A REAL wall displaying REAL posts by REAL people

Chucks REAL wall in Paris

2012-02-02T23:51:00.001Z

Later on this month, Elena and I are heading to Paris with Positively Postal and Katerina to meet Mim and Chuck. We are all mailartists and met through sending post to each other, and we're going to meet up and make mailart together. We can hardly wait and have already booked a place to stay together.

But even before I get there, I've already got a little treat from Chuck in the form of Chucks REAL wall! Here's his message...

Bonjour from Paris!
My Real Wall!

Just wanted to thank you all for sending mail-art to me in Paris!

What a nice surprise to return from our Bilbao trip to find a deluge of mail-art
correspondence completely filling my mailbox.

A special thank you to my friend Katerina, who sent me my first piece of mail-art in Paris
It started a chain of mail to post on my wall in our atelier--I've attached a photo of
my growing collection for you to see.

Also, many thanks Erni for sending me the awesome Spiegelman book--he's one of my favorites!

After we return to our home in Richmond, Virginia, I will respond with mail-art to all of you also.

Sending you best regards,

Chuck (aka Charl-Benoit in Paris)

PS:
Check out my blog of photo images I've gleaned from the streets of Paris and Bilbao.
myurbanfragments.blogspot.com

Also, my website is: www.chuckscalin.com

my REAL wall - 30 January 2012

2012-01-30T23:22:00.002Z

Gosh what a year 2012 has been and it's barely started!

Already this month, I've taken 4 mailart-related lectures, with another one scheduled tomorrow. Tomorrows talk is part of a big event i'm helping to run at Roehampton university called Teachmeet, where teachers come and share ideas on teaching. Everyone gets 7 minutes to talk about anyidea they've used in class, and I'll be talking about how students at our university used postcards to keep in touch during school experience while teacher training, an initiative I led last year. I'm pretty nervous, as usual, but I'm sure it will go fine.

How is this all related to this wall you may be wondering. Well that postcard in the middle (Getting into Literacy) came from another teacher, @jodieworld, who ran the last Teachmeet I was at, where I talked about my educational postcard project Schoolswaps. I talked about how we still need the postal service despite all these advances in technology, then managed to forget my USB stick in her computer. This postcard accompanied the USB stick in the post, which neatly proves my point.

That lovely pic of a happily married couple comes from my best friend at University, Jay, and shows him and his wife, who really is just perfect for him. Me and Elena went to see them last Wednesday as it was my birthday and we went go-karting, which was great fun.

In the right hand corner you can see a runner drawn by Dewi when he came to stay at our house and went walking in Richmond Park. His eye was caught by the strange hand position of this bearded runner and made him his 365th piece in Mailart365, which he then gave to me by hand in my house, from Canada via Tuscany. now THAT'S dedication! Wish you could join us in France Dewi!

Next to that is the 2nd 365 by Katerina Nikoltsou. She actually got to 365 and sent it to me, but I didn't get it as she'd put the wrong number on the envelope. So they sent it back to her. Meanwhile she made an exact replica of her 365th piece and sent me that instead. That arrived to me and the other arrived back in Greece. Not wanting me to miss out, she sent me that one too, so i can now say I own 2 #365s from Katerina. Yay!

My REAL wall - student school experiences part 1

2012-01-27T13:48:00.002Z

A couple of weeks ago I presented a lecture to some students at the university where I work on the use of postcards as an expressive tool for an assignment they were to be set.

The idea was that the students were going to create 5 postcards on which they were to tell of 5 incidents that stand out in their memory from their school days.

After introducing my REAL wall and talking about postcards in schools and how they had been used to tell stories from my experience, the students were asked to create their first ones and bring them in this week. This is by the first class and there are some cracking stories here!

The class was such a pleasure to attend. When the students came in, they dropped their cards into a "postbox" by the door. This mean that the students could remain anonymous if they wished. The lesson commenced and halfway through the lesson the students took a break, during which time the postcards were all put up on the board as you see them here.

On the return from their break, I took the students and we took a look at the postcards submitted. Students were asked to look at the postcards and discuss what they thought each one meant and if they related to any of them. They were told that they didn't need to say which was theirs if they didn't want to, but pretty soon we had explanations coming in from every student about what their postcards represented. It was GREAT! There were so many experiences, and so many nods from people who had been there.

In the flickr version of this photo (which you get to by simply clicking on the photo), I've done my best to recall which stories went with which, so if you hover over the images you'll be able to read the stories. If you don't read the stories, do just enjoy the images and ask yourself what they may mean.

At the moment the students are collecting these images up on a class blog, which is private, and at the end we hope to put on a little show, which should be a real gem. It would be really nice for teachers to be able to see the sorts of memories that the children go away from school with. I will also ask the students to upload any images they want to share with readers of my REAL wall so that they can share their experiences with you directly. You all have a treat in store believe me!

A little note for the Thursday group - I'm so sorry I didn't manage to get a photo of the wall at the end of the lesson as I was chatting and by the time I remembered the postcards had all gone! :-(

Plays the Thing postcard show in conjunction with Escape Artists

2012-01-25T00:42:00.006Z

At the end of last year, I teamed up with a UK charity called Escape Artists, with whom I helped run a postcard show called "A good day looks like..."

The show was part of a conference called "Plays The Thing", which was about exploring creative approaches to wellbeing, and so we asked for people to consider what a good day looked like in the spirit of exploring and expressing creatively what wellbeing meant to them.

This was a particularly interesting show for me, because among other things, Escape Artists do a lot of work with prisoners and young people, so this show had many contributions from people I don't often see in my postbox.

Can you guess which ones were done by prisoners, which by children and which were done by mainstream artists?

I didn't manage to get too many photos on the days the conference was on of the photos on display, but here are the 2 photos I took on my phone of all the postcards up on display at the conference

I'm looking forward to working more with Escape Artists in future and hope to use the post to bring people together, regardless of their backgrounds

All the images can be seen in all their glory on my flickr site, where I lovingly scanned and archived them. I'll add descriptions when I get a chance.

my REAL wall - 23 January 2012

2012-01-23T23:03:00.001Z

"Why the long delay between REAL walls at the moment?" you may be wondering. The answer is really simple. Winter.

Our present house is rented, which means we can't just stick up willy-nilly as we did in our own house previously, as the adhesive we use, Blu-tac, sometimes rips off the paintwork and we would rather like our deposit back.

So the wall I've chosen as my main REAL wall is in the conservatory, and most of your postcards are opened then put in the conservatory in an ever-expanding pile waiting for it to be warm enough for me to bear to go out and stick them up on the wall. December and January have been WAY too cold for my pathetic little body to take, not to mention the winter hibernation, but this weekend was finally warm enough to get some postcards on the walls.

The large painting is a long-overdue posting which came from Clohn Art to me while I was still at my old address. The reason it's taken so long to go up on the wall is that I thought it was so good, I couldn't help but take it into work, where it's been next to my desk for the last 4 months. Check out the Clohn art site, where you can pick up a sample of trash art for bargain basement prices.

The 4th wasp in Cornpone's series is next to that, and those pieces are joined by some of my favourite mailartists of all, JJ, Heleen (complete with Postcrossing stamps! Yay) and Katerina Nikoltsou, who I will be seeing next month in Paris as part of the Mim mailart meetup.

Other gems on the wall come from Kerri Pullo, Mim and Hope, whose Keep writing project is well worth the asking price on Etsy I can tell you.

Thanks to everyone on the wall for contributing your fabulous art and post from all over the world as ever.

If any mailartists do happen to be in Paris in Mid-October, do drop me a line, as I'd love for Mims mailart meet to be HUGE!

Your REAL wall by Stimpdawg - House of wall art

2012-01-18T12:01:00.000Z

The House of Art Wall, a photo by Stimpdawg on Flickr.

This is the first House of Art Wall. I borrowed the idea from my friend Andy's my REAL wall. He posts mailart and postcards that he receives on a wall in his house. He even told me about the adhesive board you see my postcards on. It allows you to stick paper or photos onto the sticky board without any tape. For some reason I could only find it available in England and not in the USA.

The postcards are some I've received and a few are ones I have collected during my travels. The postcard on the top left is a postcard that Lil Dave wrote to his dad Big Dave when we were traveling. It's a picture of a boy holding a monkey in front of the Seashore Temple in Mahabalipuram, India. The next one over is from a Sichuan Opera that we went to in Chengdu, China. The next postcard is from Andy from my REAL wall which contains many pictures of him. The last one in that row is a postcard from a Couchsurfing Spanish couple who stayed with us - it's from where they live in Spain.

The first postcard in the next row is a friend Raynell who I met on ICQ years ago. She sent me a postcard from her backyard in Waimānalo, Hawaii. I recently reconnected with her on Facebook after finding this postcard when I was packing up my stuff in my old room at my parent's house. There's a postcard of the Capuchin Crypt in Rome, Italy that we visited. It's a creepy, but cool crypt where skeletons and bones are placed as lamps, monks and in patterns. The last postcard in that row is from Keep Writing Postcards project. It's a homemade postcard that I receive monthly. You can receive the postcards from her Etsy shop.

There's a few more postcards that I found along my travels. There's a Salvador Dali postcard from Australia and The Colosseum from Rome, Italy. I like the Dream Bangkok postcard that has a pink trailer on it. This modern hotel has the best free postcards that I've ever seen and I've been to many hotels traveling around the world for 3 years. There's also a postcard from the Sydney Underground Film Festival which has a picture of a lady with windows of men in them which reminds me of Dali. The last one is a picture of the Mena House Oberoi in Cairo, Egypt taken in 1920. Joy Loves Adventure is the second homemade postcard I received from the Keep Writing Postcards project.

The washboards are around The House of Art Wall. My fiance Ivan bought the washboard on the right for Christmas. It turned out to be the wrong color and type. The company said he could keep it and then sent the right one which is listed on the left side. Now I have to learn to play it! Ever since I saw a girl playing it in a band on the street in New Orleans, I've always wanted one.

I would love to receive a postcard or mailart from you. I'll send something to you! Go here to contact me with your information.

Using postcards in the classroom - my REAL wall/Schoolswaps presentation at Teachmeet London

2012-01-16T11:17:00.001Z

In November 2011, I attended Teachmeet London and gave a brief presentation on the use of postcards in teaching. I referred to my REAL wall, so here's a link to the presentation a little belatedly

This year I'm looking to get more young people sending postcards, connecting up my hobby of sending and receiving post and my job in education, so you'll see more stuff happening over on www.schoolswaps.net as well as here on my REAL wall

my REAL wall presents...5 picture story

2012-01-13T10:27:00.000Z

In my day job as an e-learning advisor at Roehampton university, my role is to advise lecturers on the best technology to use for teaching their subjects. Most the time this is something electronic, for example a forum or a blog, or a video camera, but sometimes the best technology is the most basic and I never draw the line at electronic learning tools.

This term I was asked by a lecturer to suggest the ideal tool for getting students to express their feelings about an event that happened to them at school when they were younger. I wanted for the students to be able to reflect on this experience and to use whatever they had to hand to express how the event made them feel, without fear of criticism.

For me, postcards have been an ideal vehicle for learning to express myself. The almost-anonymous nature of postcards (you choose whether to sign them or not) and the idea that the recipient is separated from us by time and distance has this effect of freeing the artist to express themselves in a way that real-time social media and face-to-face interactions can't, yet it still reaches out and makes a connection. For some applications, like Postsecret, this is perfect, and so I decided to suggest postcards for this project.

The idea is for students to illustrate on 5 6x4 inch postcards an experience or series of experiences which happened to them in school that they can remember. After they have done so, they will send these images in to their lecturer and share the experiences if they wish.

This idea came from a lesson I taught while I was schools, and so I showed pictures from this to the students and postcards which have been sent by you to my REAL wall to illustrate what kinds of stories you could tell using the limited size of a postcard.

I volunteered to introduce the postcard picture story project to the students and on Tuesday and Thursday, I went in to the classroom to present to 2 sets of classes, starting with an introduction to my REAL wall and human-human communications in the digital age and moved on to tales of teaching from my past, finally ending up on the task at hand, which was the creation of the 5 picture stories.

The students were really excited at the prospect of sending post and the talks seemed to go down really well. I was asked by the students for some tips on how to get into sending post and I recommended Postcrossing as a good place to start as well as of course, looking on the sidebar of my REAL wall for some great postal folk. In addition, I've added a link to my article "How to make your mailbox more interesting" in the sidebar, so if anyone does want more than bills in their postbox next week, why not give it a read.

Looking forward to seeing what delights the students produce and if I get permission I will stick some of the best right up here on this site.

When I was at school, I used to love writing stories until the day that I wrote a literary criticism of Macbeth for English literature, in which I drew parallels with the Ninja clans of ancient Japan. My English teacher ripped it to pieces verbally and I never wrote again. Perhaps I'll make a mailart piece about that some day...

Just in time for 12th night!

2012-01-04T11:16:00.001Z

I've been way behind on posting, but had a deadline on this one as it's bad luck to leave your Christmas cards up after Twelfth Night.

Happy new year!

my REAL kitchen walls

2011-12-31T13:22:00.001Z

As 2011 draws to a close, Andy and Elena want to wish all the readers and contributors to my REAL wall a HAPPY 2012!

Lately, my artistic output has ground to a halt as I've taken time to settle in to the new place. Since Dewi came over in October, I've taken up cooking, hence why this shot is taken in the kitchen. Elena kindly decorated the kitchen for me with her favourite postcards, which are classics, rather than the new ones that we've been receiving.

Hope you can all join me in the new year. See you in the post!

my REAL wall - First wall in Kingston

2011-11-06T02:21:00.001Z

my REAL wall has been keeping a pretty low profile lately. The reason we've been out of action is because me and Elena have been moving house!

Now, the best address to send your posts to to get onto my REAL wall is

53 Haygreen Close
Kingston-upon-Thames
KT2 7TS
United Kingdom

The new place is much more befitting of a newly married couple. It's much bigger, has 2 rooms and a conservatory where this picture was taken where we have an art table. Yes, you read that right. We have a table dedicated to making ART!

So much has happened since the last post. Notably, we have met up with 3 mailartists and been to Turkey. We met Dewi last month, who is a mailart365 artist. He popped over from Canada via Tuscany and showed us his sketchbook. It was great!

Katerina Nikltsou, another 365 artist, came over from Greece and stayed in Notting Hill, just around the corner from our old place. We popped in to see her, and she gave us that lovely acrylic painted piece that dominates todays wall.

Mim, the other 365 artist who is on track and whose piece is on the wall below Katerinas, came over earlier on in the year, so technically that means we've met every artist on the 365 who is set to complete the project on December 1st. Only 26 pieces left to go for those heroes!

Another notable artist on the Mailart 365 project that I've met is Postively Postal, who is currently running a project in conjunction with the Royal Mail called "The A-Z of the UK". Check out his site for details of how to pick up some exclusive stamp packs from the Royal Mail

One person who could easily be on 365, but isn't is the great Ruud Jansen, who runs IUOMA. He came over from Holland last month on business and I very nearly met up with him, but he ended up too busy, which was a shame. However he did send some mailart through, which you can see here.

That lovely cut out butterfly is from Spopod, the index card is a classic Lindsay Killin piece and there's a new piece from the Keep writing project by Hope, who's work keep making me smile. This time, I've got a recipe for chocolate cake from her, and I need to dig up a decent recipe of my own and send it back. If you've not seen the Keep writing project, check it out RIGHT NOW at www.keepwritingpostcards.tumblr.com

Farewell Housey 3

2011-09-19T22:38:00.001+01:00

The final REAL wall of my old flat belongs to a single person, who sent in 8 postcards in one single batch. There's no return address so if you want a return post, please get in touch and tell me what you signed your name as and I'll be more than happy to send you a return postcard!

This is the shower we used for 2 years. I'll be sad to not use it again, especially as the new shower is so weak.

Thanks to everyone for keeping the walls of our house decorated for over 2 years, and I'll be updating our address soon. Watch this space...

Farewell housey 2

2011-09-16T10:39:00.001+01:00

For the second to last REAL wall on the walls of our old flat, here are your postcards above our radiator, complete with a few pairs of my cruds in homage to the early days of my REAL wall, which early viewers will no doubt reminisce about.

As part of the move, Elena took apart the age old blue banner, saying it needs an update, so this is the last time you'll see it.

As far as I know, we hang our clothes outside in the new place and with central heating and stuff, we may not even have radiators, so perhaps it's the last time you'll see my cruds on such audacious display too!

Farewell Housey

2011-09-15T14:22:00.001+01:00

This weekend we moved house from our beloved little studio flat in Shepherds Bush, to Kingston Upon Thames. I had a whole heap of mailart to catch up on and post on my REAL wall and it had piled up in the REAL inbox, so I posted all of them in places around the house.

This is the last REAL wall you will see on this wall sadly :-(

We left the wall with loads of lovely blu-tac stains for our new tenant as a reminder of my REAL wall.

my REAL wall - 04 September 2011

2011-09-05T09:45:00.001+01:00

As September is here, this may be one of the last REAL walls you will see on this particular wall as me and Elena are moving house!

We've been extremely busy with projects and work and now house moving, so please excuse the delay in putting up all your splendid work. And of course there was carnival last week...

Today sees posts from some of our old favourites. including Mim and Katerina, Girlzootzilla, JJAlltheway and Ammy from Singapore! We've got some great letters on there (Thanks Ammy and Mim, it's great to hear from you in depth every time).

Girlzoot's piece is really appropriate. A wall with "How are you" written on it, which reminded her of my REAL wall.

Right now I'm loving the contributions from The Keep Writing project, which are always little packets of magic. As soon as I get a spare moment I'll try and reply to these as well as the numerous other projects I have on! Excellent story and picture about libraries, a subject close to my heart :-)

Also honourable mentions have to go out to my Canadian Secret Admirer (eek!) and Molly from Australia. Sorry you both had to wait so long for me to post!

my REAL wall - 15 August 2011

2011-08-16T18:05:00.001+01:00

More than 2 years have gone by since I launched my REAL wall and still the post keeps coming. When I met Elena just over 2 years ago, she mentioned that one day "you'll have so many posts coming in for the wall you won't be able to keep up" and i laughed. It seemed absurd that a REAL wall, not in REAL time complete with REAL posts would ever work, but somehow it has and I still absolutely love it!

It seems that Elena was right then. Here's the first REAL wall from a huge pile I have backlogged. Todays wall features art from Crisispanty, who seems to be making a mailart365 comeback, Heleen one of my favourite mailartists from Holland and a newcomer to the wall Winged Heart, whose beautiful little piece you can see top middle of the wall.

Lots more to come shortly, but I've currently injured my ankle (playing football) so i don't want to spend too long on my feet putting up walls.

Featured artist: Benjamin Shaw designs

2011-07-29T16:11:00.002+01:00

I first came to know about Benjamin Shaws envelopes when I got one through the post from Benjamin last year. I loved it, and made sure to send him some post back to say so. Next thing you know, I received a neat little package, lovingly wrapped of blank envelopes that I could send out myself!

Inside the package was a lovely handwritten letter too, in which Benjamin talks about his love of post and how by day his work leaves him yearning for a creative outlet and how he recently started making envelopes to fill this gap.

Intrigued, I took a look at Benjamins facebook page and saw some of the other envelopes too, and I decided to send the creator a quick message for an email interview. Here's what he had to say...

Receiving mail is such an intoxicating joy, and to get mail, I have needed to send it. As long as I have been old enough to write, a favourite past time of mine is to write letters and send notes. Anything postal, including stamps, postmarks, messages in bottles, parcels, postcards, greeting cards and letters have all interested me. I have had many pen friends over the years and have written so many letters. I think letters are so personal and make such intimate time capsules, and personal letters also bring lots of pleasure and happiness to the recipients.

For the people I really cared about, I started making and decorating my own envelopes and being creative with the letters themselves. Cutting out images and making a collage or just making an envelope from a page taken from a magazine. Sketching something or painting something here and there. When I saw some mail art at an exhibition once, I immediately hit upon the idea of drawing pictures on envelopes that made the address interesting, or putting it differently, writing the address on something interesting that had been drawn on the envelope.

It was only a matter of time before this idea transitioned from one off, hand drawn envelopes, sent on their way, to drawing on the computer, so I could start sharing them with other people. All the subject matter comes from my personal experiences, travels, hopes and dreams. My desk has a typewriter and a red phone so makes for easy inspiration. I have an orange alarm clock on my beside table. Many of my friends have young children and so dinosaurs and octopus scenes always go down well. Everywhere I go I am thinking of an odd perspective for a new design. I actually have 100s in my sketch books. I just haven't translated all them onto the computer - give me time.

The best thing about my envelopes is that they are sent easily and mean that not only one's thoughts can travel, but so do the envelopes themselves.

Check out Benjamins envelopes on his facebook page

My REAL wall - 9 July 2011

2011-07-10T23:23:00.001+01:00

Todays REAL wall features my first ever audio post. You'd think that in an age of multimedia that these "wall" things would be a little more media-rich, so I'm surprised it's taken me this long to get my first audio posting, and thanks to Hackman for this and the great Ska Man envelope it came in too!

Also on the wall is a number of pieces from I'm a superhero and can like fly and shit, from his Free Art Foundation and Zombie angles, and the first piece from Mabb.

Other mailart365ers on the wall include Katerina Nikoltsou, whose daring pencil shaving landscape made it through intact somehow all the way from Greece and excited me and Elena no end. Even more exciting, is the fact that we may be meeting Katerina later this year, as it looks like she may be paying us a visit, making her the 5th mailartist we'd have meeten this year!

My Extraordinary Imagination opens at The Penny School Gallery, Kingston

2011-07-05T00:49:00.001+01:00

On Wednesday 29th June, 2011 The Penny School Gallery in Kingston had a special preview of our postcard show, My Extraordinary Imagination as part of the Kingston International Youth Arts Festival. This show was the first to be put on with the educational wing of my REAL wall, which is called Schoolswaps.

The turnout was good, with invited guests from the local area including Robin Hutchinson, the director of Creative Arts, who are the lovely people responsible for putting on the Kingston International Youth Arts festival. He's the one below gesturing, and he's gesturing at Zoe Thomas, the person responsible for coming up with the idea of the show and getting the team together to make it happen with me, Andy Hoang of Schoolswaps.

The postcards were mounted on boards and hanging strings, roughly in age order around the gallery starting from the 4 year olds in one corner and going up in age to include some work from 17 year olds and included work from as far away as Australia, Germany and Korea among others. There are still artworks coming in to the IYAF offices every day, and the postbox remains open to entry for another week. We will try and get as many of the later entries on the wall as we can, but can't promise anything. However, I've heard a rumour that there is interest from abroad to show the cards on a wall in another show, so watch this space!

For those of you not able to come to Kingston who have contributed from far off countries, I've taken quite a few pictures for you to see. OK, I got a little excited, and actually took a LOT of pictures for you to see, but with more than 600 cards on display, make sure that if you can get to the gallery you do, as this is by no means all of them!

And here's me and Zoe with the address for you one more time...

my REAL wall - 2 July 2011

2011-07-03T01:29:00.001+01:00

What an exciting year this is turning out to be for me and for mailart in London. I can hardly believe that this project that I started off just over 2 years ago has grown so big!

This week, Elena and I attended the opening of our THIRD mailart show in 2011, in Kingston. I'll write more about this in my next post, but we've been working hard on the show and on the website at http://iyaf.schoolswaps.net/ as well as on the huge school swapping project I set up at http://schoolswaps.net/ so I'm falling behind a little on sending and posting here on my REAL wall.

That's not to say that I'm not still hugely excited about the stuff I've received. Far from it, and it's seeing stuff in my mailbox every day that fires me up to get others sending mailart.

This week we've seen some wonderful stuff in the REAL wall inbox, including a great big card from Elena's best friend and some ATCs that have come in for her from Swapbot pals. Elena is going through a huge Swapbot phase at the moment, and is signed up for about 15 so if you're on Swapbot and involved in papercrafts, watch out!

Mailart has come in from mailartists from far and wide. Some names on the wall this week are Farmageddon from Petaluma, Pierpaolo from Italy, who is a fellow 365er, Strenikov, Maygirl from Sendsomething, Mary England, Madmadge, mabb, Molly from Australia and Hope.

There are some great mailart projects in there, do click on some of the links and see them. I love Hopes project, The instant storybook at http://keepwritingpostcards.tumblr.com - it's an 8 picture story done in collaboration with someone else on a postcard. Take a look at her site and see for yourself, as she explains it a whole lot better than me!

IYAF mailart outside Kingston Market Square

2011-06-30T00:18:00.001+01:00

Some of the received postards for the IYAF show, My Extraordinary Imagination, taking a tour around the historic town of Kingston upon Thames before going on display at the Penny School Gallery for the show, which runs from 1-18 July 2011.

The show was coordinated by IYAF in collaboration with my REAL wall's educational postcard offshoot Schoolswaps and has collected in over 600 postcards drawn by students all over the world.

Before going into the gallery, we thought it would be nice to show the postcards a little bit of the local area. Here they are briefly on display in Kingston Market Square, where there's usually a fruit and veg market and some great food and entertainment.

We can see post here on the sign from Germany and the UK among others. If you took part in the show and sent us something can you see yours? If not, keep watching the site and maybe your piece will be up soon!

If you are aged under 26, and wondering how to get your mailart into the show it's not too late to enter your piece! If you send it quickly to us we may be able to fit you in! Full details of how to get involved are at our website but do hurry as time is running out!

Mailart in AD Magazine, June 2011

2011-06-27T11:24:00.004+01:00

AD Magazine is the official magazine of The National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD).

This month, issue 2 is out and my REAL wall makes an appearance, complete with a pic by me of Elena browsing some postcards!

The write up is by a student on the course and is about the mailart project I helped run in my university for the Art and Design secondary PGCE.

You can read more about the project here

(Apologies for the scan quality, I'll try and get hold of a better one, this was sent to me by email and is horrible)

my REAL wall - 18 June 2011

2011-06-19T01:43:00.001+01:00

Look at that LOVELY Kiera Pannell Ray on Map. I am so in love with her artwork!

Ali's colourful zentangle is great too, as is Nadine's piece in the middle, which makes a repeat appearance.

One piece that really stands out here though is one that you can't really appreciate unless you were to come over to my house and smell it. Gabby has sent me some doodles done on the back of a Dove soap packet. When I opened it I was hit with a lovely detergent smell - it was great!

Many of us are now more than halfway through Mailart365 and many of the pieces we're getting here at my REAL wall HQ are still from participants on this project, including #200 from Katerina Nikoltsou. TWO HUNDRED! EEEEK! What have I unleashed!

This week, me and Elena got back on the mailart wagon ourselves, bashing out mailart every single night. It's been great! So keep your heads up folk, some mailart could be heading your way soon!

River Thames with IYAF postcards

2011-06-19T01:42:00.001+01:00

Kingston upon Thames is the main town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in London.

Having been sent over 400 postcards from all over the world, it seemed a little sad to just put them in a gallery, so here they are around town as a little preview of what's going to be on display in the Penny School Gallery from July 1st to 18th, 2011

We also thought it would be nice for everyone who sent in to see a little of Kingston too, so what better way to show you both a preview of the postcards and a little of Kingston all in one go!

Here are your postcards next to the River Thames, just minutes away from the gallery.

Make sure you make your way down to the gallery to see all of the postcards in all their full glory, and if you haven't sent one in yet, why not! It's not too late, just get over to iyaf.schoolswaps.net for more information on how to get involved.

Full details of the whole International Youth Arts Festival, which this exhibition is a part of, can be found at www.iyafestival.org.uk/

The phone boxes of Kingston get a REAL wall makeover

2011-06-18T23:53:00.001+01:00

As part of my continuing quest to get people writing and connecting in the post, I've started my REAL wall's educational wing, www.schoolswaps.net, designed to make it easy for teachers to arrange postal swaps for their classes.

The first major project of schoolswaps is a collaboration with the Kingston International Youth Arts Festival (IYAF), who called me when they saw the work I'd done with art students at my university and asked if I could help them work out how to get young people making art and sending it to their show.

Perfect.

Now, after a few months of tireless work, the team at IYAF have deservedly received 429 postcards, with a while left to get more.

With all the postcards just sitting around in an office, I figured that it would be a good idea to get them out there, out and about in Kingston, and this is the first "my REAL wall"-inspired outing for the postcards of IYAF, showing the organiser, Zoe Thomas, putting the postcards up on an iconic Kingston sculpture

"Out of Order" by David Mach, is in the centre of the town and shows a load of the old iconic red telephone boxes tumbling into one another.

Superheros Undead Wall

2011-06-13T02:01:00.002+01:00

The mailart365 artist I'm a superhero and I can like fly and shit has been running the Mail of the Living Dead mailart call. Here's the undead creations he's received so far on his REAL wall!

my REAL wall - 10 June 2011

2011-06-12T01:04:00.001+01:00

I'm lagging hugely at the moment with my REAL wall posts and on mailart365. falling about 100 posts behind. It's quite demoralising actually, but I've taken my eye off the ball there, and have been trying to focus on getting even MORE people sending postcards on Twitter, linkedin and my new project schoolswaps

The aim of schoolswaps is to try and bring my worklife, which is teaching together with my passion for postcards and link teachers together in the post.

It seems to be going pretty well so far, with our first show already scheduled and I'm arranging a big swap called (rather unimaginitively I admit) The Great Big School Swap where I'm going to connect up as many classes as I can for a big postcard swap with classes from other countries. So far I have over 50 classes involved from 17 countries! By my calculations, that should amount to over 1,500 postcards going in the post on June 25, 2011!

So, my apologies for not posting your awesome postcards up as frequently as I used to!

Todays gems come from a number of new sources, which is really refreshing. One new contributor, Jose Day, found my REAL wall on flickr. Nastya and Kate from Eastern Europe and Erika all found me via Postcrossing and I sent postcards back out to the them earlier this month.

Mailart today comes from Dewi, Nadine Mojica, Farstarr and The Snailmailer B. Thanks to all of you and I hope to get things back to you soon!

my REAL wall presents - The first ever joint mailart talk by Andy and Elena at Pimlico library!

2011-06-05T01:58:00.002+01:00

On 27th April 2011, Andy and Elena gave their first ever public mailart lecture at Pimlico library together. As part of the graphic novels season, we put together the Little Big Stories show, and the librarians thought it would be a good idea to include a talk about mailart in the season as it is a relatively unknown artform.

We agreed to run the talk together and the library bought the stamps and postcards for the participants.

The talk was modestly attended but those who turned up were treated to a feast of mailart. We talked about the history of mailart, how it came about and how my REAL wall came into existence. After a look through some of the gems that have appeared on my REAL wall, we got the participants making their own, which they addressed to some of the people who had sent some to us in the past

By the end of the session, everyone had made at least one piece and put a stamp on it to post. I've since heard that some of the pieces have been received.

If there's anything more satisfying than making a piece of mailart, I think it's watching those first pieces of mailart go out from people who have just discovered the medium. It's just great!

The Graphic novels season was a huge success for Pimlico and I want to take a moment to say thanks to them for putting on such a great programme of events and for including us in there (I would never have ever thought i'd have my name on the programme with Helen McCarthy and Paul Gravett! Wow! fanboy geekness heaven!). You can read a writeup of the night on their blog. It has been excellent and I can't wait to get involved again next year!

Thanks to everyone for sending in your pieces for Little Big Stories. Keep your eyes on this site to hear what happens next with those, you've not heard the end of these yet...

Archived favourites wall for May 2011

2011-05-24T17:50:00.002+01:00

This wall is the one just over our bed. The stuff on here usually comes off the main wall, but are pieces that we both don't want to put away yet. A living archive of mailart!

Elenas favourites for May 2011

2011-05-23T23:50:00.001+01:00

The ever changing and expanding Elenas favourites wall for May 2011, still populated by lots of Postmuse, Ubon and Dumpsterdiver, but now includes some quilling from Box652 and some cool JJalltheway. Notably, Elena has recently become a HUGE fan of Dewi Johan, who has been experimenting with more landscapes and drawing styles. Elena is not really a portrait fan, so much of Dewis work has passed her by, but the landscapes are really up her street.

my REAL wall commemorates the Wedding of the year 2011!

2011-05-22T12:05:00.001+01:00

It's taken us a while, what with all the catching up on received mailart, but we finally got around to putting up a REAL wall commemorating the years BIGGEST wedding...OURS!

Thanks to all for your cards, bought, handmade or whatever, it was humbling to receive so many wishes of good luck and presents. There's nowhere near enough space on the server to thank you all, so me and Elena are going to work from this wall and send out as many personal mailart thank yous as possible.

Watch your mailboxes..

my REAL wall - May 21, 2011

2011-05-21T13:59:00.001+01:00

Not a hugely busy mail week this week, but I'm still catching up on the mail from before we went on honeymoon. Robert Graham, who teaches in Canada sent the large collaged piece and I'll be sending something back to him shortly about a swap i'll be arranging on my sister site schoolswaps

Also on the wall this time are Dumpsterdiversanonymous one of our favourite mailartists, who has written the most lovely letter, Superhero's squeezy puck, Mims rubber stamp (sent in December) and L-plate, who includes the plasters right off her blisters! Sweet!

In the bottom right you can see the third in the series of the The Swarm, by Cornpone. While in Vietnam, I got stung by a bee, who landed on my neck. He stung me on the neck and the hand, so I'm not a huge fan, but I am a huge fan of Cornpone!

your REAL walls from i'm a superhero i can like fly and shit (yes that's his name)

2011-05-18T00:05:00.002+01:00

Here are the first REAL wall submissions from another Mailart365 member, the awesomely named i'm a superhero i can like fly and shit.

The first is the regular mail received. I can spot one from Shitbot! I'm so happy about that because I have one from the same mysterious sender, complete with alien skulls! It seems shitbot is sending stickers and mailart out to a few people on the mailart scene, but who is the Shitbot I wonder. Answers on a postcard please...

I love "Messy is good" too - who was that from superhero?

The second photo shows some of the submissions for i'm a superhero i can like fly and shit's new mailart call Mail of the living dead zombie mail art call. The call only opened recently, so hurry up and send your zombies, or as Superhero puts it - "There's lots of whitespace still!! SEND MORE MAIL!"

my REAL wall - 16 May 2011

2011-05-16T22:17:00.001+01:00

Look at all that lovely mailart! This evening, when I got home, I walked through the door with one of my neighbours. Being London, I've never spoken to him or even seen his face (not that I can remember), so to make small talk he said "Any good post?"

Of course I had good post! Today we got a lovely piece from Dewi (it will be up on the next wall) and he said "Oh you're the guy who gets all the awesome post"

Yeah I do get a little kick out of it!

On the wall today are 2 pieces from a mystery Canadian sender, who has been sending cool, really childlike post for a few months. There's no return address or message, so I can only wonder. Any takers? There's also a little birthday card from Francis and Nisha, who put together the Little Big Stories at Pimlico library and a belated Little Big Story from Louise Kiner, which got sent back to her and finally arrived 2 weeks after the show ended! Never mind Louise, when I get a chance I'll be putting together a book to raise funds for the library.

Check out that beauty from Ryosuke Cohen, and the Chicken from @RejinL and the Royal Wedding stamp set from Laura Podob.

I'm the one who gets all the awesome post you say? You bet your ass I am!

my REAL wall presents...Little Big Stories at Pimlico Library

2011-05-10T11:09:00.000+01:00

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that this year has seen my REAL wall getting involved in a number of mailart shows in London. In February, I put out a call for a mailart call for my local library, called Little Big Stories, where we asked for postcard sized graphic novels in the post to display in Pimlico library.

The idea was to collect in a few stories on the walls to get people interested in the graphic storytelling medium and to draw attention to Westminster library's awesome stock of graphics. I worked with one of the librarians from the comics buying team on the show from start to finish, and the show came together through the Westminster libraries blog and here on my REAL wall.

Being the first major public mailart call I've run, I must confess I didn't know what to expect. Initially we set our target at 30 pieces, and after a couple of weeks, we thought we'd be lucky to even get to this. This is the very first story that came in from Conor Donegan in the USA.

About 2 weeks in, something happened. Suddenly the blog started to fill up with comments from people saying that they'd be sending in stories! Me and Francis couldn't believe it! Within a week we had shot over 30 and set our sites at 50 pieces. That target proved far short of our final number too.

By the time the deadline of March 12th arrived, we had collected in 150 Little Big Stories, with 20 arriving after the deadline, which went in anyway. Another 3 arrived after me and Elena had left for our honeymoon.

Sadly, me and Elena were not there to help them put the stories up, but Francis and Nisha done an excellent job of mounting the works and putting them on the walls and the exhibition has been really well received by visitors, with some even asking at the desk for the artists details and if they had books out on the shelves!

The show ran from 4th April to 4th May 2011 and has only just come down, but it's been a huge success. I'd like to say thanks to everyone who took part who made this happen and thanks to everyone for your comments and feedback too. The library were really surprised to find that their blog had so many hits during the time of the call - they'd never had that many comments or Retweets from a blog post before, so congratulations to us on that too!

There's not enough room here for all the photos, but you can check out some more on my flickr site, and below are all the received pieces.

But just because the show is over at Pimlico, don't think this is the end for Little Big Stories just yet. Me and Elena are looking to make a book to put on the shelves containing all the pieces received and more! The idea is to sell copies of it to raise some extra money for the library in these lean financial times so that they can buy even more great graphic novels for their shelves.

I'll keep you all posted about that, just watch this space.

my REAL wall - 7 May 2011

2011-05-09T00:06:00.001+01:00

Finally after months of waiting, we seem to have come out of winter and the spring is here in London. mini-Andy has left his scarf on the REAL wall and is back from Vietnam, where he's been honeymooning with maxi-Andy and Elena.

There's some great stuff on the wall today, including wedding good tidings from Prettylily, and some older pieces sent by Camel and friends. No 51/365 by Robayre is up on the wall next to 78/365 by Lindsay Stewart and above that is a landmark #100 from Okami

JJ's QUASAR is the other 365 on the wall today and the zombie mailart comes from I'm a Superhero and I can like fly and shit (I always love saying that) as part of his latest call - Mail of the Living Dead - Send that man some zombies!

The non-mailart pieces come hand delivered from Brugge by Elena's best friend and from Jose Day in Holland who found my REAL wall via flickr as well as one from Varanasi in India where Shazhan Lin, from China is currently on holiday.

Thanks to all of you for making my REAL wall look so cool!

your REAL wall by Katerina Nikoltsou from Greece

2011-05-08T23:16:00.011+01:00

Katerina Nikolstou is one of themost prolific mailartists on the scene at the moment, and one of the many mailartists on Mailart 365 who are on track, with over 150 posts since December 1st, 2010. Here's her first REAL wall, including 2 pieces by me and loads of received pieces from Mailart 365ers. What a stunning wall this is!

Katerina has been a real inspiration for many people, and last year she ran a great mailart show in her home city of Thessaloniki which I contributed to. It's nice to see more of my work up on walls in Greece, and if you have sent mailart out that way too, perhaps you too are on her wall today.

If you see your piece on the wall, leave a comment below and tell us which one it is!

my REAL wall - 4 May 2011

2011-05-05T00:11:00.001+01:00

Still playing catchup with our backlog of recieved post after a month away - @Grthink you were so right!

These must have been in my REAL wall towers for at least a month, so here goes...

Top left is from JJalltheway - you've already seen this a few times, both here and on the sand in Phu Quoc island, Vietnam. What can I say, we like it, so it's travelled all over, and will probably pop up all over the place. Thanks so much for the wedding gift too JJ, that was so thoughtful. Finally I can see the works of Shaun Tan for myself.

The lovely vibrant pinks and greens is a piece called "Horizon 2 January 2009" and has come from Whimsy and Colour, who is based in Calgary. Little known fact - I'm related to a politician in Calgary and will always go there when I'm in Canada.

Martha Miller makes her second appearance on the wall, with her mailart 365 head theme still going strong 60 heads in!

There are 3 Little Big Stories on the wall today, which arrived well after the deadline, so sadly didn't make it on to the walls of Pimlico. The show has been awesome, and I spoke to the librarian about the possibility of making a book from the pieces. I am thinking of extending the call to include new artists, and artists who were gutted that they missed the deadline for the show, and I intend to make the book available for purchase with all profits going to the library book buying fund.

2 new mailartists on the wall today are the Spanish speakers Cernjul Viviana from Argentina and Mute Sound from Spain. Cernjul sent in the Carnival piece with mask. Check out Cernjul's mailart blog for some great stuff coming out of Argentina.

Mute Sound sent 2 intriguing pieces, with circular motifs - Help Mute Sound out with his project "1 minute hypnosis" by sending 1 minute of sound in any system by mail or email. Check out his website for more details.

Thanks to Merdoc Robotics for your block print, which takes pride of place in the calendar, alongside one of Elenas new quilling contacts, Catherine.

What a day! Loads more to come!

my REAL wall 27 April 2011

2011-04-28T00:47:00.001+01:00

After a month away, we've come back to a pile of mailart about 3 inches high and lots of emails and other virtual stuff to catch up on.

Todays wall was really daunting to make as there was just so much to do! But once I got started it was great fun as always.

We got some lovely congratulations cards and welcome home post. Thanks Paula for such a warm sentiment on our return and it was great to come home to some Mim too.

Mim came over from Richmond, VA for our wedding and stood by this very wall about a month ago. It was such a pleasure to have one of our mailart friends come over and see the wall and she even repaired one of her earlier mailart pieces while she was here! I have to say it was such an honour for both of us to meet the other - we were mutually star struck! Hopefully, we'll be heading over to the US in the near future to return the visit.

Also on the wall are some new faces, including Cara, who loves dancing. Check out her Etsy shop, she's got some great block prints.

Thanks to Jessica from Canada for the Where's Waldo (we call him Wally here) and your little bit of Canadian charm ;-) and to Gabby for your random dog.

Scott, I would have loved to see some of your kids work on the wall, and I'll get the contents of the envelope out next time.

Prettylily, you may have received our postcard to you from Vietnam by now. If so, do tell us we love to know about these things!

Stephanie Blake from IUOMA created a wonderful piece from squares that were sewed together. I think this is the first piece I've got from Stephanie but it looks awesome!

Thanks to everyone as always for sending and keep your eyes on the site for more soon, there's still a lot more to come!

your REAL wall from 100 days of snail mail

2011-04-18T21:40:00.001+01:00

The 100 Days, 100 Mails Project

Starting on January 5th 2011, “snailmailfan” decided to mail something – postcard, letter, package, or puppy, through the postal systems of the world – every day for 100 days. To add to the challenge, at least ten different “sources” for addresses were to be used, and no repeat addresses were to be knowingly counted towards the completion of the project.

This challenge was completed on April 14th, 2011. 100 mails were sent, no repeat addresses were knowingly counted, a little over $300 Canadian was spent, and a whole new world of internet-community supported snail mail correspondence and mail art was discovered.

The Snailmailfan

Snailmailfan is a girl in her mid-twenties living in Winnipeg, Canada. When she’s not sending out mail or blogging, she could be reading, participating in an online social strategy game called eRepublik , cooking or baking, watching old (and sometimes new) movies, listening to radio, cheering for the Twins baseball team, playing with her teeny dog, rummaging through thrift shops, taking long walks through the city, imagining long travels across the country and the world, or fixing up her home, in which she hopes to manage a bed and breakfast operation in the mid-term future.

Snailmailfan likes bumblebees, prarie dogs and dragonflies, street cars, and purple coneflowers. Her favourite “tea” is rooibos. She wishes her French was better, wants to learn a third language, and how to play her guitar.

your REAL wall from ETStudio

2011-04-17T21:35:00.001+01:00

ArtyEm from ETstudio is a member of mailart365 and sends and receives loads of mailart. Here's her REAL wall, which was sent to me while me and Elena were on honeymoon.

#300 - my REAL wall on honeymoon

2011-04-17T21:25:00.001+01:00

Wondering why your post hasn't been appearing on my REAL wall for a month? It's because me and Elena have just got married and been on our honeymoon in Vietnam!

We did however, bring a few of your postcards with us, and here they are on the beach in Phu Quoc island, the southernmost island of Vietnam, where we spent a week of our honeymoon, relaxing, snorkelling and catching up on some mailart!

Look at those beauties from Farstarr, Okami, Dumpster, Felicity Lingle, JJ, Okadascat and more!

It just so happens that this is also post number 300 stats fans, what better way to celebrate than getting married! Eeeks!

Via Flickr:
Wondering why your post hasn't been appearing on my REAL wall for a month? It's because me and Elena have just got married and been on our honeymoon in Vietnam!

We did however, bring a few of your postcards with us, and here they are on the beach in Phu Quoc island, the southernmost island of Vietnam, where we spent a week of our honeymoon, relaxing, snorkelling and catching up on some mailart!

Look at those beauties from Farstarr, Okami, Dumpster, Felicity Lingle, JJ, Okadascat and more!

It just so happens that this is also post number 300 stats fans, what better way to celebrate than getting married! Eeeks!

my REAL wall - mini-Andy returns

2011-03-11T23:44:00.001Z

Behold! It's the return of mini-Andy!

This cute remake of the mini-Adventurer was done by Okadascat, our favourite yarnbombing mailartist. mini-Andy 2.0 has already had his first adventure, to the O2 arena in Greenwich, and is going to go on our honeymoon with us, then he's all yours! The new mini-Andy is now safe to travel on his own, and if you want to take him on an adventure, then just drop a comment somewhere and make your case!

Also on my REAL wall today is a new mailartist I encountered on Twitter, called Kiyotei, who produces some very awesome stuff!

Already the wedding mailart is coming in, and you can see the 4 piece commemorative skeleton piece from Camel there in the centre. More 365 pieces from Dewi, Sue Bowen and I'm a superhero and can like fly and shit, and a welcome return to the wall for Felicity Lingle and Rejin Leys!

Big thanks to Robert Graham too, who I think is set to become a regular fixture on my REAL wall.

The excellent watercolour (?) lady in bikini is by Jenny England from Australia. It's really stunning and I believe it's a first appearance for this artist on the wall.

Also, if you're watching, could whoever it was who sent the piece in the bottom left hand corner come out and say so please! No return address it's a mystery!

Box 652's REAL wall - 11 March 2011

2011-03-11T12:52:00.002Z

This came in from Sue from Box652 today. Sue is an active mailart365er, and REAL wall fan.

Here's what she has to say

My REAL wall as of today. Going to refresh it with the 'objects-in-waiting' so I'll have a different real WALL tomorrow. Virtual living is loveliness. Thanks to all of you who sent things. Some are on this episode. Some in the queue. I need a bigger wall... :-)

[Andy - I love the graffiti!]

my REAL wall - E is for Elena

2011-03-04T06:22:00.001Z

EEEEEEEK! It's a skull invasion! The contents of Prosthet's Pacman envelope is spilling all over the wall, sending skulls rampaging all over the place.

It's lovely to see some more mailart from B, the Snailmailer, whose artistic and postal experimentation started as a result of my REAL wall. Do visit her blog, it's quite a fascinating place!

Sue Bowen - your post arrived! So did your second one! Check it out on the right of the wall under Prettylily's cyclops!

As you can see, alphabet month turned up a lot of good stuff on E-day for Elena. It's so lovely to see that she is inspiring so many people with her quilling

MA Arts Mailart workshop March 1, 2011

2011-03-03T17:50:00.001Z

I was asked to do a mailart workshop with the Masters Art Education students, at the university that I work at, most of whom were teachers.

Before the session, the students put a selection of my mailart up on the wall, then I done a little talk about how the mailart got to me and what mailart is. I explained how using mailart in the classroom allowed students to create artwork without fear of criticism from those around them.

The students were asked to take a postcard down from the wall that appealed to them, then to create their own piece of mailart which they were to send back. This allowed students to create their first piece of mailart, and illustrated that mailart was art without a context of the artist.

After they created their artworks, the students presented their art to the rest of the class, explaining why they had chosen the pieces they did and explained their responses.

As an extension to this lesson, the students were asked to make a piece of mailart about themselves. This is to be sent to their tutor, without their name on it. The idea is to allow them total freedom of expression. The tutor will then put up their received artwork in the next lesson and the students will be able to view the shows without revealing their identity.

Personally, I didn't like presenting artwork at school in front of my peers. The idea of remaining anonymous but being able to listen to peoples comments on my artwork without them knowing that I made it would have made me much more open to listening. The commentary that I expect to come out would be about the art and not about me as a person.

I look forward to seeing what the students produce and will post the results up here when I get the chance (and if I get the consent)

my REAL wall - Greek Bin invasion!

2011-03-01T01:22:00.001Z

The main component on today's wall is from Greek mailartist, Katerina Nikoltsou, who has been avidly photographing the buildup of rubbish in Thesaloniki, where she lives. Since the global financial crash, bins have been overflowing in the streets and some of her Little Big Stories present these pictures in a way that gets past all your defences.

The adventures of Ben the bin and Bev put a twist on the bin photos with the simple addition of expressive faces and captions that are hilarious. But underlying the humour is a sad tale that in fact, the greed of our bankers has left a country in ruins. Genius.

Benjamin Shaw has sent a package of his new envelopes - you can see the first one on the bottom row. The other 9 in his new series will be up on display shortly, or you can check out his site and see them even earlier!

my REAL wall - Mailart inspiration

2011-02-27T23:26:00.001Z

One of the best things about running my REAL wall for the last 2 years has been inspiring a whole lot of people I have never met to make art. I find it amazing that my little project, that started off as a little joke to amuse myself actually gets people to pick up a pencil and draw something.

Even more exciting lately, is how this year, after reactivating my facebook account and feeding my flickr feed in, some people I have actually met are starting to create mailart too. With the relentless barrage of mailart feeds that they get, I think my friends are starting to get the idea that facebook wall posts don't cut it for me any more! So this year I've started seeing mailart from people I know in my mailbox! What a rush!

The big envelope in the middle right is from a friend Jen, who travels the world as a perennial nomad. She always sends postcards from wherever she goes, and regular viewers of my REAL wall will no doubt have seen a piece from her.

She decided to pick up the pencils this time and pimped up the envelope, which made me really happy! We've only met once, as she is the girlfriend of a friend of mine, and we met when they passed through London last, but I was so pleased that my REAL wall has brought the artist out of her!

I wonder what that is escaping from Prosthet's Pacman envelope...?

my REAL wall hosts Little Big Stories and Mailart 365 pieces

2011-02-26T01:40:00.001Z

ON the bottom row is a great envelope of envelopes from Down Under. I'll open it soon, the packaging is GREAT!

Thanks to Gabby, Robert, Heavenly Love, and all of you who contributed to this one. There are contributions sourced from Mailart 365, Postcrossing, IUOMA and the Little Big Stories show all coming together in one place. Where else would you find so much talent in one place I sometimes wonder

my REAL wall - Stories and news

2011-02-24T14:12:00.001Z

Where else does a letter from the Editor of the Evening Standard find a home beside the worlds foremost mailartists? Only here on my REAL wall!

More Little Big Stories up today, thanks to Lindenhoff, Ptriza, Spodob and others, and a pimped photo from Okami too.

Twitter Art Exhibit in Moss, Norway

2011-02-24T13:19:00.002Z

At the end of 2010, a little phenomenon happened on Twitter. Every artist I follow was suddenly tweeting with the hashtag #twitterartexhibition and saying that they were sending a piece to a guy called David Sandum.

I went on over to his site to see what the buzz was about, and saw that he was running a very cool mailart project requesting postcards for a show at his local library in Moss in Norway. He stated that he intended to sell as many pieces after the show in order to raise money to buy childrens books for the library.

Mailart and a good cause - I couldn't resist!

I sent in The Haunted Ballerina (Back), which i'm still really proud of.

My piece sold last month, for something like £17, which can buy a book or two.

Today, David posted pics of the pieces on the wall at the show. You can see The Haunted Ballerina in the first column, 3rd down.

Check out the rest of the pics of the show at Davids site

my REAL wall - February 23, 2011

2011-02-23T22:46:00.001Z

my REAL wall - February 23, 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Plenty more Little Big Stories submitted for the Westminster Libraries/my REAL wall mailart call. The deadline is March 11, 2011, so please get your postcard pieces in soon!

my REAL wall - More Little Big Stories

2011-02-23T00:42:00.001Z

my REAL wall - More Little Big Stories, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Check out the latest Little Big Stories from TicTac, Rebecca Guyver, A1 Mailart archive and others!

your REAL wall by Mim4art, 20 Feb 2011

2011-02-22T01:04:00.001Z

your REAL wall by Mim4art, 20 Feb 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Mim, one of the leading lights of Mailart365 has ut up another REAL wall while procrastinating on the letter S

The first of the Little Big Stories lands on my REAL wall

2011-02-21T21:51:00.002Z

The first of the Little Big Stories lands on my REAL wall, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

As well as the awesome Puzzleposta from Ahmet Demir, the regular mailart is joined by the first of the Little Big Story submissions for the Pimlico mailart show. No point keeping them in a box until the End of March is there!

The awesome superhero card is by Peter Tran, Mim4art's piece is below that and the very first piece received is by Conor Donegan. "Through the Looking Glass" comes from Cathy Bayless in California and "Groucho Marx goes for a walk" comes from Darryl Cunningham

Also on the wall are some gems from Mailart 365 friends Dewi, Box 652, L-plate Big Cheese and Farstarr

If you want to see the other pieces received so far for Little Big Stories they are on the Little Big Stories page

Little Big Stories - A mailart call by my REAL wall and Westminster libraries

2011-02-16T11:36:00.002Z

Can you tell a story in words and pictures and fit it on a postcard? If so we want to see your stories!

As part of the graphic novel season at Westminster libraries, we are holding a mailart show at Pimlico library, where we want to display postcard sized stories from YOU!

All of your "Little Big Stories" will go on display in Pimlico library in London for 2 weeks.

Full details can be found at The Westminster Libraries Blog. The deadline is March 11, 2011 and to submit work, just send your pieces to

Graphic Novel Mail Art Show
Westminster Libraries
c/o my REAL wall
PO Box 63138
LONDON
W14 4BR
United Kingdom

All pictures of the show and build up will be uploaded and displayed on this page

Thanks to everyone for participating!

As pieces are received, I'll add them to the list on this page

Why not drop a comment below, or at the original post if you intend to send a piece!

my REAL wall - A blast from the past

2011-02-15T17:03:00.001Z

my REAL wall - A blast from the past, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

It's been just over 2 years since my REAL wall started, as nothing more than a blank wall above my clothes drying radiator in a small room I lived in on the other side of Shepherds Bush.

2 years on, I wanted to recreate the "glory" days and so I hung some cruds and socks up on my new radiator and put my received postcards up. It's just like the old days.

Ahhh that brings me back....

your REAL desk by Noah Scalin of Skulladay

2011-02-15T00:44:00.000Z

Noah Scalin, creator of Skulladay recently received a quilled skull from Elena.

Today, I was meandering through Noah's Twitter and noticed that his desk had been featured on fromyourdesks.com. When I realised that his wall was also included, I scoured the wall for a sight of a piece from me or Elena and lo and behold, Elena's quilled skull is second row up, just above that green postcard!

So a sly appearance of a REAL wall on another site courtesy of Elena and Noah, tag-teaming across continents!

Thanks to Kate from fromyourdesks.com and to Noah for the pic. Check out the desks of other cool people at http://fromyourdesks.com/ and kick off your 365 in style with http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/

my REAL wall - 14 Feb 2011

2011-02-14T22:44:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 14 Feb 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Most times, it's obvious when I'm home alone, and Elena is out because on those days I tend to go into REAL wall overdrive to try and forget that she's away.

Tonight, sadly Elena has to work, and I've made a little smiley face out of mailart to try and cheer myself up. She was also out yesterday, which is why we had no commemorative 2 year anniversary wall, as yesterday marks the 2nd year of this postcard-sticking madness!

Todays collection of mailart inspiration comes from JJAlltheway, Riaviewmirror, Spodob and Farmageddon among others!

Thanks as always to Ivan and Jen for keeping me posted from their neverending world trip

The postcard with the trumpeter on it had a link to this site - I had heard of the art machine before, where people put art in and other people buy the art like a vending machine. It's a great idea and I would love to see one. Has any of you ever come across one of these?

your REAL wall from Gabby Cooksey #2

2011-02-13T10:32:00.004Z

This is the second wall from Gabby, who swaps loads of cool letters with her mum! There's my "St. Aldates Reimgined". Gabby says

I recently got a LOT of mailart this week and I put it all up. even though a third of it is from my mum, ha :D
Gabby Cooksey

my REAL wall 07 Feb 2011 - Affirmative action!

2011-02-10T16:30:00.001Z

my REAL wall 07 Feb 2011 - Affirmative action!, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

In with your postcards and mailart this week is a letter from the editor of London's Evening Standard. I sent a collage to the editor asking them to write more happy articles.

Today I received a reply on an Evening Standard notecard, promising to try to write more happy articles! How cool!

Where else in the world would you find letters from the editor of London's most widely circulated evening paper alongside postcards from London talk show DJs and the worlds very best mailartists! There are zentangles, seductive ladies, swirlies, heads and every other piece of imaginable art this week!

Thanks to all for your continued enthusiasm!

my REAL wall - 01 Feb 2011

2011-02-01T23:37:00.002Z

my REAL wall - 01 Feb 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

One more birthday card on there, as I went to Vietnamese Karaoke this weekend and got a card and a book from Alina, Elena's best friend. To be honest, I'm not sure what to do with the book, as I don't read much. Thinking of collaging it, unless anyone else reads Clive Cussler? I'm quite happy to drop it in the post if it will find a good home. I also hope that she doesn't tune in too regularly to this blog...

B, I am loving the development of your art style! I feel so priveleged that I'm getting to watch it unfolding before me. Keep it up!

Whoop! 2 weeks in a row with mailart from Rachel Freeman! How lucky are we here at my REAL wall! I'm a huge not-so-secret admirer of her work!

your REAL wall by mim4art - 01 Feb 2011

2011-02-01T23:14:00.002Z

your REAL wall by mim4art - 01 Feb 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Mim has been a supporter of my REAL wall for a long time, sending her first REAL wall back in August 2009.

One of the first members of mailart365, Mim's output is prolific, to the point that I measure what number I'm supposed to be on by what number she's on (which usually has a suffix after it, like 63a, 63b, 63c as she is doing mailart1000 it seems!)

Here's Mim's latest REAL wall, covered with mailart365 gems, including one of Elena's quilled pieces, Spring Blossom. In amongst all those, I can spot a Katerina Nikoltsou, Red Letter Day, Dewi and many other superstars of mailart!

If you're on flickr, tag your work with a note

your REAL wall from Gabby Cooksey

2011-02-01T15:23:00.000Z

Another active mailart365 member, Gabby Cooksey is a freshman at art college. There's my St. Aldates reimagined on her wall alongside some more mailart365! I love the fact that there are so many more happy mailboxes as a result of the project.

your REAL wall from Lady L

2011-01-28T16:47:00.006Z

Lady L was one of the earliest members of Mailart365 and her wall contains loads of mailart from the project as a result. On her wall at the moment is a piece by Elena, so she qualifies for a spot on my REAL wall.

26 January 2011

2011-01-26T22:00:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 26 January 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

I took a day off yesterday from posting as it was my 31st birthday!

This week has been really hectic with post. I finally hit 100 postcards sent and received on postcrossing, and we may be seeing something exciting on their blog very soon, so watch that space.

2 postcrossings up and a wonderful piece from Martha Miller, her #1/365 Bird Brain. What a pleasure to get such an awesome piece from such an awesome artist.

One of the 2 Chinese new year (year of the rabbit this year) cards comes from Red Letter Day and the other from Dumpster Diver, who we haven't seen for a while, so it's great to see her back on the wall.

JJ sent 2 pieces our way this week, one for me and one for Elena, from her found objects series. This is brilliant, as the two marry up perfectly and create a diptych. A disguished one at that.

your REAL wall - Postmuse's mailart 365 received so far

2011-01-23T20:17:00.002Z

Although this doesn't contain any post by me, I am always willing to make an exception for Postmuse, who has posted all her received Mailart365 posts up on her REAL wall over there in Pittsburgh.

I love the fact that in houses all over the world, people have their own private gallery of mailart. Awesome!

my REAL wall - 22 Jan 2011

2011-01-22T21:57:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 22 Jan 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

The latest post from Japanese mailartist Ryosuke Cohen dominates today's REAL wall. Ryosuke has been sending out his Brain Cell pieces for many years. He collects rubber stamps from people, then periodically sends these stamped awesome pieces to most of the mailart community. This one, number 782 (I told you he's been doing this a while didn't I...) has contributions from at least 3 mailart365 members, Jennie Hinchcliff, Katerina N and Lady L, who I know has only recently taken up carving rubber.

New pieces are in from Lindsay and Postmuse too and I've moved your one around a little Louise, cos I know you always tune in to find out if your pieces are up!

my REAL wall - 17 Jan 2011

2011-01-17T21:51:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 17 Jan 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

I am a huge fan of Kiera Pannel's work on mailart 365 and have been since her first This Is Art card came through the postbox of my REAL wall last year. Imagine my delight then, to be hosting 2 of her recent Film Alphabet series on one wall, A to Elena and E to Andy. Sly!

Today's calendar entries are from Okami and an Aussie called Molly McGrath, who has added a REAL like button to the site! How cool is that!

Americans joining in today are Jennie "Red Letter Day" Hinchcliffe, Paula Smith and Mad Madge.

I'm not exactly sure how the Webbys card got there, but they have somehow got my address. Perhaps there's someone over there watching my REAL wall. I'd like to think so.

Last but not least is the third of 12 pieces from my childhood friend Louise, who has seen my REAL wall and been inspired to start creating mailart, though not to quite the intense pace of mailart 365, one a month for 2011 which will be coming through my mailbox.

A quick REAL wall story for you all before I finish. As many of you know, I'm an e-learning advisor at a university. On Friday I attended a conference for pretty much all the e-learning professionals in the country.

There was a call for presentations, and I decided, as it was my first time there, to present my postcard thing as a way to integrate electronic networking and social interaction between students as proven by my university portfolios thing. Social interaction and keeping it REAL.

When I walked in there were way more people than I thought. 250 of them actually. All the e-learning professionals I know and respect and many I don't. It was terrifying.

The speakers were chosen by random selector and every time the selector spun, I got really really nervous thinking "What the hell am I doing - presenting to a bunch of esteemed e-learning folk about sending postcards!"

Every time the spinner span, I drank half a bottle of beer to steel my nerves in case it fell on me to present my REAL portfolio project, and by the end, with only my name and about 5 others in the hat I was so drunk I couldn't really remember what I was meant to be saying.

Luckily (or unlucily, I can't really tell) my star didn't shine that night and I stayed in a corner drunk instead of presenting my REAL wall to an unsuspecting group of educational technologists.

Probably for the best...

Thanks to everyone for keeping it REAL!

my REAL wall - 15 January 2011

2011-01-15T11:31:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 15 January 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Another bumper mailart week at my REAL towers, with a steady influx of mailart from fans and mailartists the world over.

This week I met my mailart mentor, the man who introduced me to mailart 2 years ago, Grthink, for the first time. The wonderful world of the internet huh!

He responded to my ad for mail on the London online noticeboard Gumtree then pointed me in the direction of postcrossing and IUOMA and I've never looked back.

He popped over after a tech show this week and stuck his piece up himself, which was a real thrill! Not only that, but it's also a label piece, reminiscent of my recent label work, merging labels and his ghosts with some QVC cards he's been trying to get rid of.

Check out the new stuff from IUOMA member Jen Staggs and from Keira Pannell (E for Egoyan)

Paula Smiths huge parcel of collage material arrived and I have some new post from a new mailartist I've not seen before called Janet Heritage. Hope to see more in future, it's great, check out the metallic embossing.

Michalis Kotsaris has 2 pieces up on the wall today. It was really cool that one was addressed to me and one to Elena. I love Michalis Kotsaris's style, so it's a huge thrill to have 2 of his pieces up at once.

my REAL wall - 11 January 2010

2011-01-11T23:25:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 11 January 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

A bumper day on my REAL inbox today, with a stonking 11 pieces coming in, so many I couldn't fit them all on the wall at once!

Great to see 2 pieces from Ria and Camel (thanks Camel's son!) and the first of the year from B, whose site The Snail Mailer goes from strength to strength. It's great reading, and her choice to accept sponsorship last year on it has made it a vital read at least once a week as there are always competitions on there! B is a newcomer to the letter writing/mailart blogging sphere but I'm proud to be on her mailing list. She writes great letters!

Also on the wall is Missive Maven, a welcome return and a timely reminder that I need to send something out to Newport, RI - it's been too long!

#1 from PamelaArt and Jumbo soup from FarStarr too. A lovely mail day!

Elenas favourites wall expands all over the house

2011-01-10T22:18:00.001Z

my REAL wall - Elenas favourites wall expands all over the house, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Usually Elena picks her favourites and puts them up on our boiler cupboard. At the moment it is really the Postmuse show on there, and Elena has run out of space, so she's decided to expand the favourites enterprise into the kitchen and on to the wall next to stairs.

Along with Camels leg tattoo and JJ's daffodility 14 are some old favourites like Heleen21's awesome photo pimpup and Jennlui's neverendingly creative book, where you turn it over and over and find another surprise.

The fridge door has some ATCs from Elenas new contact, Lisa. These are slightly smaller than our usual postcards, but Lisa uses the size to her advantage packing in so much detail into the space.

Mim's classic Wren has been up since it arrived too, and inspired some of Elenas recent work. It's lovely to have so much inspiration coming through our door every day.

Some pieces I think will never come down from the boiler door are Okadascats knitted REAL wall banner, Cross Ryu's Indian Inks (Girl in water bottle and Girl with a tree for hair) and of course Ubons portrait of Elena. These are sublime.

my REAL wall special edition : Student mailart show inspired by my REAL wall opens today!

2011-01-08T02:36:00.001Z

As regular readers of the blog now, in October, I presented my first ever mailart lecture to a group of secondary art teaching students, and worked with their tutor to get them sending mailart to each other through the course of their placements in schools.

These days it's not unusual for students to have to put together an electronic portfolio of their work, and we had initially planned to do this but when I happened to start talking about my REAL wall with the head of art and design education, we came up with a plan. REAL portfolios. Why would you let all this artistic talent go to waste, let's send mailart instead! This seemed a much more appropriate (and fun) way to put one together over the course of the term, while inspiring and supporting each other. And it seemed a pretty odd bit of advice from the e-learning advisor too...

After a term in schools we wanted to put the pieces together that came out of this project and put on a show to showcase how the REAL portfolio project went.

It went brilliantly.

I cannot begin to get into words how exciting it was to see all the students looking through each others works and going "WOW!" and the feedback I got from the students was phenomenal. It seemed that all the effects that mailart has had on me, uplifting, supporting, inspiring, developing and so on had all happened to the students.

It was so great to hear that people would actually look forward to doing their weekly assignment, they loved to receive this little personal snippet from another student and know that while they were out in schools they were not alone in their experiences. It was great.

That's quite enough chatter from me, but I wanted to include the blurb that accompanied this show, which was written by Jo Davies, the head of Art and Design Education at the university where I work

PGCE Secondary Art and Design 2010-11 Mail Art Exhibition

The PGCE Secondary Art and Desgin MailArt group has been set up in response or rather to counter the online networking communication that prevails in all workplaces and institutions of education and is inspired (ironically) by Andy Hoang, E learning advisor and artist, who is involved in a wider global mailart group himself.

The aim of the project is for students to keep in touch while out on school placements and boost each other's morale through what can be a very isolating experience in a creative way. It was felt that this practical, 'hands-on' approach to communication and sharing of ideas and experiences through the PGCE course would suit Art and Design students better than a social networking or other online form of communication. The personal time and attention given to this craft based task may be seen as a reaction against the distance and virtual forms of communication increasingly used throughout the rest of the students' training and a recognition of the need to acknowledge and support each other in a more meaningful and tangible way.

The PGCE Secondary Art and Design students sent one postcard to each of the rest of the group once a week throughout the Autumn term. A timetable was to make sure that everyone in the group makes and sends a postcard as well as receives one every week. The postcards are handmade or at the very least hand altered so that some art practice is going on as an antidote to all the other less inspiring paperwork they are filling in and include messages of support and inspiration to remind each other that they are 'all in it together'!

The exercise will be repeated during the Spring and Summer terms and the long term aim is for students to carry this oninto their NQT year and beyond. The group already has an offshoot with two of the students running a mail art club sending postcards between their two placement schools, linked to a self portrait/identity project! The project has also 'caught the eye' of the National Society of Education in Art and Design who will be including the project in an article in the launch of their new magazine, AD.

So that seems to have gone well enough. Want to know what it looked like?

Barely 2 years after starting my REAL wall I seem to have started something I could never have dreamt of. I can hardly believe it.

my REAL wall - January 8, 2011

2011-01-08T01:10:00.000Z

my REAL wall - January 8, 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Loads of todays cards were sent to Elena including the excellent Rachel Freeman card in the top right, finally displacing the Camel.

Paulas 1923 from mailart 365 is up, Boo, McFloozy and Dewi also make an appearance and there's 2 from Ria.

All superb artworks

my REAL wall - January 7, 2011

2011-01-07T12:57:00.002Z

my REAL wall - January 7, 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

The Camel corner in the top left shows 2 pimped photos by mailart 365er Camelorama, with other IUOMA regulars Snooky and Angie, Paula, Rani and Postmuse thrown in for good measure.

New on the wall in the calendar section is a really personal Christmas gift from Elenas brother, with a Romanian in-joke, Camels #1/365 and Valentine Mark Herman's Real men (don't eat quiche). It's usually a good sign if you find yourself in the calendar, asI always forget to change this!

my REAL wall - January 6, 2011

2011-01-06T23:51:00.001Z

my REAL wall - January 6, 2011, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

OK I know I was supposed to take some pics of some postcards on walls in Romania, but I was so busy being fed and pampered by Elenas family I didn't get a chance to, even though quite a few of these were in my bag at the time. Sorry about that folks, normal service resumed with a plethora of wonderful mailart. Lots of 365 folk among the crowd, and so much mailart to catch up on that I've decided not to crowd today s wall but will change these around a little over the next 3 days just to catch up.

Camel, I'm afraid that your envelope will only go up on the site today. Elena couldn't bear living with it in the house any longer and forced me to put up a wall so that she could throw it out, cos it freaked her out!

Can you spot yours?

My REAL wall wishes you all Happy Holidays!

2010-12-25T22:33:00.001Z

My REAL wall wishes you all Happy Holidays!, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

We couldn't afford REAL misteltoe this year because of the recession, but Andy and Elena wish you all Happy Holidays!

(Thanks to Box652 for the Sunday Punny)

2 days til Christmas

2010-12-24T19:25:00.001Z

2 days til Christmas, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

...and loads of great postal prezzies for us!

Check out the gems from Camel (30 minutes to open - Airplane repair tape!), Louise (she's discovered she's quite an artist and is sending me her mailart 12 once a month) and Paula (Inner Child)

Other artists in the mix are Douglas Galloway (addressed to Elena - yay! I still owe you one Douglas, I'll get round to it I promise!), Pierpaolo, Feltypants, Ria and Ammy.

Some of these are coming to Romania with us this Christmas!

A mailbox explosion

2010-12-24T17:42:00.001Z

A mailbox explosion, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

It's Christmas Eve and I was at work this morning. It's not all bad of course, as obviously there wasn't really a great deal to do, but the worst bit was thinking that I would get no REAL mail when I got home.

How wrong I was! When I got home, I had so much post I couldn't open the door properly! Didn't I say that MailArt365 was an inbox explosion!

In amongst these gems are Cameloramas superb stiched #1 and his superscary post with pimp-up dollar (which Elena has given me strict instructions to "hurry up and put that up so I can hide it at the bottom of the postcard box and never see it again"), one from Snookie and Angie, 2 from Box 652 ("Missiletoe" and "Eyes"), a new years wish card from Rebecca Resinski

Elena received one addressed to her (she does feel somewhat in my postal shadow) from a new quilling contact called Martinaquill whose work has really inspired her. That's the first bit of quilling she's ever received in the post!

Not enough time to post a proper REAL wall today, but wanted you all to know that your work has arrived. All these pieces will be making their way with us on holiday this Christmas, so keep your eyes peeled!

your REAL wall - from Pamela at the Cappuccino and Art Journal

2010-12-24T11:41:00.001Z

As most of you know, I've been running mailart365 since December 1st, so the amount of mailart I'm putting out (and receiving) has gone up astronomically in the last month. I had hoped this would lead to more REAL walls as my mailart started hitting the walls of mailartists the world over.

This was the first sighted postcard on someone elses wall, over at the Coffee and Cappuccino art blog. Pamela is an artist in San Francisco and a late entrant to mailart 365

Maybe I've not been quite clear enough, but I'd love to see pics of my post when it arrives on your walls too! Happy Christmas!

my REAL skull-a-day

2010-12-17T09:44:00.001Z

my REAL skull-a-day, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Since discovering skulladay, I've been meaning to make a skull wall and today I finally got round to it! A REAL skull wall of mailart and postcards.

Can you spot your postcards in it?

my REAL wall - number 1s

2010-12-11T15:59:00.001Z

my REAL wall - number 1s, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

With Mailart365 in full swing now and nearly 2 weeks in, mailart is coming in from many of the participants already. I'm really honoured to welcome so many of their #1/365's onto my REAL wall today, including the very first piece made for the project by JJalltheway, Postmuse's hilarious Frosty regrets, Mim's Colour experiment with Carolina Wren and Katerina Nikoltsou's #1

The wall also displays Camel's REAL wall 2.0 prominiently, as well as a piece of mailart from a school in Zionsville. I still owe them a piece and hope that they get a few more for their efforts. Their call can be seen, along with all the other mailart calls I receive from schools on my side blog Schoolswaps

my REAL wall - Art never dies

2010-12-06T23:17:00.000Z

my REAL wall - Art never dies, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

It's rare that I get a piece that dominates the whole wall as I do try and make sure that everyone gets an equal showing.

However, this piece from Edie S made equality a little tough!

The poster, a limited edition mailart-inspired piece is so good to look at that it may well spend a little while up there.

At the moment, Pola's piece is complemented by a knitted brooch from Okadascat, our favourite yarn bomber, and an old piece from Mim, which has been on our fridge for months. It fell off just as I was making this piece, which I took to be a sign that it wanted to get involved in this shot.

my REAL wall 5 December 2010

2010-12-06T21:43:00.001Z

my REAL wall 5 December 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

With mailart365 in full swing, mine and Elena's time has been mainly devoted to making mailart to go out rather than displaying the incoming stuff.

Today I had so much mailart to catch up on, that it didn't all fit on my wall. In amongst the mailart there is my first postcrossing from Belarus and my first postcard from Michalis Kotsaris, a Greek Mailartist whose work took my breath away when I saw it on IUOMA.

Katerina Nikoltsou, another Greek mailartist and mailart365 contributor was the first mailartist through the postbox and her envelope made it on, but her piece will be on the next wall.

I included the advent calendar too, as Elena had never had an advent calendar before. Being Romanian, they don't have advent calendars, and last yearit didn't occur to me to get one, so this year she's experiencing daily chocolate every day for the first time. I'm not sure I really approve of this.

Much of the wall is taken up by pimped photos from Dodo. I sent him a bunch of photos a while back for pimping and interestingly he chopped EVERYTHING up, including the envelope and mailart I sent for him and glued it together with various extras! It was great!

Under the date, you can see the beginning of "The Swarm" by Cornpone. A fascinating idea, but I only have a small inkling of what is happening on this one...

Postmuse and Camel O'Rama are also represented in pre-mailart365 pieces here, as is DosankoDebbie, an etigami artist based in Japan. Take a look at her site, she goes from strength to strength!

my REAL wall - 01 December 2010

2010-12-01T23:41:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 01 December 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

This week has been a stellar week for mailart, with Mailart365 kicking off today like a whirlwind! Such a vibrant community of mailartists with a mission!

In the post this week is a nice mix of mailartists, postcrossing and schoolkids!

It's a great mix too, Camel sent me the template for the tattoo on his leg, B sent me a huge surprise package complete with some rubber stamps from Bethlehem, PA and we see the return of Cornpone, who has sent me a very slightly different wasp as part of "The Swarm"

Great to see so many mailartists creating their first ever pieces. B sent her first self-made postcards, and a 13 year old from a school in Wandsworth sent me his first piece.

What I'd really like is for people to send more postcards to these schoolkids and encourage mailart at grassroots level.

This schools address will be put up on *yet another) mailart that I run at the moment and I'd love it if readers could send a postcard to them. The blog is called School swaps and I post up all the addresses of classes seeking mailart that I receive there. Please give it a visit and send any addresses there if you get them!

my REAL wall gets snowy in the Peak District

2010-11-30T17:11:00.001Z

my REAL wall gets snowy in the Peak District, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Me and Elena decided to drive up to the Peak District this weekend. Perhaps this wasn't the most wise idea, me suffering from a terrible cold and all, but I spluttered my way through and we were rewarded with the beautiful snowswept scenery you see before you.

Thanks to all of you who sent mail, which came with us. It was so cold on Friday night and not once did I consider using any of your mailart as firewood. Oh no not me.

my REAL wall in Oxford

2010-11-29T21:52:00.001Z

my REAL wall in Oxford, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

This weekend me and Elena hired a car and drove north. Stopping off in Oxford to see my brother, we decided it only humane to take your postcards out to see the sights.

Camel, Louise Dodo and Ammy, your cards are in front of the Radcliffe Camera, which was the idea of John Radcliffe, a great Oxford physician (the hospital in Oxford is called the John Radcliffe). He wanted to build a library and today the Rad Cam, as it's locally known, houses the Radcliffe Science Library

my REAL wall counts down to Mailart 365

2010-11-23T00:40:00.003Z

my REAL wall counts down to Mailart 365, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Last week I had an idea - I would make mailart every day for a year. Simple idea really, and a 365 that I thought I could stick to, with a little help from my friends as I have very poor willpower myself.

So I merrily toddled off and bought mailart365.com, and invited some people along for the ride.

Most of the mailartists who have signed up to join me in this marathon endeavour are people who are long time fans of my REAL wall, and there are one or two surprises thrown in too.

Today's REAL wall is a homage to the people who are coming along for the ride and contains post from as many of them as I have post from.

The participants list so far can be seen on the site at mailart365.blogspot.com, and includes Postmuse, Mim4art, Katerina Nikoltsou, L-Plate Big Cheese, Rejin Leys and Elena

Up in the middle of the central column is Elenas latest piece, a quilled skull. This skull was made for Mim4art's son Noah Scalin, who runs Skull-a-day and this is Elenas contribution - you saw it here first!

The large black piece is extremely fragile and rarely sees the light of day. This was found by L-plate on holiday in Portugal. Apparently it was given to her as a sickbag on a ferry, and strangely, each one had been intricately decorated by someone with Tippex/whiteout! One of my lesser known collections is a collection of sickbags, and so people I know tend to bring me sickbags (unused) from their holidays, and this is a true gem. In case you're thinking of sending me one, please make sure it's not soiled or blank, as it's jsut depressing when it looks like a sanitary bag.

A cheeky one to include on this wall is a mailartist called Valentine Mark Herman, a French mailartist. It's still not clear whether Valentine will be submitting for mailart 365, but he is currently doing a 365 of sorts where he sends envelopes that he sends to himself, one a day for a year. It's art. It goes in the mail. It lasts a year. So who knows maybe he'll come around to the idea...

my REAL wall - 21st November 2010

2010-11-21T18:35:00.002Z

my REAL wall - 21st November 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Not much post in this week, and I have been really busy organising my newest mailart project, Mailart 365 at the moment.

Among the posts this week comes one from Camel-o-rama, a Seattle-based tattoo artist and postcrosser. This awesome piece is a design for someones tattoo, and has got Elena badgering me to have a tattoo again. Who knows you may see a Camel-o-rama special on my REAL skin one day.

The Homer Simpson post comes from Lorraine Kwan. Lorraine's last post was a pimped photo that she sent from Vancouver a few months back and this time she's pimped up Homer, oggling some Dim Sum buns.

The Okadascat piece next to that is a favourite of mine and Elena's, so much so that it is used as a bookmark most the time and travels around with us daily.

The Sweet Raisin post comes from one of my oldest REAL friends. Not old as in OLD (I have to clear that up before Louise beats me) but old as in, I've known her since I was about 5 years old, and we're still friends. Imagine that!

Of the remaining items, there is a letter from British Gas, apologising for the terrible customer service they put me and Elena through over the last few months. Having cut us off for a mistake that was none of our fault, they took 2 months to replace our gas supply, and finally they have held their hands up and admitted that they could have done better. The letter is a long overdue apology, in which they refunded us some of the money that we spent, and they also bought us a pair of tickets to see the Lion King in the West End. They also bought Elena a large bouquet of flowers 2 weeks ago, so I think we can consider that issue closed now.

Look closely and you'll see a little bride, so you know what I've been thinking about for the last week. The date has now been set for our wedding - 19th March! Yay!

Mim4Art your REAL wall November 2010

2010-11-17T14:10:00.001Z

Mim4Art your REAL wall November 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Mim has been a long time contributor to my REAL wall and is a co-conspirator when it comes to mailart talks. It was partly because of her that I started giving lectures in mailart, so I thought it was only right to send a postcard to her designed by my students from my mailart lecture.

The big green Male art card in the centre was drawn by one of my students in a recent lecture. She had assuemd that my talk was going to be on MALE art as opposed to female art (or mailart) and hence the pic.

Nice to see it made it up on to Mims REAL wall all the way over there in Richmond, VA.

Here's what Mim has to say about the whole thing:

My REAL wall is a jumble. I hesitate to remove anything because it's like a house of cards with one thing propped on another's pushpin or sharing pins. Plus, I like looking at things for a long time, remembering who sent them to me, like the little Dutch shoes, or keep things at hand like my MimPost stamps or the collage going into an exhibit.

One day, I'll take it all down and start fresh, or not.

The post room

2010-11-16T22:33:00.001Z

The post room, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

We're rapidly running out of walls to put postcards on....

Elenas new favourites

2010-11-16T09:30:00.001Z

Elenas new favourites, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Our favourites wall has stayed pretty static for a while, and Elena decided to change things around a bit. The thing about this wall is that we need sticky velcro to stick things on, so it's a bit of a pain to change, but Elena has changed a little since the last time. Have you made it on?

Keeping it REAL

2010-11-15T13:21:00.001Z

Keeping it REAL, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Elena put this up above the bed on Friday. It's awesome and contains works old and new!

my REAL wall - 13 November 2010

2010-11-15T01:15:00.001Z

my REAL wall - 13 November 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Always a pleasure to come home and find that Elena has put up a REAL wall in the house.

On Friday, I got home and Elena had tidied the place up. She gets Friday off, so she decided to tidy up the piles of post that were lying around waiting to be posted up.

There were some real gems among the piles of post. Benjamin Shaw from Australia has sent one of his self-designed envelopes to the wall with a card. You can find more of his designs on his site, which is on something called "facebook" whatever that is.

Mim Scalin and me have been chatting a lot lately. I didn't make the connection, but she is related to Noah Scalin, the one behind Skull-a-day, one of my favourite craft blogs. At the moment, both me and Elena are hatching our skullduggery for him, so watch that site for our stuff, and pretty soon you'll be seeing another new project by me inspired by Noah launching.

In the top right corner is a letter addressed to "Employees of my REAL wall" - it seems that a local gym has got hold of the address of my REAL wall and has offered any employees of mine a discount. Which is rather nice of them.

Ammys REAL wall is below a pic by Rebecca, who is one of Elena's favourite regulars. Even since she wraped up her sky project, we've still kept in touch, which is a great thing.

A postcard dinner

2010-11-14T23:46:00.002Z

A postcard dinner, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Early this week me and Elena were invited by L-plate Big Chese for a postcard dinner.

Yesterday, we went over to her house, via the Garden Museum, which is just around the corner from her place.

Still wondering what the heck a postcard dinner was, we sat down in the Russian kitchen at about 2.

After making sure that we were properly settled in with smoked Sprats and a fresh loaf of bread, L-plate explained the concept.

"Today's meal is made from postcards I found in my Russian grannies attic" she started, "she kept a load of postcard of recipes in Russian and when I saw them I just knew I had to invite you over for dinner!"

An excellent idea, and so great to know that postcards can inspire dinner invites and bring people together. In case you're wondering, we had Котлеты "Украина" с соус-винегрет и Троядна украинсрая, and if you want the recipe, then I'm sure that L-plate would be happy to oblige!

Quitting Quilting Quilling

2010-11-10T11:27:00.002Z

my REAL wall - Quitting Quilting Quilling, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

my REAL wall has always been about connecting to people and since it began I've loved not just seeing what comes through the postbox but also what people bring me. It's been great seeing how creative my friends are, and this one made me laugh.

Me and Elena were out with L-plate Big Cheese, who put together the phenomenally successful "Tetris Tetris Everywhere" gallery on flickr. I've known L-plate since we met in Romania in 2004 and she's a huge fan of my REAL wall. Having read that Elena was learning quiLLing on my twitter feed, she decided to make Elena a little present, adapted from a quit smoking campaign mug.

However, as quiLLing is not a particularly well-known art, L-plate had assumed that Elena was into quiLTing and put one of her custom L-plates on the mug, so that it now reads "Serious about quiLTing?". D'oh. Quitting. Quilting. Quilling. Chuh!

Keep your eyes on your postboxes for some of Elena's quilling, as she is on a roll at the moment. And not a quilt or a cigarette in sight.

Also on the table today are a postcrossing from the US and a letter of thanks from Katie R, who has started to get her pupils into mailart at school.

In the background is a cheque from British Gas, which nearly ends the British Gas Saga. After more than 2 months they finally put back our gas meter and sent us a bouquet of flowers and possibly a pair of tickets to a west end show by means of apology, as well as this cheque, which compensates some of the costs that we had to waste. I'll keep the grumbles aside though, as we now have gas and some compensation, so we can say that this saga is closed at last.

my REAL wall - Supporting School Mailart Projects

2010-11-09T03:01:00.001Z

my REAL wall - Supporting School Mailart Projects, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

As a former teacher, I love to see students getting involved in mailart, and lately I've been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of some of the mailart produced.

Todays posts on the REAL wall come totally from schools, one in the UK and one in Indiana in the US.

The one from Indiana is in the centre, a mailart call called "Where do you belong?" To contribute to this, write to

Photography III
c/o Mandy Jared
Zionsville High School
1000 Mulberry Street
Zionsville
IN 46077
USA

All of the pieces on the outside are the fruits of my mailart lecture a while back. One of the student art teachers who attended is now working at a school called Glenthorne, and has taken up mailart as a way to get the students into art.

I have a confession to make about Glenthorne. I was very surprised to find a bunch of post from Glenthorne in my postbox, as I myself taught in that school 6 years ago in exactly the same circumstances! When I was training to be a physics teacher, Glenthorne was the first school I was sent to and I have a lot of love for the place, so thanks to all of the students there who sentn mailart my way - I think it's great!

Schools into mailart part 1 - Where do you belong?

2010-11-08T22:26:00.002Z

my REAL wall - Where do you belong?, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

A while ago, someone called Ann contacted me about putting up her mailart call on my REAL wall and I agreed to do so as it sounded intriguing.

Ann is part of a photography class is Zionsville, Indiana in the USA and as part of their course they have decided to make and send out their own postcards and they asked me to post their poster for their mailart call on my REAL wall, which I will do.

The mailart call theme is "Where do you belong?" (in society, the world, your role, where you would like to live).

To contribute, send your interpretation to

Photography III
c/o Mandy Jared
Zionsville High School
1000 Mulberry Street
Zionsville
IN 46077
USA

Good luck with that and I'll be sending something your way soon!

7 November 2010

2010-11-08T09:50:00.002Z

my REAL wall - 7 November 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

All the cards on todays wall are from REAL wall regulars, 3 of whom have only caught my attention in the last 3 or 4 months.

Mim, whose card on the right hand side, is a mailart and post fanatic from Richmond, who gave me some great ideas when I was putting my mailart lectures together. She's been lecturing on the subject of mailart for a while and is someone really good to know if you are thinking of talking about mailart.

The remaining mailartists, Dewi and B on the left hand side and Valentine Mark Herman in the middle, came to my attention in the last few months.

Dewi was highly praised in the first mailart lecture by the students who were very impressed by his consistent and subtle artwork, which I admit passed me by the first time. On having this artwork pointed out to me, I took a closer look and realised it was actually damn good. Too subtle for me the first time!

B writes words, so I usually bring her stuff with me on the bus to work. This time the front of the postcard is a collage of veterinary stickers that were destined for the dumpster. I personally rather liked the effect, although B thought it could have been better. Enclosed in the envelope were also a bunch of photos, that I will be sending off to people for pimping soon and will put them up when they come back. If you want them send me an email or comment and I'll send them to you for pimping!

Valentine Mark Hermann is one of the most active mailartists on the scene at the moment and always makes me laugh. This time his work shows a scary tyrannosaurus who has an even scarier big brother. Yikes!

A postcard Odyssey

2010-11-07T12:13:00.001Z

A postcard Odyssey, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

On our trip to Dublin it rained every single day, so opportunities to stick your cards on walls were scarce.

It just so happened that on the day we walked past James Joyce's house on the way to the Lansdowne stadium, the rain stopped for a moment and I decided that this was a sign.

Whipping out your postcards and some blu-tac, me and Elena rushed in to post your cards hastily on James Joyces front door.

This was the first time we saw James Joyces house, as after this we kept noticing plaques around the city saying "James Joyce lived here from xxxx to xxxx"

With all that moving around, it's little wonder that he ended up writing a homage to the Odyssey