Zines

Z is for zines, minizines to be precise. MMSA occasionally has  a minizine swap challenge. A minizine is a zine made from a single sheet. You can see how this works here.

The theme was 'For the love of chocolate'.

The ones I created didn't scan very well because I used a lot of metallic chocolate packaging. I should have photographed them. Here are a couple of images from the MMSA site.

And here are a few pages from the beauties that came in from Mary, Trudy and bonus ones from Honi.

My favorite is the poem zine from Joanne.

And there it is, the end of the A-Z challenge, my first time participating. Feel free to celebrate with me by enjoying some chocolate.

I learned that there are too many blogs out there to read them all. I also learned the ins and outs of leaving a comment, from the very easy, to the sometimes bewilderingly challenging - almost like some people don't want you to leave a comment! Not to mention having to do the image captcha thingy every now and again to prove I am a human...

What did you learn from your A-Z challenge?

Did you learn anything from my A-Z challenge?

Y is also for Yellow

Eva helped with my original Y post, and also sent me a postcard just in case I ended up having to use the default of Y is for yellow.

This postcard is by Harald Geisler, and he photographed the objects at their actual size.

I love this series - the posed keys are so clever and playful.

Here are links to the others Eva has sent me. Happy New Year, and Sent From My Phone.

Hopefully you have been following Eva's A-Z of postcards.

What was the last thing you received in the mail that made you smile?

Year of the Monkey

I know, I know, it's the Year of the Rooster, or as I like to call it, Year of the Chicken.

In 2016/17 I ran a mail art call for Year of the Monkey because I myself am a monkey.

You can see the wonderful contributions on the Year of the Monkey Mail Art blog.

As my good friend Eva wrote to me, 'Now you will always be getting monkeys'. I only half believed her, but I think she is right. (Another friend, Heleen, told me that Eva should always be believed - I'm finally on board, Heleen!) And thanks to Eva for helping me decide what Y is for.

Here's the evidence - a monkey on an envelope from Elena.

Is there something your friends/family associate you with, even though you feel you have moved beyond it?

Also, should I have another call for Year of the Earth Monkey in 2028?

Xanthophytes on XL mail

Yes, I really did receive xanthophytes on mail art. 

And the mail art was XL, as it didn't fit through the mail slot (or on the scanner). And it came with eXtra intelligent mail barcode labels - count them, they add up to half of X.

I recommend enlarging the picture of the whole envelope to appreciate the galaXy stripygoose sent me.

Remember the artistamps I showed here? The one on the envelope even got postmarked.

Well stripygoose sent me the most fantastic mail art back as a thank you - part 2 of Starling Wars!!

Front:

Back:

And standing up:

Here's the link to Starling Wars - The Birds Awaken she sent ages ago.

What's the largest piece of mail you ever received?

What's the coolest?

White Shapes

Here are the latest in my white shape mail art series.

XVI to Eric

XVII to Azzaro

The series came about as a way to recycle extra card stock that arrived when buying stamps online from the USPS store, and a set of white pens that I find horrible to use for writing.

What do you see when you look at the shapes?

Vodka to Ti Ar Raden

The third one of these I've sent out. (Previous ones here and here if you're interested).

It went in this envelope.

Do you like to create collages? Are yours more minimal, or maximal? Funny or artistic? Political or playful?

Unexpected

One of the things I love about the people who send me mail art is that they often do something really unexpected with a piece of mail art.

In this case, Heleen sent me a few postcards of birds that I like. She included an extra bird that I like very much, and wasn't expecting, a common or Eurasian Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis).

And she sent it in an envelope that used stamps from 2009 that I think are amazing (Heleen - I get the feeling that you have quite a stash of stamps!). The translation of 'Laat kinder leren' is 'Let children learn'.

I love how Heleen turned some of the letters of my address into the little creatures from the stamps.

And even better, it includes my favorite of the bunch - the first one, which is 'Trying is always good'.

Here is a bit more information about these cool stamps. Thanks to Violet for the information.

There's also a great animated video about this set.

Do you have a favorite bird?

Teeth

Christophe has a project titled MailArTeeth. You can see all his tooth-related mail art here.

He sent me this nice envelope and card to wish me happy 2017.

I've been contributing every now and again for a while now. Here's my latest contribution - I hope it made it, as it was 12 x 12 inches!

(And a confession - I mailed it in a mailing box and it sort of got stuck a little bit, fairly far inside - I couldn't get it to fall all the way into the box, so hopefully that didn't annoy a postal worker).

Update - it arrived in France, slightly bent, and not even postmarked!

Here it is before it's travels.

What do you think about teeth as a mail art topic?

Would you be grossed out or entertained by receiving something like this through the mail?

S is also for Series

This is the second S post after yesterday's Solar System. 

As promised, here is the follow up from letter N for naked mail art. Most of my mail art goes inside one of my homemade envelopes. And usually they are individual pieces. 

Although I rarely collage, I recently sent out a series of 6 collaged postcards with a vehicular theme.

To Adrienne, Thomas and William

To C. Mehrl Bennett, Keith and J.A.D. Media

Do you like to create collages? Would you make one from random stuff you find in your car/your purse/that messy drawer at home full of 'important' junk?

For bonus points, can you identify where all the pieces come from?

Solar system (II)

S is also for stamps. Not every mail artist cares about the postage stamps - for many they just serve the purpose of getting the art from A to B through the postal system. 

Since I got back into mail art I do try and think of creative ways to use postage stamps to enhance the mail art by theme, color, and sometimes even number.

The planets of your solar system set issued by the post office last year are very nicely done, and have afforded me the opportunity to make some fun envelopes.

Using old wall calendar pages to make the envelopes, here are the exchange envelopes I sent out for April.

Do you have a favorite stamp?

And if you're wondering why this post is titled Solar System (II), you can see my first Solar System blog post here.

I used all of the planets stamps on another piece of mail art here.

(PS: I have a bonus letter S that will show up on the blog tomorrow if you feel like checking back in.)

Reconnecting via repetition & variation

Remember under M is for MMSA? Here is the missing repetition & variation swap postcard.

Turns out it was a) delivered to the sender, and b) the sender was Jan H, who I used to exchange mail art with, but haven't since 2014. So it arrived quite a bit later than the other three cards.

Jan sent the returned card to me in this awesome painted envelope.

And she included this intriguing piece titled Blur.

Great to 'see you in my mailbox' Jan, even if it was through a postal misadventure.

When was the last time you reconnected with someone through the mail? Did you initiate it, or did they?

Quidditch to Eva

Ah, Q, one of the more difficult letters for A to Z.

Eva had lamented the lack of a Q on her postcards, so I decided to send her one in the mail inside this envelope. She tried to convince me to take part in the A to Z challenge, and at first I declined. Now we're at letter Q - you can see what an influence she is on me - and I'm using the card I sent to her for myself!

You can see what Eva did with the card on her post today (plus two bonus Qs).

Have you received anything in the mail that would work for the letter Q?

Paper bags

Every now and again I turn a paper bag into an envelope.

This year Eric has a mail art call to recycle paper bags into mail art.

You can see the ones he has sent and received on his blog.

Here are two more that I sent him recently.

And here are two very nice ones from him in return for ones I have previously sent. The one from the Body Shop has a wonderful stamp on it, and the one with the space-themed washi tape has a great personalized stamp Eric designed.

What's the strangest thing you've turned into an envelope?

Do you have paper bags that you think would make good envelopes?

An octopus named Hank

Technically Hank (from the film Finding Dory) is a septopus, not an octopus, because he only has seven tentacles. And as it turns out, he's orange.

I sent him to Eva and Heleen, using the new postcard stamps.

What animal would you like to receive on a piece of mail art?

Naked mail art

When it comes to mail art, naked usually means that the item in question is sent without a cover or envelope. This means that the piece travels through the mail stream with no protection, so it is always possible that something is added (usually postmarks, but sometimes other markings, dings etc) or even subtracted (bits going missing).

Dean, aka The Artist in Seine, always sends his work naked. And he is very creative about it, too. He also always makes sure the back and front are equally interesting (something I'm pretty bad at).

Here's some banana mail from him

And another piece (with a tiny banana) that has a piece of a computer attached to it!

And yet another one from Mr In Seine himself, featuring geocaching!

Although most of my mail art is sent in a handmade envelope, I sometimes send naked mail. More about that later in the alphabet. 
Have you ever sent or received an unusual item in the mail that wasn't packaged up? Did it make you or the recipient smile?