Mail-Art Cafe

Happy, happy!

Coffee time from Mail Art Martha:

GREEN tea on Saint Patrick's Day anyone?

well, tea...and GREEN:

Thursday, 11 April, 2019:

Mail Artists' meet-up in an Athens cafe:

Nicolas Malevitsis, MomKat,Maria Chorianpoulou

Lovely photo, Katerina, thank you for sharing!

The three of you turned the Athens cafe into the Athens Mail Art Café!

Thanks Heleen :-)

Here at the Archaeological Museum cafe in Athens...

Lion in the courtyard :-)

Happy Spring/Easter Season

Greek Easter Bread...for Sunday, April 28 :-)

Easter here in the US was celebrated on the 21st. Interesting it's different in Greece, since I thought it's connected to the moon in some way.....

Easter is a movable feast and always after the Full Moon after the Spring Solstice...but Greek Easter (Eastern Orthodox Easter in Russia, Bulgaria, etc.)also waits for after the Passover...so we were a week later. Some years it can be almost three weeks, a month in between!

We are still celebrating this week until Sunday :-)

May Day...May Day...The First of May holiday, too!

Happy Celebrations to you Dear Katerina.  and thank you for your recent mail.  I will be sending soon.   Take good special care and have a great time

May Day from Aigion too...Katerina!!!

Beautiful,Maria! 

Happy Greek Spring!

Not at a cafe, but on the balcony of an Athena Riviera place,

palm trees and seaside, and wine libations, of course:

mail art meet-up with Maria Chorianopoulou from Athens, 

Yuri Gik from Russia and 

Katerina Nikoltsou from Thessaloniki

Three mail artists in Athens, June 8, 2019:

So nice to see the three of you! 

I'll raise my cup of coffee to say a mail-arty Cheers!

another conversation^^^^^^

announcing a beautiful new book from carol stetser, redfoxpress,ireland

heres the cascadia newsletter/bulletin, great reading.

Plugging this exhibition again in case you missed it the first time round. It's on for 6 months so plenty of time if you live in the UK or thinking of spending some time in Manchester.  https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/artshumanities/rah/events/detail/index.php?i...

Came across this link that includes to images and a brief video clip. Leave me wanting to see more...#allsaintslibrary (hope the link works)

Let's be a little more clear. 2 images + short video clip (#allsaintslibrary) in relation to Michael Leigh's exhibition: Curious Things: A Glimpse into the International Mail Art Archive of Michael Leigh and Hazel Jones

Thanks No Idea. Not seen this video. Every bit of publicity most welcome!

some Greek coffee and...at Sounion, Greece:

The Bennetts, Noriko and Ryosuke Cohen, with Nicolas Malevitsis and Maria Chorianopoulou, 13 Oct. 2019.

Coffee, tea, and John Bennett with Noriko and Ryosuke Cohen

"Mail Art" t-shirts by Maria Chorianopoulou!

Coffee (cappuccino) with Van Gogh,

at the new Goulandri Modern Art museum, Athens :-)

Grazie Bruno, thanks for joining us for coffee at Sounion, Greece with Ryosuke, Noriko and John Bennett.ice OWL! :-)

NICE owl!!!!

Great to see all of you, thank you for sharing the photos! I’ll make me a coffee and toast at you!

Two souls one thought, Jennifer! (or many thoughts!? :-) )

I saw Ryosuke's Brain Cell forms on ebay recently. I just posted it in the 'mail art and money' group. What do you, and all of you/us, think of mail art and money?

See 

http://iuoma-network.ning.com/group/mailartandmoney

"Mail art and money don't mix"  was a popular maxim a few years back and still applies I guess.  Can't stop people trying to cash in - but really - who would pay those sort of prices for photo copies?!  I find it hard enough to sell 'zines and badges just to recoup printing costs!  We used to do alternative book sales and  print fests but not anymore - lucky to get enough to pay for stall!

This is an interesting issue. I wonder if/how the artist's copyright would figure into this. After all, artists do produce something considered to be  intellectual property. And there's the maxim that possession is 9/10's of the law. What if mail art was selling for loads of money? What right would people who produce work anonymously have? How would one be able to prove that they made a particular work? What unwritten codes of conduct are activated when someone engages in producing and sending out mail art? Does the receiver have specific obligations akin to any collecting institution? Seems like trust is an issue here. How widespread is the practice of selling mail art? Buyers may only be interested in putting together they own collections. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought most museums acquire mail art through donations and directly from the artists who mail their work to them. I personally feel that when I put things out into the world I pretty much lose all control over it. That sense of randomness or chance appeals to me.

I did a little research and it could be that the artist gives up ownership by putting something in the mail, especially as no promise of payment or other compensation has been made. Ownership and possession, though, are not necessarily equal. How these words are defined varies from country to country. If the seller is clearly identifying the artist who produced the mail art, they are also not committing fraud. Does the artist who doesn't want their work to be used in certain ways have to place a notice on the artwork that, for example, advises against the unauthorised reproduction or sale of their work? Unless they get permission perhaps? 

Regarding mailart being meta and keeping it that way: I totally agree.

Merry merry...

Holiday Tea Time with Afroditi...gift from London:

tea tins with English Ahmad tea,

"mail art" for this Royal Post tea tin?

little girl sends some:

cup-a-tea on a winter day:

Collaged diary with doodles and coffee packaging - France 1973,

check this out, artists stamps?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/micronation-stamps?utm_source...

Happy SPRING, to those of us in the "northern half" of the world,

All are closed in Greece, at least the IUOMA cafe is open :-)

Carl, I love the artistamps from imaginary countries!

BULLETIN******

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/post-office-coronavirus/

Happy Spring Happy Easter ...Kalo Pasxa

(Greece celebrates next Sunday, April 19)

Celebrating the longest day of the year:

Summer Solstice...by Theo Nelson :-)