Eisbär

Recently I drew some Polar bears on ATCs. Drawing them reminded me of the song 'Eisbär' ('Polar bear') from the Suiss new wave group Grauzone.
In the early eighties - I was in my teens - they sang 'Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein' ('I wish I were a polar bear'), as this way everything would be fine, and, 'Eisbären müssen nie weinen', 'polar bears never have to cry'.
Thirty-six years later I think there are too much reasons for polar bears to cry. Their land is disappearing, and with it they themselves, too. 'Thanks' to ruthless multinationals and greedy politic leaders - the burden of present gas and oil drilling and the threat with more exploitation of the Arctic. 'Thanks' to our consumeristic behaviour, which leads to more production, excessive use of of energy resources. Continuously global warming...

Thoughts like this made me create this drawing (and turn off the light early, buy less, wear a sweater instead of turning the heater higher).
Sent to Ryosuke Cohen in Japan, hopefully he will spread the word image via his brain cell project.

On the back side and on the envelope I stamped these recently carved roosters who are looking back, too.

Squirrel / Fox / Sqox

Squirrel and Snail Mail Snail sent to Connie Jean's Squirrelmuseum:



Fox sent to Margit in Germany:



Sqox - Pufflingspaintings character - sent to @pufflingspaintings herself:



Fortunately for the latter I had found these matching stamps to accompany Sqox during the journey:

Ode to a shoe

In contrary to many other women, I hate to go shopping for clothes and shoes and so.
As some others do, I prefer to walk into an art supply store, a book shop, and in former days, to places where they sell (sold) LP's and CD's. And musical instruments. Oh, and forgot to tell that toyshops also belong to my favourite stores :-)

Every now and then I have to buy new clothes or shoes. For me less than once a year. While the kids, who are growing, more often need new clothes. Fortunately they can look for clothes themselves while I am waiting in the cloths shop, humming and in the end paying. Meanwhile you can see me sitting, drawing, on a stool or bench if available, while the kids are trying their new-cloths-to-be in the fitting rooms. I have drawn a few pieces then, among them this shoe. I drew it after a black one, but as I wanted to send it to someone in the city of Nijmegen, suddenly I painted it green, red and black. These are the colours of the Nimwegian soccer club NEC.

The fish I carved at home, and I added it when I re-discovered a green-red inking pad which I had bought some time ago, when happily shopping for art supplies :-)

Puffins

I am not sure if these Puffins have arrived already. I've send them in December 2014, the Tufted Puffin (on top) to Hana in Japan, and the Atlantic Puffin to Denise in Canada. They might have got lost during their long flight, or, better, maybe they've met their family on their way, and just decided to stay there.
I see it before me, two drawn puffins standing on a rock above the see, surrounded by real puffins!..

An other seagull, zentangled

And not only an other wave, but also the seagull returned into a new piece of mail art.
Created for and sent to Connie in the USA.

Olive tree...

Olijfboom, getekend voor Quinta Buma. Zij is fotograaf en maakt prachtige ansichtkaarten, zie haar website.

Olive tree, drawn for Quinta Buma. She is a photographer and makes beautiful postcards, check her website.



Verzonden in deze envelop. De postzegel met de Waalbrug is van mijn hand, de artistamp kreeg ik van Patrizia / TICTAC uit Duitsland. Altijd leuk om kunst te ontvangen, èn die weer door te sturen, per post!

Sent in this envelope. The bridge-stamp has been created by me, and shows the bridge over the river Waal, in the city of Nijmegen. The artistamp I received from Patrizia / TICTAC from Germany. It's always a joy to receive art and pass it on to other artists, via snail mail!

All things of value...

Ik heb eerder een neushoorn voor Ryosuke getekend. En weer besef ik tijdens het tekenen hoe kwetsbaar dit grote dier is, tegenover de mens.
'Alles van waarde is weerloos', schoot me te binnen, en voegde ik toe, de beroemde uitspraak van Lucebert.

I've created a Rhinoceros for Ryosuke before.
And again this impressive animal reminds me of the vulnerability of animals who are facing mankind.
'Alles van waarde is weerloos', in English: 'All things of value are defenseless' is a quote by the late Dutch poet/artist Lucebert. While drawing, this quote came into my mind and I added it.



Als 'postzegel' een neushoorn-stempel uit een gum gesneden.

As a postage 'stamp' I decided to carve a rhinoceros rubber stamp.

Striped Goose

Stripygoose heeft een heel mooi mail art project, namelijk over Vogels.
't Ligt voor de hand waar je als eerste aan denkt. Een gestreepte gans tekenen en die naar Engeland sturen, natuurlijk.

Stripygoose has a great mail art project, namely about Birds.
So it's clear to me what bird to send first. A stripy goose, of course.

Onions

Ja echt, zulke 'gewone' groenten als uien zijn heel inspirerend!
Bij het IUOMA-netwerk is er zelfs een groep voor.
En als antwoord op de uien die ik van Katerina Nikoltsou ontving uit Griekenland, tekende, kleurde en verpakte ik deze uien, en ook ontstond er uit een gum ineens een ui-stempel.

Who could ever think of onions being inspiring? Sure, onions really are worth being 'transformed' into art! There's even an
IUOMA 'Onions' group.
As a reply to the onions Katerina Nikoltsou had sent me from Greece, I drew, coloured and packed onions, and created an onion stamp.

Trees and songbirds

Een boom naar Nijmegen en een boom naar Zweden.

One tree sent to the city of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and one to the city of Vaxholm in Sweden.

Writing without writing tools

The letter above has been written without the use of pens, graphite or anything else usually used for writing. You can read how the sender succeeded in writing this way!
I received it from Venus from Canada - thank you very much, Venus!

Meanwhile I was asked to write without writing tools also. My texts I've sent to some other member of a very secret League. (Click on the pictures to read full texts.)





A real challenge to invent 'new' ways of writing, to solve this challenge. Above some stitched words.



And by first forgetting my scissors, I learned that tearing paper into letters also helps. The quote above is based on a song of the British eighties indie band the Passions, my favourite song of this band I used to listen to in my teens.











For anyone who is curious to know but couldn't decipher the stitched extraterrestial words above:

Snail Mail Snail - nieuwe postslak

Enkele post-slakken die ik ontwierp liet ik via een bedrijf in stempels omtoveren (zoals deze slak en deze). Maar 't is minstens zo leuk om de slakkenstempel zelf uit een gum te snijden. En nog leuker is het om dat gezellig samen met anderen te doen.
Zodoende kwam ik vorige week terecht op een workshop 'stempels snijden' bij Studio Collage. Het resultaat zie je hierboven, gefotografeerd door Tedje van Erck van Studio Collage.
Zij gebruikt overigens ook stempels voor sieraden (duurzame kunst, gemaakt van fietsbinnenbanden) en voor andere gebruiksvoorwerpen, zie ook deze website.
Een heel mooi gemaakte gum-stempel van haar hand vind ik deze hart-puzzel.

I already had designed some snail mail snails to have them turn into rubber stamps by an official company (like this mail snail and this one).
But it's more fun to carve rubberstamps by ourselves, isn't it?
And even more fun it is to create eraser/rubber stamps in a room shared with other creative people.
That way I ended up at a Stamp carving workshop at Studio Collage. The result you see above, pictured by Tedje van Erck of Studio Collage.
By the way, she uses rubberstamps to make other articles of everyday use. Among them jewellery out of the inner tyres of bicycles. See also this website.
And I think this rubberstamp she carved great, this heart-puzzle.

Where has the forest gone? (17)

Dieren tekenen vind ik erg leuk, en ik hou er ook van om voor mensen hun favoriete dier te tekenen. Dus toen Kerosene desgevraagd antwoordde dat een zwarte panter ooit haar favoriet was, kwam bovenstaande uit mijn pen en penseel rollen. Misschien toch niet de panter die zij bedoeld had?!?

I love to draw animals, and I like to draw people's favourite animal. So when I asked and Kerosene answered that the black panter used to be her favourite, this black panter appeared on my paper. It might not be the one she meant?!?

Added to and returned (3): Fish on tv

In december 2011 ontving ik onderstaand verzoek, met die prachtige envelop en daarin nog allerlei efemera, van Adamandia Kapsalis. Zie hierboven voor mijn antwoord. Een jaar en een week later...
Het is voor het TV mail art project van Adamandia Kapsalis. Televisie, daar kun je veel mee doen. Maar hoe ik het ook wendde of keerde, op de een of andere manier komen er steeds maar weer vissen in beeld.

December 2011 I received the request you see below, together with various ephemera in a beautiful envelope, made and sent by Adamandia Kapsalis. See above for my reply. Made and sent one year and one week after...
It's my contribution to Adamandia's TV mail art project. The subject 'Television' of course offers unlimited inspiration. But suddenly fish arrived on the tv-screen, and I couldn't help sending fish to Adamandia.

Fe mail art

Mooie post van Moan Lisa uit de Verenigde Staten. De inhoud is zoals je ziet vertrouwelijk, dus die blijft in de envelop. Je kan per slot van rekening niet alles op het o zo openbare net zetten. Maar kijk eens, die mooie stempels!
Leuk om te zien, ook, dat de Amerikaanse brievenbus er zo heel anders uitziet dan de Nederlandse.

Hoe je trouwens 'brievenbus' goed in het Engels vertaalt, volgens mij is dat per land verschillend. In de IUOMA-groep zag ik dat ik niet de enige in verwarring ben.
Zie ook de terechte vraag en de verschillende antwoorden - uit verschillende landen - op Eva's blog.

Beautiful mail from Moan Lisa from the USA. The content, as you can read below, is confidential, so I kept the content within the envelope. I'm sure you'll understand: the internet of course is too public to publish everything.
But take a look at the beautiful rubber stamp prints! For me it's nice to see that the USA mailbox looks so different from the Dutch one.

P.S. Concerning mailboxes: I have some difficulty translating 'brievenbus' into the right English word, as every country seems to have it's own word(s). Mailbox, letterbox, postbox... The IUOMA group learnt me that I am not the only one in confusion.
In Dutch the word 'brievenbus' literally means 'letter bus/box', but it is used for two types of boxes: the box for outgoing and the one for incoming mail. However, similar to the function, the box itself is different.
See also the nice question and various answers (maybe you could add yours to it!?) on Eva's blog.



Thank you very much, Moan Lisa!

Added to and returned (1)

In de afgelopen paar jaar ontving ik verschillende 'add and return' kunstwerken. Ik loop helaas flink achter met beantwoorden, maar hopelijk lukt het de komende tijd dat alsnog te doen. Boven- en onderstaande is in ieder geval op de bus gedaan.
Van Laura Daniels uit Engeland ontving ik mooie mail art, met de vraag om 'toe te voegen en door te sturen' (terugsturen, werd het). Het grappige van 'add and return' mail art is dat ik niet altijd weet wáár ik precies iets aan moet toevoegen ('t zou best kunnen dat het aan een van de andere attributen in de envelop had gemoeten). Maar goed, dat is de vrijheid van de kunstenaar, natuurlijk.

In the past years I received several nice add-and-return-to mail art. And I must apologize that I am very much behind in adding and returning... I'll try to add-to and return asap, but to the people who are waiting for my reply (like E [Cavellini], Adamandia [tv-screen], Koos de Jonge [art book], Amuldo [folded booklet] and Lubomyr [Stamps Heart]): please have a little - or a lot - more patience!..

The funny thing of add-and-return mail (or add and pass on, in this case, Laura's request was) is that I don't always know which part(s) to add to.

Many months ago I received mail art from Laura Daniels from the UK: two nice drawings and some other pieces (which might have been the ones to add-to?!?).
However, I choose to stick one of the two drawings completely to a larger blue piece of paper, to which I added a drawing (a drawing which I never would have been able to create without the inspiration of Laura's mailed art!). And in addition I drew some copies of the, er, balloons, flowers?, from Laura's other design on the envelope.

Thank you very much, Laura! Hope you'll like the additions!



An other add-and-return-to/pass-on project is Ruud Janssen's 'stamp collage' project for the TAM rubberstamp archive. I stamped these to add them to my mail for Laura. Looking forward to knowing what wil be added to these!