Grey

Sent by Carmen (Spain).

The Russian Typewriter

Letter sent to Laura (the UK).

The artist stamp comes from here (In case you are wondering: I added the due postage stamps!).

The Delightfully Languorous Anticipation of the Reply

«Real letters, written by real people who preferred the sensual act of writing by hand, the delightfully languorous anticipation of the reply, to the reptilian coldness of the keyboard and instantaneity of the Internet —people for whom the act of writing was a deliberate choice and is some cases, one sensed, a matter of principle, a stand taken in favour of a life style not quite so determined by the race against time and the obligation to perform.»

Dénis Thériault, The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman

Blue Little Letter

Postcard sent to Kathy & Donovan from Letter Writers Alliance (the USA).

Bunch of Letters

Day before yesterday's mail

The postal service has become sort of crazy lately. Most days I go to check my post office box fruitlessly: empty, empty and disappointingly empty again. And one morning, suddenly, I find this bunch of letters (with the string, yes).

I'm not sure if I will ever get used to receive mail every ten or twelve days. But the system seems to work that way right now.

Books & Roses

Collage sent to Kay's grandma (Canada), as my contribution to the Challenge #27 of Mail a Smile.

The theme was Flowers and Plants. Of course I had to choose roses, because April 23rd is Saint George's Day, and in my country we celebrate the Books and Roses Festival. You are still on time to buy a book and/or a rose for someone you love!

Sending books from Morocco is a customs nightmare. So this year I just send some postcards (to the Netherlands, the USA and the UK). I hope all they have arrived on time!

Arrived!

Also published here

Good Little News

Letter sent to Heleen (the Netherlands).

Moroccan Spring

Collage sent to Raphael'L (France).

Malerwinkelhaus Catalogue

When I participated in Malerwinkelhaus mail art call, I didn't expect to receive this wonderful documentation of the project.

But some months letters, it was really a surprise to receive by mail the advertising card and this wonderful catalogue! Of course I immediately browsed its pages looking for my contributions:

Can I say this is the coolest mail art call I have participated in?

Second Floury Letter

Letter sent from Micu (Hungary) inside a flour packaging. This is not the first one. And, again... it contained a Smurf  (among other nice things).

Pony Express

William H. Russell, Alexander Majors and William B. Waddell founded the Pony Express mail service on 1860. This was a very innovative concept: riders with letters on horseback racing from California to Missouri (and vice versa) in order to deliver mail on time. The first mail arrived on April 14th. During 18 months, and before the telegraph, it became the most direct means of communication from coast to coast in the USA, by reducing the time for messages to about 10 days.

I wonder how much time a letter needs in order to travel from the East coast to the West coast of the USA nowadays...

To honour the 155th anniversary (two days ago), Google put an interactive highly addictive time wasting game on some of his local homepages. It has you picking up and delivering mail while fighting various obstacles, including bandits, avalanches, rivers and giant cactus, on your way. 

Literary Houses on Postcards

After Dicken's House...

Keats House

Keats House, in Hampstead (North London, the UK), once occupied by the English Romantic poet John Keats. I cannot help showing another postcard from this museum. Is there a better way to finish a love letter?

Ever truly yours, John Keats

Chiswick House

Chiswick House is located in west London (the UK). It was designed by Lord Burlington and completed in 1729. There are a lot of literary details in this house. For instance, this furniture that finished in Chatsworth House, the building that inspired Jane Austen Pemberley's of Pride and Prejudice... As my friend wrote, the whole house is like being inside a novel. 

She also told me that every room has a different colour. I like to have postcards of inside and outside. 

Do Write When You Can

«I also here must offer apologies for going so much without having engaged you at all. I had a friend who wrote letters to me in my 20s and would go on & on and never ask a single question, so I never knew if he was even interested in what I might say. So, please, dear reader –how is with you? Are you well? Do write when you can.»

Larissa Dickey, last paragraph of a letter published in The Letters Page 1

Building a Nation

Today Sunday Stamps-II's theme is People at Work. When I read it, I immediately thought of the forever USA stamps that honour America's Industrial Workers. These were issued on 8 August, 2013. There are 12 different designs, that feature black-and-white photographs of early 20th century industrial workers.

I have received only two of them: a crew member guiding a beam on the Empire State building and a textile worker.

I decided to show these stamps as I received them, along with other American stamps. More information about them, in case you are interested:
-USA flag and for amber waves of grain (24 April 1981)
-March on Washington 50th Anniversary (23 August 2013)
-A flag for all seasons (3 May 2013)
-Edna St. Vincent Millay (10 July 1981)

Dear Data

Dear Data is a year-long, analog data drawing project by Georgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. 

That is what they wrote on their site. I think they have forgotten to add that is is a really wonderful mail project.

The project:Each week we collect and measure a particular type of data about our lives, use this data to make a drawing on a postcard-sized sheet of paper, and then drop the postcard in an English “postbox” (Stefanie) or an American “mailbox” (Giorgia)!

We’ve also noticed that the data collection and visualization process has become a sort of performance and ritual in our lives, affecting our days and weeks, and inherently changing our behaviour. [...] 

But really, we also started this project to show how “data” is not scary, is not necessarily “big”, and that you need to know almost nothing about data to start collecting and representing it (just a pencil, a notebook and a postcard!).

The process:Every week we choose a topic we want to explore about our days and lives, and on Monday start our separate-but-parallel data collection.[...]

The postcards:The data drawing is shown on the front of the postcard, while the back always includes a “how to read it” key to enable the other to understand the data collection and insight behind the drawing.Also, we’re keeping records of the entire process including our notes, our preliminary sketches and photos to document how our data collections and drawing evolves through time, found in the 'by weeks' section of the site.

(The illustrations on this post are taken from Week 04: A week of mirrors.)

Excuse Me, Ms Austen, But I Can't Agree

Women are the only correspondents
to be depended on.

Postcard sent by Laura (the UK). 

Oz Window

 

Collage sent to Eduard (Russia), for his project about windows. This was my answer to Eduard's contribution to the Oz Postcard Project. 

I am still waiting for your contribution!

Welcome to the Postamúzeum!

This is a kind of guest post or a collaboration post, thanks to Ania. She made all these beautiful pictures (and more!).

I don't know the Postal Museum or Postamúzeum of Budapest (Hungary) in person. But Ania visited it and sent me a postcard from there. Not only a postcard, but a lot of wonderful photographs, information, links and her impressions. So, in a certain way, I feel as if I had been there myself...!

Do You Like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

Postcard sent by John (the UK). Quotation on the back: "It was all very well to say: 'Drink me,' but the wise Alice was not going to do that in a hurry."

This one was also sent by John. It shows a detail of memorial window in Alls Saints' Church (Daresbury, Cheshire, the UK). Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was born at Daresbury Parsonage in 1832. Another place I need to visit...!

Postcard sent by Laura (the UK). It belongs to this exhibition. How I would have liked to attend it! And I was in Liverpool some months later the same year...

And some stamps from this set issued by Royal Mail on January 6th.

Also a postcard with the same design:

Update 15 March 2016: One more!

Update 25 Sep. 2017:

Update 4 April 2018: I think this is the last one!

My collection of Alice's postcards and stamps.

One Morning, The Postman Brought Three Postcards...

I have received these three mail-related postcards the same morning, from Laura (the UK), John (the UK) and Ania (Hungary). I like the way their colours and theme match! See the details:

Easter & Bunnies

Can this count as Easter stamp for Sunday Stamps-II?

This belongs to the set Vacances (='Holidays'), issued by La Poste on 5 April 2014.

I don't have any more stamps about this theme, but I have received two handmade Easter postcards this week. Sent by Micu (Hungary):

Sent by Laura (the UK):

Nothing says Easter quite like Hot Cross Buns

And this White Rabbit sent by Elena (Italy) was not intended as Easter card. Rather for finding a place in Alice's album. This is my second postcard by French illustrator Rébecca Dautremer.

Mystery, Magic and Midnight Feasts

Handmade postcards sent by Laura (the UK), after visiting this exhibition about Enid Blyton. Do you remember The Famous Five, Malory Towers, Noddy...?

Random Letter

Postcard sent by John (UK). It belongs to Everything is Connected, by Keri Smith and asked me to write a letter using this rules:

Get a dictionary. The first word of you letter must be chosen from page 48. The fifth word of your letter must be chosen from page 10. The twelfth word of your letter must be chosen from page 100. The eighteenth word of your letter must be chosen from page 25.

So I took my Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and, after some frustrating attempts, I came up with this:

Applause is hard to achieve in letter writing. However, what lies behind letters isn't that, but the agreeable feeling of connecting people.

What do you think? I assure you that what John had written was a better beginning!