille Cavellini. This year it's 100 years ago that he was born.
For more information about the C.A.G. mail art project, see here.

Pietro Romano Matarrese

This unidentified Real Weird Animal I received from Pietro Romano Matarrese from Italy.
He created it in a wonderful way: by lemon juice on paper.
And also sent it in a extraordinary way: already framed, ready to be put on the wall!
The glass was a little harmed by the travel through the mail, but despite of the little edge broken, it arrived surprisingly well.



Pietro Romano Matarrese is a multi-artist. Both painter and professor/teacher, musician and composer. You can find more information about Pietro in his biography.

An other surprise Pietro has sent, is his CD, named U.P.H.O. (Unidentified Playing High Object). On this CD a variety of instrumental compositions played on electric guitar.

The front cover has been cleverly made: when you look close, you can see the so-called Droste effect:



Thank you very much, grazie mille, Pietro!

For anyone who's interested to see/hear more from Pietro Romano Matarrese:
Pietro Romano Matarrese at MySpace: myspace.com/pietroromanomatarrese.
More paintings.
Music videos on Vimeo: vimeo.com/pietroromanomatarrese.
His recent album 'Drink' at Amazon and at iTunes.

Katerina Nikoltsou (7)

Katerina got me !
'Of course there is a Camel in the refrigerator', I thought, as history had proofed this.
A Stripy Camel, as you see, even, familiar to Stripy Geese.

However, I became largely surprised when I opened the fridge. No Camel, but....



.. a Bunny instead!
Almost a Real Ray Johnson Bunny - but a special one: a Katerina-blue coloured Bunny.



I think from today on, I'll never regard Easter bunnies anymore without thinking of Mail Art!

On the envelope Katerina added a G.A.C. sticker:



Thank you very much, Katerina, OPA, ευχαριστώ πολύ!

Klaus Pinter

Sent for Real Weird Animals by Klaus Pinter from Austria.
At first sight these footsteps remind me of a dancing human being (or two). And while dancing is a very normal natural phenomenon(see for instance dancing grebes here, and dancing starlings here), it is more and more wellknown that human beings are weird animals, too.

All of you are invited to try these dances!



Thank you very much, Klaus Pinter!

Erni Bär (3)

Mail Art from the great collage mail artist Erni Bär from Germany.
When I got the envelope in hands, I first thought he had sent me a Hippopotamus. But it appeared to be a Single Ant.
As I like all animals, this cute - very, very tiny in this mail art, in fact almost invisible - animal is most welcome, too!



Around the Single Ant we can see lots of humans, and also fish, so no-one needs to be single nor lonely.



And even a Cow! We know Paula-the-yellow-with-brown-spots-cow in the Netherlands, too.
Weird that this cow seems to eat from pudding made by her own milk, but I'm not the first witness of adult cows eating dairy products made from selfproduced milk.



And three strong men are supporting the Mail Artist himself.
The other artist is Kurt Schwitters (whose first name contains the two letters of his sonate), his portrait is pictured as a great rubber stamp print, which doesn't need any support (?).



Thank you very much, vielen Dank, Erni!

Stripygoose

Beautiful water colour painting of the Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii) by Stripygoose!
See the fine drawn blue feet, and the selfconfident gaze. Thank you very much, Stripygoose!!

Stripygoose is doing a project: draw a bird every day during 365 days. And you can join creating birds and send them to Stripygoose! I did, see here.
Today I was the lucky receiver of this Real Stripygoose Art Bird!

On the backside Stripygoose explains where the name 'Blue-footed Booby' comes from. In Dutch, however, this Booby isn't called 'blue-footed fool', but 'blauwvoetgent' (blue-footed gent').
According to the wiki about this Booby's northern cousin, the Dutch word 'gent' seems to originate from the English word 'gander', which later changed into 'gannet', and the Dutch word 'gent', which resembles the Dutch word for 'goose' (namely 'gans').

Antonia Mayol Castelló (2)

Received from Antonia Mayol Castelló, this beautiful collage. It shows the picture of the announcement of the mail art exhibition 'Caminos de Agua' - 'Paths of Water', and some of the contributions. You can see how many animals (including humans) are dependent of water!

And you can find the catalog of the exhibition in a pdf here.



This picture proofs that fish are better off in water than above fire.



Great bird rubber stamps.
Thank you very much, muchas gracias, Antonia!

Mail Art Martha (3)

The Ostrich! Great (and large) weird bird, who flew ran to my mailbox thanks to Mail Art Martha.

Among the Ostrich also these Puffins arrived, by both air and snail mail :-)



(I wonder why this picture suddenly reminds me of the phrase 'There's nuffin like a puffin')

And the envelope brightens my day, too, by these wonderful rubber stamp prints of two other nice weird animals: the Horse, and the Mail Snail!
And of course there's the official stamp of the United Queendom of Retailia.



Thank you very much, Mail Art Martha!

Katerina Nikoltsou (6)

A Camel inside a refrigerator arrived in this envelope:



And this is the inside of the refrigerator:



Part of the 'Time' project from Katerina Nikoltsou from Greece.
Katerina included also two add-and-pass-on envelopes from/to Berlin, and artistamps from Artstamp.DK, which I can use well for my mail.

Such a nice surprise, Katerina, love all of it! Thank you very much, ευχαριστώ πολύ!