CN : For you what is mail art in your thinking? And if today the artists are integrated postaleiro the same network?

RJ : Mail-Art in essence is the need to communicate in a creative way, but also to share what you make with someone you choose. These days the Internet has taken over, but the digital communication is different tp the traditioal one. A letter or an enveloppe last longer, take more time to make and to travel, and might survive decades and centuries. With the digital communication you never know how long the answers and visuals will survive. Do you still have your first e-mails?  Do you still have  access to your first build website?

There is always 'The Network' and 'Your Network' ; they are not the same. When we speak of The Network, we mean the same people, but the perception of your own network is different for everybody him/her-self.  You are the center of your network while the network itself has no center. That is a major difference. Probaly also the reason why some don't like the IUOMA-concept since there I created one network with a sollid basis. But also here it is that everybody perceives the IUOMA in their own view, and that is o.k. and even meant to be so.

CN : What is the importance of Rubberstamp Archive?

RJ : The importance today is that is a collection that has grown over the years. I started sending out the TAM rubberstamp sheets back in 1983, and that is now over 33 years ago. As a mail-art project is the longest run project and it still going on.

The main collection exists of prints by mail-artists that use rubberstamps i their works. So all I asked was an imprint on a piece of paper, and am storing that away for safe keeping.

That is collection is interesting shows the exhibitions so far:

1996 : Stamp Art Gallery in San Francisco

2004 : L-Gallery in Moscow

2010 : Stendhal Gallery in New York

So, in the near future another exhibition will take place soon, but always just with a selection from the archive. There are just too many sheets in the collection to exhibit them all. Although that will be the final goal, and the place where that will be might even get the offer to curate the final collection.

CN : How did you get involved with mail art?

RJ : In 1980 I started with sending out envelopes into the network. Some years before I probably saw an exhibition of Donals Evans works in a locat exhibition and as a child I was fascinated by mail and postage. So the creativity and the fascinations joined together and made me the interest for the network and exploring it.