Mixes
The Waxidermy Mix – Volume 2 "Evil Fire Nugget Loops" (SOLD OUT)
| Other Mixes: Waxidermy Vol 1 |
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About the mix: We are back with a follow up to our last mix of audio curio. And while very much the same in spirit, I believe listeners while find this to be a more cohesive and listenable sampling. First, we have aksed that some of the contributors to the site dig deep and send in a few of their favorite delicacies – many of which have yet to be heard on the site. After which, Ed selected, arranged, and "mixed", if you will, the very finest of these into 60 minutes of shear listening pleasure! And while most websites would have just left it at that the work was just beginning for yours truly – because, as always, we here at Waxidermy are committed to giving our audience the finest entertainment in all the blogosphere – right down to another batch of one-of-a-kind handmade sleeves. -Jeff (hcrink)
About the art: I once saw an exhibit of John Cage's prints from Crown Point Press at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. I remember the night before, talking to Jeff about what John Cage's art looked like and he didn't know. I was asking my printing teacher and he didn't know but I'm sure he made something up to tell me so he wouldn't look bad. While the rest of my schoolmates made smart comments about the printmaking style of Paris during that vile midget Toulouse-Lautrec's time, I was off looking at a smaller room filled with Cage's work from Crown Point Press. It was such a beautiful, religious experience for me to look at his work, all created by chance operations. At Crown Point, Press, non-printmaking artists are invited to come and use the studios and work with the master printers to create art that can be very different than what they would usually do. In Cage's case, he placed wet paper over burning paper and ran it through the presses and used chance to determine how long it burned. There was also some sort of branding with metal objects.
I wanted to pay homage to Cage's work in these mix covers. It seemed logical to look to his work for the covers because he embodies the experimental nature of both music and art.
I started out intending to use chance operations for the covers. I rolled the dice to decide which pieces of paper would be dyed and which would stay white. Using cookie sheets and natural dye, I soaked the chosen papers for different amounts of time. Air bubbles and the amount of time soaked created natural variations in the colors of the papers. Then we rolled the dice and decided which papers I would work with and which papers Jeff would work with.
Our friends Kris and Doug were generous enough to allow the use of their property so we could have a good safe place to burn them. I wanted to choose record related things to burn so logically, I ganked a bunch of Jeff's inner sleeves. When the fires started, we realized that we would have to abandon chance and work with our intuition, Jeff and I had a different approach to the burning. I would like to say mine was more controlled and I realized the potential of my squirt bottle of water faster that Jeff but he had an interesting burn on top of the water technique that I could never quite get down. Where a hole went through or the paper became too brittle and the paper cracked, I affixed a backing to the paper. The paper was cut and assembled into the covers. They are less graphic than the last batch, but I think just as good in their own way. I hope you enjoy the music and the art. -A. Westin
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A sample of some of the artwork:
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