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Thanks for visiting Mailart 365. This site is an archive of mailart produced by artists doing mailart 365 from December 2010 to August 2016. As of July 2016, we moved to a new and more modern site at www.mailart365.com. Come on over and check us out there
#19 L-plate Where are they now?
Remember the faces behind the next tin of tuna you delve into.
Nazare - a poor fishing port until the 1930s and beyond that a thriving resort destination - is surely a town with interesting statistics.
#18 L-plate - Are long gloves sexy?
The European upper classes, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, were very promiscuous. This resulted in the rapid spread of syphilis. At the time there was no well-known cure for it and so these people were covered in a blotchy skin rash, which they would cover by wearing long gloves. Looking on these rather fetching gloves from the sidelines, the lower classes of course followed the fashion and ended up wearing the long gloves on special occasions. No doubt some of them also had to cover the same problem though, I’m guessing.
So there we are, looking good on those posh nights out never really held the same level of romance for me after finding that out...
There’s another part to this story to come later on - another side-effect of syphilis which is perceived as a sign of “good breeding” but will make you see things in a different way.
#17a, b & c - Greetings from Nazare
So here are 3 postcards I'm sending to friends from my holiday. It actually took me roughly 1/3 of the time to make each of these than it does to make a "question everything" postcard (it takes a while to do the thinking, research and concisely write the text for QE) so I count them as #17 collectively.
Wonder what my friends will think of their grocery delivery.
The back of the above postcard:
Postcard 17b
Postcard 17c
#16 L-plate: The Portuguese empire and questions you just have to ask
The Pavlovskys are keen investors in maps and have several Portuguese specimens. All have their quirks. One places the village we live in a full 10km from its actual location. Another draws several motorways in completely wrong places. I cannot tell you the number of times we’re driven through a small town, stopped to scour the map for it wondering where on earth we are, then realise the place is just not even aknowledged on the map at all.
Now, that might be fine - spontaneity is always fun, especially when you’re on holiday. But what’s laughable is that the German supermarket Lidl here stocks large maps of Europe produced by German cartographers. These sellout within days of their arrival since they’re the most reliable maps available in the entire country. It makes me wonder whether the Portuguese, sometime on their way to one of their colonies, just took a wrong turn and the locals just carried on as sovereign states without them...
#15 L-plate: what survives and what doesn't. Who decides?
Today we have this adapted postcard from Nazare, a fishing town close to where I'm currently staying with my parents who live in Portugal. This is being sent to a good friend back in the UK.
Here on the Portuguese Atlantic coast you often feel like you’re stepping back in time when you look around. While this postcard was printed in 1969, you’ll still see exactly the same characters bumbling around the small town of Nazare today. Fishermen and fishwives of Nazare continue to wear the exact same clothes you see here (“typical features” indeed as the caption for this postcard states). They also continue to carry stuff around on their heads: yesterday I turned the corner and bumped into a fishwife gossiping away while wearing an Ascot type hat made from 2.5kg of potatoes. It all makes me wonder why some traditions live on in full swing while others die out or change to tackier modern day versions. This subject will certainly need a revisit...
#14 L-plate: Is that Mr. or Ms.? No wonder Boris is confused.
So - here we are, it links up to a discussion we had around another piece of mailart about the use of language over the ages.
Hope it makes it this time (oh, and you'll see I'm trying out how telling the "questioneverything" story by scanning the text rather than having it typed here - let me know if it's OK to read or if the more orthodox method is better!).
Andy - you'll see another reason for sending the postcard to you is the fact it features our beloved Mayor - I think his confused expression and head scratching would make little sense to those living outside London!
Anyway, here's the story:
L-plate
#13 L-plate - that thing we all live on
This subject has long been the subject of debate between explorers, mathematicians, leaders and those with any interest in that thing that they happen to live on. Apparently the Greek philosophers gave the issue a lot of airtime, and never came to agreement. The idea the earth was a sphere was widespread but not many people believed it - of course it seems an odd idea that you’re standing on a big ball-shaped mass floating around in nothingness.
It was in the 15th and 16th centuries that evidence was brought to Europe following a number of seafaring explorations by the Portuguese and, most famously, by Colombus. For those guys, proving the earth is round must have been a bit of a priority: it was actually tough to recruit sailors apparently - sometimes there were even mutinies when the captain wanted to sail too far because the sailors were scared they’d fall off the edge of the earth! (On a practical note, sailors would have noticed that mountains disappear over a horizon once you get far away enough from them - a basic proof that the earth is not strictly flat).
Anyway, from here it was more “plain sailing” for those who thought the earth is round and the idea has become accepted by most people the world over.
However, there are people who still believe in a flat earth. For some interesting reading check out the Flat Earth Society.
This one is going to fellow mailart365-er Ria Cabral :)
L-plate
#12 L-plate - tobacco's fall from grace
But it was not always like this. Smoking has only very recently been labelled as a bad thing.
Apparently, people first started using tobacco leaves for smoking and chewing in 1000BC (or even as early as 5000BC depending on your source of information). It was the Mayan civilisations of Central America who got there first, and tobacco is said to have reached Europe in the 16th century. From what I gather not a lot of people smoked then (I guess it was pretty expensive because it had to be shipped in) and it wasn’t until 1858 that fears about smoking were raised. But this was not taken too seriously.
Around the 1920s, cigarettes became much cheaper because of better production methods. More people, of course, started smoking and therefore it became more noticeable that the activity had some kind of health implications (more people to observe usually always leads to better statistical studies!). In 1929, Fritz Lickint from Germany, published statistical evidence of a lung cancer–tobacco link but the subject remained largely taboo until similar reports were published in Britain and the US in the ‘50s and ‘60s. From there the fortunes of the humble cigarette were reversed and the demonisation of cigarettes which prevails today gained momentum.
But this is still a controversial subject. There are a hefty number of pro-smoking lobbies the world over. Further, we all know there are many scientific research projects going on trying to uncover the benefits and harm of this-and-that- recently I found out about a study which offers evidence that nicotine can stimulate the brain (and hence actually make you more intelligent). So perhaps I should to start chewing nicotine gum to help with these exams that are coming up... maybe I could even launch my own brand of “makes you clever gum”.
This postcard is on its way to Sue Wood.
L-plate
#11 L-plate - mathematics unites
The story goes that later in 1525 Nicolaus Copernicus came up with a more precise value and set the length of one year as 365d 5h49m 15s. It took a bit of calculating to implement the new calendar in real life, such as when we should have leap years and then people seemed to recognise that this was a pretty good measure.
The Gregorian calendar which we’re familiar with was first adopted in a few Catholic countries in 1582. It took a while for many countries to adopt the calendar - the countries which were predominantly Protestant were pretty suspicious of this Catholic invention! My home country of Russia only changed over from the Julian calendar in 1918.
It interests me that the length of the calendar year is something of a universal truth. Whether you're a kilt-wearing Scotsman or a Russian miner, on one level every day is exactly the same - all united as a result of some pretty complicated calculations.
This one's going to Jon Foster who sent me a great mailart piece a couple of weeks ago through IUOMA.
If you're interested in this further, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
Lplate
#10 L-plate the postman - friend or foe?
He brings nice things including: mailart, birthday cards, presents, parcels.
But equally he also shoves these our way: bills, tax notices, junk mail, losing the mail.
So, here's a question - has the postman's role in your life changed since you began making mailart?
I scoured the web and found a few funny (or tragic stories depending on your outlook) about postal services. Check some of these headlines out:
Postman jailed for theft
Family risks losing mail delivery because cat scratches postman
Postman dumped 400 letters in field
A "byline on using data from the mailart365 project"
A couple of things I've sent since we began the mailart365 project don't seem to have shown up and the very reason I wrote this "question everything" on the subject of the postman is because Mim mentioned a package she sent never reached Andy... and a card she sent a while back is yet to reach me. Maybe, just maybe, at the end of the year we could look back at it in numbers (provided we have the data) and see what proportion arrived, what proportion didn't, how long it took on average and rate the mail service based on our experience... let's see! Andy - any thoughts on this one?
L-plate
#9 L-plate when clinical trials bring interesting results
This one's going to Katerina Nikoltsou who sent a great piece of mailart to me around Christmas! Thanks :)
Slimming is massive business - collectively we spend millions (maybe billions) on low-fat food, the gym, books, videos and various pills. But do all those things really do what they’re supposed to?
Well, sometimes they do that and more. For instance, one diet pill that was developed was pretty good - it really helped people become more active, want to exercise much more than usual. Thing is, then people started using it when they went clubbing and exercising a little bit too much and the pill got banned. It’s the pill that most of us know as ecstasy. Talk about a medicine with some side effects!!
But the story actually doesn’t stop there. There’s talk of the drug coming back as a prescription medicine to help resolve stress disorders... an indication that it is always worth exploring all avenues.
#8 L-plate more orange stuff in a different shape
I was earlier talking about how the colour orange only came into existence after medieval times. Funnily enough, on the theme of orange, there is also the story of carrots and how they became “domesticated” and indeed orange.
There is apparently evidence that “wild carrot” type vegetables have grown in the different parts of Asia for millennia. There are so called “wild” since they’re bitter in taste and pretty much inedible. These carrots came in a variety of colours - white, yellow and even purple.
It’s thought that the reason the carrots we now eat are bright orange is the result of many gene pool selections from the wild carrots which grew around the Mediterranean. I’ve often heard it cited that the Dutch are responsible for the bright orange colour which complements their royal standard flag (which is also bright orange).
It’s funny how this vegetable became orange by humans interbreeding it, whilst the orange became orange just because the meaning of a word changed...
This one's going to Maurizio Follin from IUOMA :)
#7 L-plate when is an orange not orange?
Finally after what seems a lifetime away from mailart365 due to a bunch of crappy reasons, I'm finally back with this postcard which is going to Kiera Pannell who sent me a fantastic mailart recently - thanks!!
When I was at school, studying Shakespeare, I remember our teacher told us that the colour orange didn’t exist as a word as recently as just after medieval times. I’ve been unable to confirm how much truth there is in this statement, or when the colour did actually get “recognised” as it were. Some sources say that orange was just a shade of red or brown. Which makes you think about whether anything was actually coloured orange in the eyes of people living in the times when orange did not exist. So, your mandarins, oranges and satsumas were all a shade of red or tan. It’s an odd thing.
We see so many shades of blue, for instance, in the sea, the sky, flowers etc. Imagine if one of these was suddenly granted a name - would anything predating that time be the “colour of that colour”?
#6 L-plate buy gum
I was out with everyone's favourite Andytgeezer yesterday when he told me a great story about a school in Canada which is apparently encouraging its student to chew gum rather than working to ban it.
Chewing gum has long been the school teacher's sworn enemy. Banned in all the schools I've ever been to and frowned upon by many educating types, a friend today told me a story which made me laugh. It also reminded me of the times you've mentioned your brain is being squeezed for every last drop of knowledge.
Some lovely chaps from an equally lovely science lab* tested whether gum has any effect on brain performance and the answer they reached was yes - the activity seems to increase the chewer's heartrate, causing more oxygen and nutrients to be pumped to the brain. Genius (or the assistance of)!
So, it turns out, that teachers who allow to be chewed gum in their classrooms should actually be counted as the better educators without enduring any of the stress of having to punish rowdy teenagers who are probably only trying to do the descent thing for society at large by making their breath smell nicer.
*my next question, by the way, is whether they were funded by Wrigleys...
#5 L-plate Chairman Mao's armchair agricultural strategies
PostMuse's recent mailart365 posting about conserving on eggs was a reminder of this story which I've decided to feature in mailart form for PostMuse herself :)
#4L-plate Question it even more when you're not supposed to
This morning I got a surprise - my mum sent me a great piece of mailart from Portugal after I told her about this project.
So this postcard is going to Mama L-plate :)
I've been inspired by Andy's weaved postcard from yesterday and decided to turn Leonid Brezhnev (who was the communist party secretary during the time my mum was a child and teenager living in the USSR) into e piece of art, diffused by a photo of red poppies in a field.
Brezhnev didn't like people to question anything. Kids' classes in school comprised of the usual subjects with additions of communist theory, the teachings of Lenin and examples in textbooks of how great things were. In the summer, kids were sent away to "pioneer" camps where they were further educated (or brainwashed or spoon-fed depending on your views) about the system.
Brezhnev was quite right to fear questions though. Later, Gorbachev shook the old system up, encouraged honesty and questioning... and BOOM, down it fell. Of course its not the only reason... but this again is another tale which to me symbolises the power of the humble question.
Here's what the original photos looked like.
#3L-plate: making a copy of something? Now that's crazy talk!
The first bit of mailart I ever received arrived yesterday from Douglas Galloway. His email address was printed on the back of the card, as if it had been done by photocopier which made me think of writing about the beginnings of this rather cunning device which is a pretty standard piece of furniture for most offices and many homes.
When the concept of Xerox was first invented by a chap called Chester Carlson in 1938, it took him five whole years to convince someone to put their trust and money behind him in order to even develop the first commercial copier machines. No one would believe the poor guy that there was a market for this sort of thing until a company called Haloid bought a licence to the whole idea and by 1961 was listed in the NY stock exchange. That's pretty serious stuff, and the company was worth $37 million at the time.
So next time someone tells you your idea is rubbish, and this applies to everyone there, sit back... reflect... because you never know.
Here's Douglas: http://www.etsy.com/shop/GALLERY385
#2L-plate Our 4,000 year love affair with Asbestos
Julia is an urban planner, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to run a questioneverything365 tale about asbestos, and the story goes something like this:
We now commonly know asbestos as the building material which is made of fibres which can cause serious health problems if inhaled, or even death. I've seen estimates that reckon in the US alone over 100,000 people have died from asbestos exposure in the ship-building industry alone. People first became suspicious about it in the early 20th century when the use of asbestos in the US was pretty significant... and there was an abnormally high number of deaths occurring in asbestos-mining towns compared to other places. But it was only in the 1980s the stuff became a banned substance in the Western world. Before this, it's fair to say we loved it! And who can blame us? Asbestos is flame-retardant, heat-resistant, flexible and it insulates. In fact, Asbestos is a natural substance and there's evidence it’s been used for over 4,500 years (people even made cooking utensils out of it - eek!).
So there we have it. Perhaps it was just one of those things too good to be true. But it makes you wonder how other such stories out there which span over 4,000 years and end not so nicely... That's why we should questioneverything(365).
L-plate
#1L-plate It's one small step for a mailartist...
Today was pretty ordinary for the most part. But the first trip to the red British letterbox felt like the start of something truly wonderful. Perhaps you could say it was because snow was falling, Christmas songs were playing all around me, London was being transformed into a romantic winter scene... but no, it was because this is the beginning of what will surely be remembered as a truly remarkable year.
You may have seen I've teamed the mailart365 project with a specially-created website www.questioneverything365.blogspot.com which I started in order to run parrallel to this project. I can now reveal that the point of QE365 is to use a postcard a day to tell the story of something which didn't turn out as we expected. As an example, Andy will soon be receiving a postcard which reads:
An introduction
Hi there all,
Great to see so many mailartists here already :) By way of an intro, I'm Lplatebigcheese, one of your fellow contributors to this inspired project by andytgeezer.
There is a theme connecting all the art which I'll create and send out, but it's going to be kept secret until the project's under way. Although the title of me blog for the year "questioneverything365" is certainly a major clue...
So, let's see what happens and where we'll all end up in a year. The whole thing feels like it's going to be a creative journey to the post box every day, and you never know where it's going to take you :)
Lplate
