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!

Ruud Janssen (8)

Nowadays it seems that many people consider the digital world as the real world. So the time might be ripe to consider computers (and smartphones and so on) as living creatures, too!...?
Anyway, this artwork by Ruud Janssen looks very Human. A good alibi to post it here!

The, er, how shall we name him/her, came in an envelope, decorated by the General-President of the International Union of Mail Artists (IUOMA) himself. Such an honour!



And the front side pretty and interesting as usual. Thank you very much, hartelijk dank, Ruud!

Ruud Janssen (7)

From Ruud Janssen I received many great pieces of mail art. Due to lack of time I am much behind in posting, but I'll try to do so, step by step (animals on this blog, other themes on the IUOMA site).
So here some add-and-passes, I received in March already.
By the way, Mail Art Cows you also can find at the IUOMA Mail-Art Cow group.



This add-and-pass (above: front side, below back side) originated by Jon Foster.



Here is Ruud's typical art, showing asemic writing:



And the well-known painted envelope:



Thank you very much, Ruud!

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!

Ruud Janssen (5)

Last year there was a 'Big Draw' event in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, where we had the opportunity to draw after real models. Among them there was Ina, who wore a large green dress, and I drew her a few times. One of these drawings I turned into a postcard, to send out to other mail artists. The title of the drawing is 'What or whom is she staring at?", and I hoped my colleague mail artists would add their ideas to and pass on or returned. And they did!

This addition has been created by Ruud Janssen. He got this Cow stamp from Robert Rocola. Great to see what she is seeing. Thank you very much, hartelijk dank, Ruud, for sharing with us!

You can see more additions, by various mail artists, in the 'What or whom is she staring at?'-IUOMA group.

GX Jupitter-Larsen (2)

The same envelope by Ruud Janssen appears to be a source of various interpretations. GX made them. I already was spoiled by beautiful animal stamps, and am happy to see many more of them. Thank you, GX Jupitter-Larsen!

Ruud Janssen (4)

A flock of Bunnies entered my mailbox!
After coming out of the envelope, most of them seemed to be a little shy...



.. and ran back into the safe warm colourful house they had come out: the Envelope!
Weird, isn't it?



The envelope contained more beauties and has been created by Ruud Janssen (who has the same initials as the person who taught the world how to draw a bunny).

Thank you very much, hartelijk dank, Ruud!

Ruud Janssen (3)

Again a beautifully painted envelope by Ruud Janssen from the Netherlands.
Showing two pairs of eyes, so two animals, Nocturnal Animals in fact.
Ruud wrote that these animals are living in couples and that I, by knowing this fact, should know them. But to be honest: I'm not sure whether these are Possums, or Barn Owls, or ...?



The same mystery concerns the animal shown here. The title says it's a spear point, but I almost am sure that this is an animal, too. Or at least this might be the habitat of the tapeworm.
Well, because it's an add-to-and-pass-on, I'll think of adding a specimen of such an animal to it. To be continued!

And of course above left you can see the famous Bunny.



A real 'animal' is this Human, watching a true quote: yes, Mail Art Matters!



The scanned envelope on top shows a nice overview, but in real the colours are even more bright. The scan didn't pick up that, but my photo camera did a bit: see the neon pink colours right above, enjoy!



Thank you very much, veel dank, Ruud!

Ruud Janssen (2)

Short after Ruud's previous animal, I was surprised by an other colourful envelop painting, created by Ruud Janssen from the Netherlands.
I hardly dare to guess which animal this is (I have several ideas) and wanted to remain silent, however Ruud unveiled a little by writing that this animal might be an 'angsthaas'.
We don't know if this animal exists in English language also. But literally 'angsthaas' means 'fear hare', which translated into English suddenly is a total different animal: scaredy-cat.

Thank you so much, Hartelijk dank, Ruud!

Ruud Janssen

In order to fill out the 'Labels' section below, I always try to find out which animals the senders have been creating.
In case of the beautifully painted envelope by Ruud Janssen it remained mysterious...
Those big eyes make me think of the Balinese Dragon-Lion figure Barong.
However, it won't be the first time that I misinterpreted Ruud's abstract art work.

Thank you very much, hartelijk dank, Ruud, for this wonderful painted envelope and matching stamps!