Mailart 365 has moved

Since I've been in Hanoi, I've been rather paranoid about post not arriving at it's destination as I've heard lots of stories about post going missing. However, we've been quite lucky and all of the post that we've sent since we got to Vietnam has arrived at it's destination, albeit slowly.

Because of the distance and the fragile nature of some of our pieces, we've taken to sending a lot of our post in envelopes. Whenever I put a piece in an envelope however, I always feel that there's something taken away, and I've taken to illustrating the envelopes too. I was particularly pleased with my last piece as the combination of envelope and contents really matched well, so I wanted to do another envelope/contents matchup.

This time, the piece inside was made a LONG time ago. I can actually pinpoint exactly when it was made, December 11, 2010 right at the start of the mailart 365 project! This piece, Zen Pond, was meant to go out with a quilled flower by Elena.


However, Elena and I wondered how we were going to post the 3D water lily flower and ended up not sending it at all. It remained on the outbox pile for years and we ended up having to pack it in our suitcase to bring it to Vietnam with us in order to finish it. The waterlilly stayed at home.

I needed a suitable envelope as the pond is tissue paper and paint, so I got out my trusty Sharpie markers and set about making one and the envelope is todays mailart.

It's actually changed it's destination as well, as I had already written the address when I started drawing.


Here are the envelope and contents side by side

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I am actually up to number 150, but I don't want to slam them all here on the Mailart365 all at once..

A swap-bot friend sent a book cover with the beginning of a collage and asked that I make my mark (s) and send it back.

This side has old book bits, vintage stamps and selvedges, an old newspaper ad from 1947, an acetone transfer from a scientific clip-art book, and a couple of koi from a California dumpster.....

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Yet another round robin mailart zine page. We are nearing the end of the swap and the booklets are getting fat!

Math, numbers, and fish for Kim.

Andy's baggage claim sticker, 1960's math book, 1880's ledger page, vintage stamp, and math on the back of an old envelope....oh yeah, a fish from Carroll's dumpster koi magazine!

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Decorated envelope for a swap-bot swap.

Koi from Carroll's fishy magazine, vintage light bulb from Dover, various and sundry old book bits.

The back...I'm particularly happy about the chopstick bubbles.. :)

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I'm waaay behind in my Mailart365 days...Oh Well...

Someone opened the fish pipe! Actually it was the base of a clip-art vintage lightbulb. Andy thought it looked like the fish were going in a grinder...He thought it was mean...

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I had a bigger piece of my goopy green background so I folded it in half and wrote my note on the inside.