RJ: Your question comes at a quite well-timed moment. I am just back from a weekend in Maastricht where I stayed with Rod Summers. A very pleasant weekend, and you are right; I do like to visit a lot of mail artists.

Yes, it is an advantage. In many ways. First, thanks to the job at College I have the money to travel and the vacation-times to do that. Secondly, it is always much more interesting to meet the mail artist then to get the mail art from this person. Of course the first meeting is always the most difficult one. You will find out if you have the possibility to discuss interests and visions. Some meetings with mail artists resulted in the breaking of contact. Other meetings made the mail art contact into a friendship that goes further than mail art. In a piece of mail a mail artists can only tell that much about himself. Seeing the circumstances where the persons lives in (especially in other countries) is sometimes quite revealing and explains a lot about the mail you get from them. To take the example of the very recent meeting with Rod Summers. I met him before, at the Zoo-congress in Antwerpen (organized by Guy Bleus), and the congress in the Postal Museum in The Hague (both congresses took place in the DNC-year 1992). But this meeting was the first time I went to Maastricht where Rod lives with his wife Liesbeth, and saw his archive & the huge collection of audio-work he has produced over the years. Lots of things to talk about, and the amount of thoughts you can exchange in such a weekend is impossible to put in a huge envelope. We both wouldn't have the time to write the words down of all the things we discussed.

More meetings are on the way. In July I probably Germany for a short time. In September there is the Stempel-Mekka in Hagen where I want to go to, and in October I will go for the first time to the USA, and meet lots of mail art friends in San Francisco. I feel lucky that I am able to do that all.

Next question on 3-7-1996

MG: You believe therefore that it is necessary to meet the mail artist you are corresponding with before you can fully appreciate that persons art? What about people you have not met, or people who prefer "the working in physical isolation, giving, receiving, bouncing ideas off artists they never meet" or people who do not want to visit or be visited. Is there no ones art who you have 'great' respect for and have never met the artist?

RJ: You start with "You believe therefore....", but that isn't correct. Appreciating art has nothing to do with knowing why and how a person makes his art. Of course I have great respect for art of people I have never met. I like Van Gogh's work a lot, but he is dead, so I can't meet him. But to understand why Van Gogh made his work, you will have to rely on the stories written down by the people who knew him. With Van Gogh this is easy because he used to write these letters, and they are all published. Therefore the people who know the whole story are the best ones to understand his art.

Meeting the mail artist is an advantage, as I see it. You can exchange & learn more than through the mail, when you meet. Not meeting gives other possibilities. The correspondents in the mail art network can make their own visions about all the mail artists they are in contact with. I am interested in mail art and communication; this is a process. Art is more like a finished product, a painting, a registration of a performance, etc. I like to know why people produce the things they produce. But there is no link to appreciating art and meeting the artists as you said. Meeting mail artists makes it just more easy to understand the art they make.

next question on 25-7-1996

MG: "Art is more like a finished product"? Do you consider there to be a finished product in mail art? Surely much mail art is not conventional art, certainly not many square canvas for framing. The mail art 'by-product' such as xeroxes, rubberstamped envelopes etc. are not what you would expect to find in the 'traditional gallery'. The important question is: can mail art itself be framed? The 'by-products' are like photos, tickets and programmes of an event and not the event itself?

RJ: I once said "mail art is a search". Of course there are 'by-products' as you mention. The answer to your question is simple. NO; mail art itself can't be framed, it is even difficult to explain to a non-practitioner what mail art is. The mail artists themselves are often tempted to explain what mail art is. But "to know mail art is to do mail art" and it is a personal experience. I don't feel the need to give a definition of mail art. I have tried too often, and my views are still evolving. I rather give these views and tell also that the views that mail artists have about mail art depends on the different persons as well.

next question on 24-8-1996

MG: So what exacters will you be showing at The Stamp Art Gallery in San Franciso and how will it be presented? Will you be explaning mail art to the audience? (together with his answer Ruud Janssen sent the newsletter of the TAM Rubber Stamp Archive, August 1996 and some of the special stamp-sheets he made for this exhibition)

RJ: I am not sure what I will be showing there. I'll try to explain. Since the Stamp Art Gallery has to do with rubber stamps, Bill Gaglione and John Held Jr. thought it would be interesting to present my TAM Rubber Stamp Archive at their place and so they invited me for the exhibition. But it is just impossible to show the complete archive connected to rubber stamps that I have. I also felt it would be wrong to make a selection of the contributions or the materials I have. The Stamp Art Gallery is connected to the Stamp Francisco Company and a part of their large store in the heart of San Francisco. The trip to San Francisco and meeting some of the many friends I have there is more important for me than the exhibition (also I plan to meet four or more people I am currently interviewing for my mail-interview project while I am there!). In the spirit of mail art I made special stamp-sheets for this exhibition. They are supposed to be sent directly to the Gallery, and they will form a large part of the exhibition. I send the special stamp-sheets to participants of the archive together with the latest newsletter of the TAM Rubber Stamp Archive, so they can send in prints of any sort as they would like. I like this concept better than the idea that the stamps of ONE single artist are presented (like most of the previous shows of the Gallery this year). What would be the use of printing my entire collection and hang the prints of the wall. These prints are already scattered all over the world with my mail art.

Besides these stamps-sheets I also asked networkers to send old stamp- sheets they still have, directly to the exhibition. Only for historic purpose I probably will select some stamp-sheets that are already in the collection (over 4500 sheets to choose from you know; read about it in the latest newsletter.....).

Another thing that probably will be exhibited is some of the envelopes I sent to John Held Jr. and Bill (Picasso) Gaglione. Since I am in contact with them for over 15 years, they have a lot to choose from. Also most of the publications in connection to the TAM Rubber Stamp Archive are in their posession, so they can easily fill the space. John Held Jr. is now the curator of the Gallery, and he will arrange the exhibition. So, also for me the exhibition will be a surprise. It starts on October 6th, and a few weeks later I will be there too. Just today I booked the ticket, and I will leave on October 20th. On October 26th I will tell something about the archive and my work at the Gallery. I am at the moment working on that. It will be illustrated with slides, and I will add a bit of humor and performance to that. We will see how it turns out to be. So your question "will you explain mail art" would have to be answered with a NO. Most people in the Gallery probably already know something about mail art. The idea that most networkers have of mail art is mostly a personal one.

next question on 26-9-1996

MG: I have always thought it commendable the way you continue to promote other artists art. I believe you have your own gallery. What is this gallery, is it part of your home? How is art presented here? Who gets to view the art on display?

RJ: The problem of answering this question is that it breaks down the illusion the word "TAM-GALLERY" brings to people. Especially people who are inside the "official art world", and sideways stumble on the mail art network, always want to know where ones art has been exhibited, etc... Since in mail art the best exhibitions take place in very small rooms (e.g. the P.O.Boxes or the places where mail artists get their mail), most "full- time" mail artists don't exhibit this kind of work that much. I offer some artists the chance to have another "exhibition" on their list. Since the exhibitions are real, the paperwork is real, and only the "size" of the gallery is small it is easy to arrange these exhibitions. I already got offers from artists who wanted to do an exhibition at my Gallery. But so far I myself select the people I hang on my wall........

Anyhow, the TAM-Gallery is just one wall of my small living-room. I sometimes change the things that are hanging there, and if I select a number of works from a specific artists, I also make an invitation-folder of it and send it into the network and to this artist. I don't distribute it in Tilburg, because I like my privacy. Actually a lot of the works that are hanging at my apartment are connected to mail art or art my own work (mostly the oil-paintings I like to do when I have the time). My living- place is a constant exhibition of the mail I get in and the art I produce myself and still have.

So, who gets to see this "exhibitions" at my Gallery? Anyone that just happens to visit me during the time the works are hanging here. Mostly just family and friends, and rarely a mail artists who passes by.

The TAM-Gallery fits nicely in the big list of organizations that I have build around TAM. The TAM-Publications, The International Union of Mail Artists (IUOMA), the TAM-Academy, etc. Actually in real life I use sometimes these organizations as well. It is always nice to be the director of TAM, and be able to send mail out like that. In "real life" I also teach my students about how organizations work (with as goal to teach them how informatics-systems have to be build for those organizations), so in a way everything in my life is connected to one another.

next question on 17-10-1996

MG: By exhibiting the 'byproducts' of mail art are we providing that there is something to show or collect? Often the art being shown is something very distinctive to mail art, for example the decorated envelopes, I could state many other examples.

There are also some American artists who are writing a lot of texts to establish mail art as an 'ism'. Although this does not appear to be your aim, all texts about mail art help to 'establish' it as an 'ism'. Obviously you have written extensively on the subject and some of the artists concerned and in my opinion your texts would be extremely important if mail art did become classified as an 'ism'.

Mail art is now becoming recognized by the official establishment. What are your opinions on mail art becoming an 'ism'.

RJ: The exhibition of 'byproducts' of mail art doesn't mean that they will be archived! I know of exhibitions where the mail art envelopes, collages, etc. are given to the visitors. Sometimes they are used as collage in the mail art documentation. Some even burn the whole lot and make a performance about it. Of course there is a big part of the mail art that will be saved. The "archives" as we mail artists like to call them are mostly nothing more than collections of the things the receivers found interesting to keep and to collect. Some specialize even and write the network to send them specific things. All this is perfectly o.k. by me. There are no real rules about how to deal with mail art.

The official art-world however is becoming interested because of several reasons. First: Mail artists start to die. If a mail artist has also a name in the official art world, then of course this businessmen will try to get a hold of these 'byproducts'. Second: The postal communication is gradually loosing its original form. More and more things are done by the computers. Even if someone doesn't want to, the pens and typewriters are gradually being taken over by these digital machines. The new generations are learning to use and misuse these machines, and it is a way that has obviously no return. If fact with the paid job I have the last years I am even helping in this development since I nowadays teach full-time computer- sciences (and you would be surprised how creative this business is.....).

The main focus of your question is about the texts that are written. Whether mail art becomes an 'ism' or not, isn't at all interesting for me. Normally things are an 'ism' when they are over and historians take over. It only becomes an 'ism' if the impact on our society was large enough. For me mail art at the moment has more become a way of life. That I use the postal system to communicate, a pen and paper, make visuals, use the computer, send out an e-mail, publish a text on the internet; it is just the need to communicate and to search for what this life is all about and what possibilities that there are. I don't just live in Tilburg. I live on a planet where lots of things are happening. I want to learn from others what this life is all about and to find out for myself what it is that I am doing or what I want to do. Life is a constant search for new things. It is never a repetition of things so that one does again and again the same things ( some people who call themselves mail artists are doing just that, you know....). People who are in constant development you maybe could call artists. But they don't always have to paint. There are lots of things creative people are producing. To see the basic thought behind this creativity, that is something really interesting and it fascinates me to see what search-pattern other people have developed.

To come back on the 'byproducts'. Thank god that of other artists things have been kept. In mail art it is for newcomers very difficult to find out what has happened since the sixties. The many books that are made are difficult to get, and also only show a very limited view. I only know very few books on mail art NOT written by mail artists. As long as that is so, mail art won't be an 'ism' as I see it. The Galleries that do exhibit work of mail artists do so because mostly it is a part of the life of a specific artists that has brought something. Whether it is new art or money (for the gallery-owner) that is another question. But as I told before. I am not in contact with the official art world or the gallery-scene........ That postal museums are interested in mail art is nothing new. Mail artists use the mail, and besides the historic stamp-collections and postal items, what artistic things are there that are connected to mail? Right; mail art. But the postal museums mostly let a mail artists curate the show or let them advise the museum. Nothing wrong with a sponsor for a great show on mail art. But showing 'byproducts' isn't what mail art is all about.

(This question arrived just after my return from USA / San Francisco, where I was from 20-10-96 till 4-11-1996 for an exhibition at the Stamp Art Gallery about the TAM Rubber Stamp Archive. I also had meetings with 9 mail artists I am currently interviewing or have interviewed, who live in San Francisco or in cities nearby)

next question on 7-11-1996

MG: 'Constant development' appears to be important to you. What do see your future role in mail art as being? Can you tell us of any plans or art projects you have for forthcoming development?

RJ: A future role? The constant development is a learning process. Mail art is just one of the sources that teaches me. I don't have a final goal, I am open to the influences that I encounter in my life. I am not thinking in terms of 'future role'. Since you ask such a question, I guess you are!

"......any plans or art projects you have for forthcoming development?". Is this a joke? The TAM Rubberstamp Archive, the mail interviews and publications of booklets and the publishing of a final document connected to this, the WORDS-list, the many articles I write, the acrylic painting I am currently doing, and not to forget the teaching job I have........ And I almost forget: keeping up with the developments on the internet! A day has only 24 hours, and the only plan I have at the moment is to cut down on the amount of mail art I send out. I like to produce more quality rather than more quantity.

next question on 29-11-1996

MG: The 'future role' for my art is 'constant development'. However I'm not the person being interviewed, you are! But that was the last question I wanted to as you (this time), so unless you have got anything further to add, I would just like to thank you for an interesting and informative interview.

RJ: Well, for me it was an interesting and informative interview as well. It is always a surprise which question someone comes up with. This is one of the three interviews that mail artists started with me. As it turned out these interviews will all three be completely different........ Till again Mark!

- END -

(The finished text was sent to Mark Greenfield. He could then arrange the final layout and send the originals back to me.)