IUOMA

The International Union of Mail Artists is the grand daddy of them all. The website can feel a bit intimidating at first, but if you're into mail art, it is a great place to find like-minded people. And everyone is extremely friendly and welcoming.

MomKat in Greece is one of the first IUOMA members I exchanged mail art with, and we are still sending back and forth between Columbus and Thessaloniki in Greece.

Here's her latest collaged piece.

Through my connection with MomKat, I started exchanging mail art with stripygoose on a regular basis, as they know each other very well, and hang out together whenever MomKat is in London (UK).

The latest from stripygoose, including an artistamp from Positively Postal, another IUOMA artist I connect with:

Another favorite from IUOMA is Mail Art Martha, also in the UK near London. Here's her latest:

Here's a piece of mail art from Keith (in California). We've been exchanging for a few years now.

And here's my first piece from Mim (on the east coast), sent unsolicited, and much prettier in person - the scanner didn't seem to want to pick up all the details.

Have you ever mailed someone you didn't know?

Did they respond?

Mail art call celebrating 500 years of Royal Mail

stripygoose and Positively Postal hosted a mail art call 'Make the Most of the Post' to celebrate Royal Mail's amazing milestone.

The USPS planets and Pluto minisheet gave me inspiration to send all 10 stamps on three envelopes:

I stood in line to get them hand cancelled (to try and avoid ugly black lines all over the stamps) and the clerk asked me where the stamps were - seriously! Perhaps he had not seen any of the new stamps yet.

Update: here they are side by side, so the intended message is easier to read (click to enlarge).

Cheerios

I'm guest blogging over at positively postal this week (link lower down in the right hand column).

Today is a joint blog, in that I used the back of a cereal box to create two odd-shaped pieces to send naked in the mail.

This one is to the Artist in Seine.

And I thought you'd like to see how I fit the stamps, address and message on the back.

The other one was sent to MomKat.