artistamps by Silvio de Gracia (Argentina). These artistamps will join the collection in the TAM-Archive which now has over 3000 artistampsheets in the whole collection. 

Mail from Silvio de Gracia - Argentina 

Card from Dan Waber - frontside. 

Card from Dan Waber - backside. 

How new blogs work

With the new blog I launched I also noticed how things work. I had build is a statistic programm and found out that on the first day immediately dozens of visitors came. Blogger makes PR for the new blogs and places them on top for the list where visitors 'hop' to. Funny to see how in no time people from al kind of countries come to such a new created site. I now made links from my other blogs to the new blog and will find out if it is interesting or. It is actually a collection of one of the side-lines in my work that resulted in quite a large collection. Should I make more collections available like this? Is the world waiting for things like that? Me & you will find out.

Ruud

New blog besides this one.

http://paintedcds.blogspot.com/ is my new blog with an overview of all my painted CD's


See also the complete list of BLOGS that I know who deal with mail-art and related areas.

Mail to Litsa Spathi - 2004.

Another sample of 2 envelopes sent to Litsa Spathi in 2004

Mail from Ruud Janssen to Litsa Spathi - 2004

Sample of a series of 2 envelopes from Ruud Janssen to Litsa Spathi, sent in 2004.

Mail from Litsa Spathi to Ruud Janssen - 2004.

Sample of a series of 3 envelopes from Litsa Spathi to Ruud Janssen, sent in 2004.

Mail to Litsa Spathi

In the last years Litsa Spathi and me had an intense correspondence. I received lots of letters from her (mostly with drawings and collages on them). Litsa received also the largest collection of my acrylic painted envelopes. Now all corrsepondence is archived in Breda. Most of it is digitized as well, and ready for publication. We just have to find a form for it. Would a blog be a good way? We will see.

Mail to Litsa Spathi - 2001


In the last years sometimes whole series were conceived. Both by Litsa (who started this production of series) and me. Above an illustration of a series that I documented before I began to send out every single envelope. Sometimes the envelopes also can be joined together as a complete image. More illustrations will follow.

Ruud

Massimo Medola (Italy)

Mail from Massimo Medola arrived today. In his envelope a stamp-sheet that got returned. It travelled from Breda (Netherlands) to France, Italy, USA and back again to Italy where Massimo sent it back to me. Thank you al for another addition for the TAM Rubberstamp Archive.

detail of an "add, copy pass sheet", received by C.Z. Lovecraft. Does this qualify as a a copy (digital format?). 

Brasil

Mail from Brasil.

Mail from Dan Waber arrived today (content see below). 

content by Dan Waber (USA) 

Envelope from C.Z. Lovecraft (USA) arrived today. 

Card from RF Cote (Canada) backside.

Collage by R.F. Cote (Canada).

Collage by R.F Cote (Canada) arrived today.

Mail from A.A. Berry (USA) arrived today 

Research-material for a new mail-interview arrived in the P.O. Box. 

New tools: Our new digital camera has a movable display and is photographed by the webcam on my laptop. Camera's taking photos of cameras. I am just holding it. 

Fascinating new techniques.

The new laptop I have now is really a communication-machine. A build in camera, wireless access to the Internet through broadband, and that with the knowledge how to deal with the required software. It means that anything can be online instantly wherever I am. Fascinating. If others have access to these tools, the communication-process has become an instant process over long distances.

Ruud

New update at Fluxus Heidelberg Center Site.

On the site www.fluxusheidelberg.org I just published the newest collage that Litsa Spathi made. Go to the section "Fluxus Journal" that is online there. Actually it arrived from Heidelberg itself where Litsa is giving some workshops in Acryl Painting.

Qute new. My new laptop has a build-in web-cam and camera. Just took this photo. The Jazz-Festival is now taking place in breda. Will ge there this afternoon. Talking about new techniques; instant photos can be published now with this new tool I have. If someone sends me mail-art, I can personaly show that it arrived! 

Found this Collage while goijng through my old stuff. Actually a cut-up old floppy disk. In the year 1995 I still used Diskettes. How the times are changing. 

Repeating or something new

When you read the previous entry you might realize that I am now thinking of new ways to communicate. The Blogs aren't really interactive. The blogs I really like are the interactive once. Where more than one person place there entries. But still, it is not really interactive. After Text came the visuals. After the Pictures come the videos.

To be prepared I needed some new tools. I am now experimenting with it. You might find out soon enough what way things are going.

Ruud

Weblogs

The weblogs are now everywhere. It also means that the 'public' is almost as large as the 'writers'. Somehow it then seems that everybody is writing and publishing things, but nobody has time to read the stuff others produce.

In the future a balance will come for sure. I must confess that I stopped reading those other blogs for a while as well. I'll see how this develops.

Ruud

Mail-Art coming in

New mail-art comes in at the Breda P.O. Box. Funny enough mostly from newcomers to mail-art who want to contact me. Internet and Mail-Art are interconnecting, but the old generation mostly isn't that frequently online. Baudhuis Simon (PigDaDa) from Belgium died a few weeks ago. In 1992, at the Zoo Congress in Antwerpen, we met for the last time. A long time ago, but PigDaDa still sent mail a few moths ago. A life goes fast. A new genaration of mail-artists is taking over the work. Sometimes they discover the things like others discoverd before. Mail-art is just a learning-process for creative people.

Ruud

T-shirt and Electronic man from Obvious Front, Milan, USA. 

Mail and object from Obvious Front, Milan, USA. 

New Year, new mail, new camera, new photos

It took some time for me to get settled in in Breda. Probably a lot of the regualar readers have left the blog. But it isn't important. With our new camera I can digitize things even quicker and a first test was with the beautiful surprise Obvious Front from Milan (USA) sent me. It the past he always sent me nice surprises, and after my move to Breda I sent him the "WIX" card. Seems he replied to me op the last day of last year and included his newest production: A T-shirt with on it his electronic gadgets, and inside the T-Shirt he include one of them. Because I work in the IT-world, a special surpise which I will show to the collegues. See more of the work on www.obviousfront.com. The two photos besides this text show his mail and the T-shirt with gadget. Now I have to think of what to send him back.

Ruud