Split Ending for the MinXus Who Has The Best Hair Contest by Mzia Valerian (Mechelen, Belgium)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail art by Mzia Valerian (Mechelen, Belgium)

(from the M-L blog)

 

(November 5, 2018) - No need to clean your fancy sunglasses oh faithful Tenderfoots. Chances is good you read (red) it right the first time. You thought you’d never hear tell of the Who Has The Best Hair Contest again. But here it is like the acclaimed “bad penny” of yore.

You probably wish you didn’t. MinXus was way too gushy for the constrained sensibilities of the present, like translating French into Swahili. The Masonic complexity of MinXus symbology is too taxing and ultimately useless for the hobbyist upon whom we depend and must encumber with already too many arcane propositions.

In short, here at the Mink Ranch we was thinkin’ all the hoopla was done. We was enjoyin’ the peace and quiet. As Rancher so often says to DW, “Nothin ain’t never really over once it has commenced.”

A cosmic wire got tripped somewheres and our humble blog has been receiving MANY visits we can’t account for, and we’ve been receiving new entries for the Who Has The Best Hair Contest at a regular pace, such as this lovely submission from Mzia Valerian in Belgium. How could we NOT share this wonderful piece? Such sweetness and light!

 

 

The MinXus-Lynxus Who Has The Best Hair Contest was a mail art call that ended in the Spring of 2014. Many of you most deer Tenderfoots participated: many thanks. All the contributors and winners were dutifully documented:

https://minxuslynxus2.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/minxus-lynxus-who-ha...

We are not sure why there is renewed interest now in the Who Has The Best Hair Contest. Perhaps it’s like those “ghost ship” add & pass sheets that are doomed to circle the globe for eternity. Maybe all of mail art is a karmic thing like that. We are starting to get a sense this is the case.

We are so enchanted with these new entries that we won’t burst the bubbles of these aspirants with their fresh faces and youthful dreams. Maybe we’ll even send some new prizes. We won’t tell them that we said MinXus is over too.  And the reverse side:

 

Mail art by Mzia Valerian (Mechelen, Belgium)

 

During its “Golden Age” MinXus had one big mail art call per year. These included the International Refrigerator Exhibition, the Can You Draw the Mink? contest, Solar Festival(s) and – of course – the Who Has The Best Hair Contest.  (We might have missed some.)

 

 

 

[Jayne Barket Lyons]

Sweetness!

[De Villo Sloan]

Great Jayne, I'll be using several different AF2 stickers as logos online and on the packages.

[Jayne Barket Lyons]

Good advice, DVS - live in the moment! Love the new AF2 logo of me!!!

[De Villo Sloan]

[De Villo Sloan]

Jayne, Jayne - don't succumb to fake nostalgia. Something is always happening in m-a. That's one great thing about the immediacy of it. I've told people on this platform before: "You never know what you are living through until after you've had a chance to look back and reflect. So the important thing is to participate now."

For instance, I remember lived through, even participated to a degree in Neoism. It was a bunch of guys in Portland running elaborate scams to get money for beer. I thought it was hysterical and a little creepy. But it didn't seem like anything that decades later people would be gathering the work and writing articles.

Even more so - I was very young - but I remember the original Fluxus. Nobody cared. Mostly, no one went to their events. The Fluxus m-a was at times insane and even scary. People mocked them. They were considered pathetic and fruity by people who were considered pathetic and fruity. John and Yoko got some attention for them - they had that. But to think they'd be a major movement in 20th century art, it didn't seem possible. So, you know, have fun and do what you want.

However, I won't argue we were blessed a few years ago by a bunch of talented people like Diane Keys, Marie Wintzer, Mud Head, so many others. Ruud Janssen, I think, made it possible for m-a to thrive in the digital age. But things are probably, in fact, better than they were a few years ago. Do you see those people here now? I will say no more about that.

So anyway, you're one of the new AF2 logos! I'm more interested in AF2 at this point than MinXus, but if people still want to send MinXus stuff great.

Thanks again, Jayne. We do need you!

[Jayne Barket Lyons]

I can only dream of what it was like to participate in the various m-a calls during the ‘Golden Age’ of MinXus. Sounds like y’all had a blast!