Ruud Janssen (6), Cavellini

I was pleasantly surprised and felt very much honoured when I opened Ruud Janssen's wonderful painted envelope.
Among nice sheets and ephemera he also sent me this sticker, showing a Cow. A special one: this one had been created by Cavellini, who gave this sticker to Ruud in 1991.

On the envelope Ruud added a matching postage stamp:



I can't remember having seen Cavellini's Cow before, but I must have been unconsciously inspired by the shape of this cow when I created my own Cow recently. Later I learned of Rocola's Bull stamp, but that is a different one.

Thank you very much, Ruud, hartelijk dank voor deze bijzondere verrassing!

Mathom House

A sweet collage arrived from Mathom House from Italy. Probably the Post has token something instead of adding lots of the usual additions, as Mathom House wrote that these puppies were accompanied by ice cream.
Nevertheless I think it a great collage; by the horizontal lines it makes me think of a nice variation on our flag.



The postage stamp shows the cartographer Martino Martini.

I am happy to read that Mathom House and I share a similar favourite animal: the Donkey. So now I know what mail art to create to send in return :-)
(Strange enough no one ever has sent Donkey mail art to the Real Weird Animals project so far - while I only did twice, you can find Donkeys here, on the 8th row, and here)

Thank you very much, grazie mille, Mathom House!

Serse Luigetti (2)

Lots of animals in this mail art by Serse Luigetti from Italy. It shows that we have to take care of our world. As apart from the living eggheaded bird below on the right, and the humans on rubberstamp and postage stamp above, from the animals you see below there are only skeletons left...



Grazie mille, Serse, for this interesting mail art!

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.

Serse Luigetti

A Horse! Such a common animal, loved by many. 'Common', but when looking close, it becomes clear that Horses are a kind of weird, too!
There are only a few animals who allow people to sit on their back for hours and still keep on smiling (in the Horse's case, keep on their ears up).

Serse Luigetti from Italy created this beautiful Paper Horse, and of course - I think - Serse's Mail Art wouldn't be complete without some visual poetry.



On the envelope some more animals.
Below a detail of this very inconvenient truth:



Serse added a few postcards, of which in this one I see a wellknown animal, too (already visualised by many artists): the Human Being.



Here more of Serse Luigetti's visual poetry. I cannot read it, so if anyone can decode the text, please let me know. Or am I so weird not to see - and just enjoy, nothing more - the visual image?!





(I love the envelop between the rounds!).
Thanks a lot, grazie mille, Serse!

Elefantus

I'm not sure whether this postcard is meant for the Real Weird Animals project. But sure the Elephant is an interesting and weird animal, so I'm happy to have received this postcard from Elefantus!

Grazie mille, Elefantus!