Chuck Scalin's REAL wall in Paris continues to expand with contributions. This wall is particularly exciting for me as me and Elena are going to see it in a few weeks time! We'll add to it in person.

Here's what Chuck has to say...

Just wanted to update all of you who've been so supportive on my quest to start a wall of my own during our stay in Paris.

Thanks so much for all the mail I've received the past few weeks! As you can see from the photo below, My Wall has grown

considerably since I received my first mail art from Katerina who started it all for me.

Thanks again and I look forward to meeting some of you soon!

Chuck (aka Charles-Benoit)

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

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.

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!

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!"

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!

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.

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. 

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!]

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

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

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/

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

your REALwall - post from Ammy from Singapore, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Ammy has been a long time correspondent with my REAL wall and I am proud to say that I'm on her postcard list, so when she goes away I get postcards from exotic places. Recently I sent Ammy a card for her wall and you can see that she's now run out of wall space, so mine is on her wardrobe. Ammy is on her way to Macau and Hong Kong soon, so keep your eyes peeled for some more post from the far east soon.

This is the second pic of one of Ammy's walls with one of my postcards that I've received from Ammy's camera, the first one shows that Ammy is as keen on postcards as I am!

I'd love to know who sent some of those other pieces - is that a Grthink piece on the main wall perhaps?