This week on Strange Talk: as the airwaves stir and the unknown beckons, Alyx sits down with Sara Josephine Clarke of Moon & Sun Emporium to unravel the mysteries of scent, spirit, and subconscious journeys through fragrance.
Scent is more than just memory—it’s an essence, a presence, a ghost in the air. A single whiff can transport you through time, pulling you into forgotten moments, lost emotions, or even visions of something beyond yourself. We explore how perfume creation becomes an alchemical process, weaving together botanical elements to summon moods, personas, and even entire worlds.Our conversation takes an even stranger turn as we discuss David Lynch, his deep ties to Jungian philosophy and archetypes, and how his dreamlike storytelling parallels the way scent lingers in the subconscious. We also uncover a lesser-known Louisiana cryptid, lurking in folklore’s shadowy corners.This episode is a portal; to the past, to the unknown, and to the strange power hidden in the air around us. Tune in, breathe deep, and step into the mystery.Music for this episode includes the Strange Talk Intro by Star Silk, Escape from LV426 by Karl Casey, and backing tracks by Panda Beats.
Scent is more than just memory—it’s an essence, a presence, a ghost in the air. A single whiff can transport you through time, pulling you into forgotten moments, lost emotions, or even visions of something beyond yourself. We explore how perfume creation becomes an alchemical process, weaving together botanical elements to summon moods, personas, and even entire worlds.Our conversation takes an even stranger turn as we discuss David Lynch, his deep ties to Jungian philosophy and archetypes, and how his dreamlike storytelling parallels the way scent lingers in the subconscious. We also uncover a lesser-known Louisiana cryptid, lurking in folklore’s shadowy corners.This episode is a portal; to the past, to the unknown, and to the strange power hidden in the air around us. Tune in, breathe deep, and step into the mystery.Music for this episode includes the Strange Talk Intro by Star Silk, Escape from LV426 by Karl Casey, and backing tracks by Panda Beats.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
No space.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
In good evening and welcome to the hour dedicated to
(01:28):
talking about all things strange, weird and paranormal. You're listening
to Strange Talk broadcasting on sixteen sixty AM, the North Side,
ninety one point seven FM, HG two WVX You and Cincinnati.
We're also streaming at Radio Artifact dot com around the
entire planet Earth. The intro tact to this episode, in
most of our episodes, is the Strange Talk Intro by
Star Silk and I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Your host, Alex and we have a very special guest tonight.
If you want to introduce yourself.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Hello, I am Sarah Joseph Clark of Moon and Sun Emporium.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, and uh, just so our listeners know kind of
how this came about you. How I found you was
you made a perfume called Hant Country like Olivia and
Matthew's book that we've talked about before on the show,
and it smells amazing. Genuinely, it is one of my favorites,
(02:21):
and it like stays on so much longer than my
other perfumes, and it just has this nice earthy Appalachian dirt,
like good dirt soil.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
It's just it isn't fun time to describe fragrance.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It is where it's just like, how do I describe this?
It's good, it's it's dirt, but in a good way.
It's dirt but not dirty. It's like soil that is
ready for plants, is how I like to think of it.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Ripe maybe ripe soil, ancestral soil.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, I've taken classes in trying to better articulate scent myself,
and I work with scent every day and it's still
difficult for me.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah, I feel like that's the part of it I
would be better at, is like trying to describe it afterwards.
But yeah, as we were talking for a while before
this before we start recording, and you've been making perfume
for you said twenty years now.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yes, I have been making for twenty years. I got
into it because I could not find solid perfume at
the time, and what there was in most of today
I would classify more as like a lip bomb base
pcent rather than what I consider solid perfume. I are
(03:51):
afard of. Mine is cream perfume when I make those sorts. Yeah,
very like decadent in oily, And you know, the basis
they're usually like floral waxes.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
And just yeah, it's a little it's smoother, but it
doesn't necessarily stay on as long when it's that kind
of creamy balmy.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
At least that's what I found.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Yeah, I remember just one of my formative memories of
perfume as a young girl was like solid perfume, and
so it was sort of it made it all the
more magical, and when I couldn't find it, it just
was the sort of like, well, let's let's see who
we can figure out how to do this. And I
(04:38):
initially had ten cents and I had them all in
a shoe box and I just made them for me,
and other people loved them and wanted to buy them,
and which was very nice and unexpected, and just kind
of grew from there, and people wanted to know if
(04:59):
I had read the book or seeing the film Perfume
Story of a Murderer, which I find to be a
great compliment in its own wonderfully strange way. So that's
kind of how I got started, was necessity as the
mother of an invention, and my perfumes were what would
(05:22):
be called like at the time, like full spectrum or
mixed media perfumes until about a handful of years ago
I decided to make them all completely natural, and I
went to the Natural Perfume Academy, which to my knowledge
is the only accredited school for such an education in
(05:43):
the world, And it's based in Ireland, Brazil and California,
and it's, you know, a wonderful course. I can't recommend
it enough. If anyone has any interest in perfumery, go there.
The future, because it's the past, you know. I think
(06:04):
a lot more people are a lot more interested in
pronounceable ingredients and things.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yes, that is a good point. A lot of perfume
ingredients are not pronounceable in the same way a lot
of food ingredients are also, like sodium's orbital stuff like that,
where it's like you don't know what that means at all?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
It means you just know and at all what does
that taste like? I don't know. I don't want to know. Yeah,
So that's what I do my perfumes. I grow some
of the ingredients, I extract some of the ingredients I
otherwise try to source. Essential oil is absolute, formal waxes,
(06:54):
all of that I try to source from. Like people,
I know, usually through school that work that either are
themselves or work with like mom and pop type type
farmers that like their passion is this one ingredient. Let's
say one of my suppliers, whose name is Cher, if
(07:15):
she's listening, hey girl, share she owns eo Apothecare and
she'll like go over to Egypt to buy violet leaf
concrete for the rest of us, and just uh so
cool and be able travels.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, yes, that's so cool. I know, I know, honestly,
what a dream job to be able to travel around
and source perfume materials for people.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
It's so true. And there's a lot that's also like
if you're willing to experiment, there's a lot you can
do in your own garden, however large or small, where
you can just kind of to me, it's just it's
a beautiful thing. It feels. It makes me My magic
(08:09):
is very affected, you know, Like my magic and my
perfumery is all very like elemental planetary and so for
let's say, for some you know, for something to have
all of the elements in it, like it grew in
the earth and it was fed by their rain and
the sun. It went through like face steamed distillation, and
(08:33):
so it had fire in that aspect somewhere, you know,
Just like that to me is so poetic.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, we were talking about it before. We were according
to about how it's kind of like your way to
get to participate in alchemy in the modern day, which
is so cool and so fun, and why is alchemy
not part of more in our lives?
Speaker 4 (08:54):
I know, to me, alchemy is where psychology and chemistry meet,
and so like spagirics from alchemy would be it's just
for brevity. I'll just say, to like reduce something down
to its essential salts after everything else has been taken
(09:14):
from it, and then to like reintroduce that back into say,
if it was a perfume. And there are there are
perfumers out there that you know, make spagiric perfumes, They're
few and far between. I have a little bit of
that work in my own, but that's something I'm still learning.
(09:34):
You talk about just some big, big folk magic with that. Yeah,
that's that's super neat though, thank you. It's just so cool,
really cool. You're gonna have to do it. You're gonna
have to do it.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
I know I've been wanting to.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Well, whenever it aligns, you'll have to come over. I'm
in Winchester and yeah, that's my crazy Perfumer's organ with
all this madness.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, literally literally let me know anytime. That sounds amazing. Yeah,
we'll have to. We'll get Olivia to come to so
she can sign her hat Country Books sign.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yes, she's the elusive one.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
She is.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I feel like that's the most artists, Hi, Olivia, that's
most artists. Is uh. They have to be a little
bit elusive. They have to be a little bit, you know,
of a cryptid.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I rather be like direxel in a good way, Like
I'm still a mystery to you for true romance. But
maybe I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I'm trying to think of like there's a single artist
out there that is not somewhat of a mystery, and
I cannot think of one other than like maybe Andy Warhol,
but like his stuff was intentionally really consumer wristic. But
I can't think of anybody else. I feel like everybody's
got some air of mystery to them. Did I lose you?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
There? Oh?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
There we go? Oh there we go? The audio cut it.
I was like, did I lose you?
Speaker 4 (11:23):
I was saying nonsense. I know there's always more.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
It was that was your mysterious secret nonsense.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
You're being too straightforward in that.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
The technology said.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Recently, I went in Dillard's Sometimes I just like to
go in the big box stores in the perfumery and
just like be nosy, and I was like, how many
of these are natural? And he just looks around and
he's like, none of them? Where are you? I'm like, oh,
(12:07):
I just was curious. I'd make ones that are natural.
It's like, what do you make it out of? Like
wood or something? Wow, that's so neat.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I like that wood is The first question is is
it made of wood?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It's hand carved perfume, hand whittled. Oh boy, my rock
and whittle a perfume.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, that's a really nude. Part of me is also
wondering if he was just like none of them, because
he was like, I have no idea.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I didn't read the manual. I don't tell.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
M h uh they're all natural or none of them
are natural, somewhere in.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Between, isa hahaha, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I feel like I'm always honest about that when I'm like,
I don't know, I've got no.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Idea, Like if you don't, you don't know, there's no shame.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Usually I'm like, I don't know, let's google it because
I can look things up now, And that's really nice
and helpful.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
You have the thing in your pocket that is an
extension of your brain.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yes, it's I think about that because like when I
was a kid, you know, the Internet existed, but it
wasn't like something that everybody had access to yet. Yes,
And I just think back to back then, and there
was just like so much stuff I didn't know. Like
the biggest thing is like I would go to school
and like there'd be a holiday coming up and everyone
(13:48):
would be talking about it, and I'm like, how does
everybody know when these holidays are? And I didn't have
the internet, so I couldn't just look up when is
this holiday? And so I was so confused all the
time time. So it is nice now to just be
able to be like, what is that that?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yes, I'm gen X and I think I started using
the internet late nineties maybe yeah. I was born at
seventy eight, let's see, And the first thing I used
the Internet for was there was this website called the
Misfits Bible, and it was the entire discography of Misfits
(14:28):
Sam Hayne Danzig of like all of the seven inch
records and bootleg vhs that you can track down. And
I was at university at the time, and I printed
out that whole thing and you make a manual whole
puncher and had a binder, and as I would would
acquire things, I would like highlight them, you know, out
(14:50):
of that was that was like the best invention ever. Like,
there's this thing called you can find out about like
the whole Misfit Sam Hayne dancing discossions.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, and then you you can print it out. I
completely forgot like early Internet, anything cool you found on there,
you would print it out, like your GPS instructions. You
would have to look it up and like map quest it,
oh my.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Gosh, and like all I did with it for years
would be little things like that, and I completely forgot
about it, I think until I started selling online, you know,
and then I was like we should do that too.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, the IDA has changed so much. Like yeah, early Internet.
I remember when I was younger, it was like me
and my brother would like go through and find guitar
tabs for everything and print them out and meticulously organize
them in this binder, and I would alpha, I would
help them alphabetize them. Yes, and that was the early Internet.
(15:47):
It was you'd have to print it off and then
you'd have to organize it yourself.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Did you have one of those punches that did all
three at once or did you have to do each
individual punch?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I honestly think I didn't have either, and I just
stabbed it through the blinds.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I think I had just an individual.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Punch and Eric whoever, whoever made the one with all
three genius genius, real real solutions to real problems. I
missed the forum days of the Internet.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Yeah, I guess it's some things try to be now,
but I completely forget all about all of that.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, it's not the same as it was. The Internet
used to feel like it was a small group of people,
and now it's everybody is on the Internet everywhere, and
half of the Internet is fake.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
It really is. I remember way when I was first
selling perfume online, it was my web presence. I had
like a video trading website for bootlegs like I was
talking about, of vh and and rare movies, and that
(17:04):
was my main website. It was called the house that
screams and this one little it was like an angel
Fire side.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
You know, I missed angel Fire too, but.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
It paid to get rid of pop ups though. Okay,
it was like a page extension of that for my perfumes,
because you know, then people just started buying them. I'm like,
how did you find me? What are you doing?
Speaker 6 (17:32):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (17:33):
And I got all high tech and I had like
one PayPal button for domestic and one PayPal button for international. Yeah,
all figured out. And yeah, you didn't even have to
have a picture.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, no, you didn't have to have a picture. You
didn't have to have anything.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
And now people want like QBC but like you're there's
so much competition. They're really yeah, like if you're if
you're able to do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
That's actually I think that's part of why the Internet
is so different now, is it's like we're almost reaching
like this sort of like technological singularity, but just in
terms of all websites are slowly starting to look exactly
the same. Yes, I yes, and it makes it that's
what makes me miss things like angel Fire, where you
would have these or GeoCities where you have these just
(18:31):
wild websites where it's just like the whole background is
glitter and moving and everything is spinning, and I kind of.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Like the MySpace of websites.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, oh, I think really cool. I can directly I mean,
it's fine, I'm right there with you, but like I
can directly pinpoint the two reasons I end up working
in it. Where one because my brother kept breaking the
computer and I didn't fix it. We didn't have a computer,
(19:02):
And two was MySpace. Learning to code on MySpace is
how I ended up in my first I job.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well, I see people are like rock stars now, I
mean they're they're like they're like rock star utility providers.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's you know what I mean, that's it's starting to
fall out of fashion now. I think only because of
like COVID and all that. I think so many people
started in it now that that's now kind of like
slowly starting to go away, and it's not going very fast.
But it is interesting because, yeah, it used to be
when I started it, which was ten years ago, you
(19:41):
would have what we would always call like the it Wizard,
which is like the guy that has been there forever
and like he wears the same thing every day and
no one says anything because he knows how everything works,
so we're just gonna let him do what he needs
to do.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, that was the like the I don't know Cuthulhu
Mythos elder god of Icy. That's kind from a drop
guy from the Simpson Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It's very much like that.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I aspired to one day be one of the old
like it Wizards of just like, yes, I know how
it all works.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
I think my husband is kind of that modern equivalent
of that. He he's gosh, he's a senior software developer
for a firm out of Boston. Oh cool, Like his
PhD is in cybersecurity. He wrote his first program when
he was I think four, Oh that's so cool. It'll
(20:43):
be forty five. And he's British, so it all no
matter what he says, it's not smart.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
People like ways talking about I don't know what he
just said, but he knows.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
In it.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
So yeah, that's really funny. Yeah, the Internet has changed
so much.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
It has like I try to learn from it and
adapt with you know, I've been an artist, the self
representing artists for a really long time. I've seen a
lot in all these years, and it's really interesting. Like
(21:23):
from a sociological perspective, and but you have to like
keep up with it and understand. I don't know what
normal is for people now, you know. Yeah, I mean
I've always I've always like really like I won't put
anything up until it's ready, and I have some made
(21:45):
of whatever it is, if it's perfume, culture, if it's
prints of my paintings, you know whatever, because a million
and one things can happen, and you know, you want
to make people glad they sent you money, is actually
they don't know you. I know that that's a really
ridiculous concept, but.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
But yeah, you don't want to let anybody down to
like plans change.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
That's even like when I said in the radio show
in I don't like announce that episode until it is
end and I know that it is in the queue,
just because I'm like, anything could happen, the Q could
mess up, and I don't want to be like this
week's episode. Oh nope, nope, that's not out.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Sorry, my bad, because I bet even though you're a
creative person, you're probably more of an engineering mind. Yeah,
but that know that I actually am in my way,
like I'm like compared to I love y'all, but a
lot of artists, I know, I am, you know, this
(22:45):
little old lady stuck in the mud, you know, when
it comes to structure in my bedtime and boundaries.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And that's funny because I feel like my my schedule
is so just pure chaos. And part of that, I
think is because my day job is so structured that
once I'm like not doing that, Like it's just pure chaos.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
You structured your structure, and now you have scheduled your chaos.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
That is a great way of looking at it, because
that's how I've always described I'm like, it's organized chaos,
is how I like to call it. It's like I
know where everything is. It looks like a mess, but
I know where everything is in that.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Mess, absolutely. I know. Dave even talked a lot about
the importance of a routine and structure, Like every day
for years at two o'clock he would go, have you know,
a chocolate shake and a coffee at the very same
big boy, ye know, I think, like even years or something.
And he had a lot to say about how behaviors
(23:53):
like that really free up your mind to be created
because you're not having to think about these things.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, that is that is a great way of looking
at it too.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
So I'll say, no, I'm like David Lynch, I'm not
you know, not.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
You're saying that I'm looking at Like one of the
books that I keep on you know, my desk that
I record everything at is Room to Dream, David Lynch's book,
because I like his philosophy of like things is just
like it's so perfect to how I do things where
it is yeah, organized chaos, and then also you know,
like at the same time, just he has this weird
(24:33):
like positivity through everything, Like when he was doing those
weather reports during quarantine, that was just the best thing.
That was like the highlight of my day every day.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
I know, oh I missed him so meeting, But I
grew up with you know, his work and it's a huge,
huge influence on my own work. You know, Twin Peaks
when that originally aired, and every week I would you know,
sit down and record it on BHS and you know,
(25:09):
when the movie came out, I saw it in the theater,
and years and years later though, when the return came out,
I was like, I am not watching this until it's
all available. I waited every week.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Everybody smart that is so smart.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
All I'm just going to buy it out right and no, no, no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I think that is the fun difference kind of between
like it shows you stuff will wait every week and
now it's just like you can bing it all at once,
so it's like why would you wait?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
And now it's like they're kind of like it's the
eternal recurrence of television. I swear it's like doing it
again where there's commercials and you have to wait a
week for the next episode of White Lotus and it
drives you insane.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
But you know, as we were talking about with Perfume, though,
you've got to wait for good things. So true, it's
learning relearning that patience.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Like you need to just forget about it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Not being able to forget about it is sometimes a
good thing.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
It is, it really is. Yeah. There's this book ready
years ago and I wouldn't say I was able to
fully grasp every bit of it, but man, I feel
smarter just saying the title. It was called The Origin
of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and
it was right, and it was about, basically from what
(26:39):
I understood, we're only able to hold so much in
our conscious at a time, but everything, like in the
sort of Youngian sense separately, like everything doesn't want to
get sponged up, it's just kind of knowing how to
access it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, And that was kind of one of the big
things through David Lynch's were too that, like I really
resonate too is yeah, like sort of these ideas that
come from your subconscious, and he was really big on that.
I think that's actually part of why I like Twin
Peaks so much. Like even then, you know, Agent Cooper's
talking about, you know, all these different techniques to access
(27:17):
your subconscious, and I went, yeah, that makes sense to me.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I really am of the opinion that David Lynch's Dune
is special Agent Dale Cooper's origin story.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Oh I love that idea.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
And yeah, and I think that as a kid he
was Jeffrey Beaumont before he was in Dude. I really
love that idea. But if you know, if you think
about it, you're like, well, I mean, how did he
get so smart? He was, well, he was the dude and.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Dude, yeah exactly. And also I just love Kyle maclaughlan.
He's also such a weird person he.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Is, and like I just I couldn't stop laughing at
his little hair clips. I don't know why. I just
was like, oh, we got like Evil Western Cooper.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I love Evil Western Couser.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
And we're all named after Twin Peaks characters. We have
Special Agent Dale Cooper and Diane and Lucy. We did
we did have Audrey, but she died of a brain
tumor very very young baby. This is but you.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yes, but those are great, great names. Have you Have
you ever made any like Twin Peaks kind of themed
perfumes or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
I have worked on them. I used to make one
called Candy Colored Clown years ago that was like a
blue velvet one. Obviously. Yeah, I love that. I sketched
out ideas for the Black Lodge, the White Lodge, and
the Red Room, and like the Great Northern and where
(29:05):
the police station in Twin Peaks with like the donuts donuts,
like I think I overwhelmed myself.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, I'm just gonna start with one.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
And I was like, let's just calm down. You just
need down, Yes, because it's easy to do. I like
way before that I made years ago. I made a
sort of an endorsed set of perfumes for the film
spider Baby. Have you ever heard of spider Babies?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Not?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
It was Sid Haig's first film when he was nineteen,
and I believe it was Lawn Cheney Junior's last film.
It was directed by Jack Hill and it's except you'll
love it. You have to look it up.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yeah, I've pulled up with the Wikipedia page. Oh and
it's on TV for free, so I can watch it later.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
But years ago, gosh, this was probably fifteen years ago,
I made like a like an official endorsed set of
perfumes inspired by that film and the characters and the places,
and so I like, you know, things that I love
(30:31):
like that, you know, I do love to collaborate ideally officially. Yeah,
And I made an unofficial set around the same time
for the original Wickerman. Oh that's cool, thank you. And
it had like let's see like a myrtle says and
(30:57):
a martyr's death and and take the flame inside you
like there's quite nine or freaking twelve of them or something.
And around that same time, I sculpted Nuada the Sun God,
and I do still sell casts of that original sculpture.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Was that was that the sculpture you had at the market.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
It may have been. Is it like a really creepy
sun Yes, yes, that's Nuada, the sun god from the
original Whipperman. I also have sculpted things I make like
al Caa rings from Gwinipeaks fire walk with me. It's
like it's like more of an assemblage with sculpted elements.
(31:48):
And I've sculpted Odin, you know, the Norse god Odin
santam Werta. Let's see. I think my most recent one
kind of took the life out of me for sculpting
for a while. And it's an atomically correct, life sized
human vertebrate candle holder. That is cool, it's sick. I'm
(32:12):
not gonna lie. I have just super cool and make
a little baby ones too, because you don't want to
be you don't want to just offer the big one,
you know, like, well little babies if you you know.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I see the deep down, we're all crows and we
love a little trinket.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
It's true, true. And I sculpt a lot of like jewelry,
and I teach a class on that at you can
find Arts Institute on Sculpting learning how to make platinum
silicon molds and cold casting metal and porcelain jewelry. And
you can use like every step of that separately, or
(32:52):
you can scale it up to make your own great, big,
fine candleholder. You know, I'm like doing go do it.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
That's also super cool. And I'm like, I just see,
I love the all the things you do because I'm
always like, that's all just like stuff that I am like,
that would be really fun to play with you if.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
You should do it. Thank you. It's you see inspiration everywhere.
I think I've spent the last couple of decades learning
all these crazy different processes, and you know, for the
longest time, I would hear things I'm a self educated
artist other than perfumery, I don't have any formal art education. Yeah,
(33:39):
and I would hear from galleries and things that would
initially like be interested, and then they'd be like, well, actually,
you know you're not brandable. You know, you do things,
and you know, I just imagine like these emails written
like the tone like they had their cheese held together
or something. And so I've you know, I'm more than
(34:01):
accustomed to not being the cool kid, and you know,
so I'm fine being my own brand by now. By now,
it's like I make the incense and I make the
incense holders, I make the candles, and I make the
candle holders. Yeah, prints, I make jewelry, I make you know, like,
(34:24):
what are you going to do? I don't. I'm my
own damn art gallery. I don't need you.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Know, exactly well, and that's super cool too that you make,
you know, the candle and the candle holders. So you
get to be part of like all parts of that,
you know, creation, and I.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Can like be honest about what it's made of, and
you know, I delve over into things that I see
a lot of adulteration too. Like one of my perfumes
is moldibite first and foremost, because I wanted to source
real moldibite because that's one of those things that people
(35:01):
just like lie and.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Say is in there when it's not.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yeah, or say that they're bringing and it's like, well,
that could be a L eight glass, you know, I.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Love that.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
And blue lotus absolute as far as ingredients go, that's
like incredibly expensive, and so I try to be a
source of like first and foremost the things I create,
but also things that can be kind of like adulterated,
or most people don't they're like intrigued by, but they
(35:41):
won't know the real thing if they saw it, if
that makes sense. So yeah, even if you see it
in person, or even if they just smell it in person,
that's probably going to stay with them. If it's something
they're interested in acquiring. It didn't even have to be
for me. I don't care, and I do that. I'm
working on doing that with food as well, because ood
(36:01):
is just I collect ood. It's incredibly like if I
was a billionaire, I would have like super huge pieces
of food, but I am not so and I have
a little bit from all kinds of areas. But it's
it's fascinating stuff. It's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And that's just like one of those one day if
I ever win the lottery things.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yes exactly, or if I, uh, I don't know. I
just don't have the taste to do any like super
great big it's gonna seize all of pop culture type
you know, collaborations, and I'm I get that, you know so,
(36:45):
but like I can only make so much stuff anyway.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Exactly well, and it's more fun, I think to be
able to create what you want to create.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Absolutely, And I am super huge on the personal relationship.
I I'm not good at small talk, but I can
talk your head off as you're like, seeing about that,
I feel like talking about forever.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
I feel like I'm a little bit the same way.
Like the only reason I can do any small talk
is because if someone wants to talk about the weather,
I can talk about the weather all day. And then
they get a little unnerved that I'm continuing to talk
about the weather.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
And they're like, what are you really up to?
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I just think it's cool.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Conversation at all.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
You told me to talk about the weather. I'm talking
about the weather. I don't know what you want.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Yes, And for me, though, my you know, I do
what I do. I'm fortunate enough to do what I
do full time, and I just am kind of like
in this room of my home most of the day
doing it. And I'll leave a few days a month
to bend at an event or teach. I sell mostly online,
(38:01):
and but every bit of it. It's it's like I
more am just kind of looking for my people, if
that makes sense, not in you know, in a wholesome
way of like if you like what I do, I
bet we'd be friends. Yes, Yeah, that's a language.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
It is that that is a great way of yeah
phrasing that too, of like, if you are enjoying this,
then we will probably get along.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
I used to hear nonsense like oh and if you
may like like if you know, if you have so
many great ideas, you go do it. Yeah, you can
leave it. I will probably not get everything made that
I have planned out right now before I.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Die, so right, the ideas will continue to come.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
And the only sort of custom work I'll stop everything
and do at this point is if a friend of
mine loses a pet, Yeah, I will, you know, I
like friends, like, it isn't something I sell or anything,
But if they lose a pet, I you know, I
wait in an appropriate amount of time, and I you know,
(39:12):
and I say, like, you know, if you would like
a piece of memorial jewelry with their hair or their
cremaines or whatever you have, let me know, let me
know what you'd like it to look like, and I
will make that happen for you because you mean everything
to me. And I'm like a gift love language kind
of person. I guess, wow. But other than that, like nope.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, that's that's such a cool idea too. My snake
passed away last year, and so I have her buried
on the side of my house and I'm waiting to
get her bones out because I want to put them
back together. Yeah, because I was like, I want to
hold on to that because like, she's so important to me,
and you know, I first and last person I talked
(39:57):
to every single day for over six years.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
So no, And if there's anything I can make for you,
of course, I.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Might ask you some questions because I'm like, I want
to put her bones together, but I feel like it
would be cool to have something as well. A friend
of mine actually three D printed me and I also
keep this yere when I record, a little kind of
skeletal snake that I keep here that just reminds me
of her when I record, so it feels like she
gets to listen in on all of my recordings.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Still, do you have any of her sheds?
Speaker 3 (40:33):
I I think I do, actually.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Because I know offhand I have some extra like glass lockets.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
And that's a great idea to.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Give you one of those, you know, and see or
you might like it for the end result later too.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because I was always like, I
never know what to do with her shed. I know
that I could do cool stuff with it, but I
don't know what to do with it.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
I I have a friend who her her snake is alive,
and she gives me the sheds, and I'll like make
something here and there in return. And my Salas Sallus
was an ancient Minor, ancient Roman goddess of prosperity, and
she was always portrayed with bowls feeding the snakes and
(41:19):
the perfume incense in her honor, and like the packaging
always has ethically acquired shaped shed snake goodies. Yeah, it's
so pretty.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
They're so pretty, and they're such sweet little creatures.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
I would have them if my cats would be like.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Cats and snakes historically don't super get along unfortunately.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Dang.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yeah sometimes though, But yeah, I've been I've been having
dreams recently about ball pythons, and so I'm like, does
this mean I need to get another one soon?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
All that's yeah, you got to listen to those dreams.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yes, yeah, such sweet creatures.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Oh, I'm a big believer in dreams, big believer.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung. Have you read that?
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
My minor in school was also psychology, and so like
I was like, I'm super into this stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
Oh gosh, I love Carl Jung. He's like the not
film director David Lynch.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
You know, yes, yes, they may may or may not
be the same person.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Actually, yeah, absolutely. I think when I read Synchronicity, I
think it's like his shortest book. But it was another
one that was like, Okay, why is this so hard
for me to like fully get this concept when this
book is this short. Yeah. And I finally like kept
(42:50):
repeating the subtitle on the cover like it is an
a causal connecting principle. That's all you need to know.
Just repeat it until it's.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Until it's just in there. Something they talked about before
we started recording. You said, there is a cryptid where
you live in Louisiana.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
So I was born and raised in Louisiana. I lived
there till my early twenties. I lived several places in
the state. I'm from Rapid's Parish and there's the parlangois
is specific to my parish, and he is half alligator
half human. I think the human like alligators, can climb trees,
(43:40):
but they usually tend to do it from what I understand,
when they're little, but imagine.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
The bigger they get, the harder that ya.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
And so the Parlangoa and like grun up a tree
with you know, your boyfriend and eat him. Oh. In
I think the sixties where there was a car oh
I think it was a car that was like kind
of had kind of the psycho treatment where it was
(44:13):
like submerged in a lake or something and they pulled
it out and all the people in it had been
like devoured and they're parlang Wi. It was totally the
parlang Yeah. And so he tends to show up in
like the local Marti Gras parades the most, and usually
(44:34):
that's why.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
There's some alligatormen in there. I always wondered about that.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
Yep. So usually the top half, but I've seen it
where like the whole thing is like this like hybrid
too as far as like portrayals and things. So he's
specific to where I'm from, and Rapid's parish is right
smack in the middle of the state and and the
(45:02):
other thing. I think that was a huge cool influence
growing up. There was a Rapid Cemetery, which was an
established cemetery as far back as forty years before Louisiana
was part of the United States, Like it was oh yeah,
and it had the cool thing of like socioeconomic status
(45:29):
and race, ethnicity, gender, none of that mattered as far
as who was buried there.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah, that's pretty rare in cemeteries.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
It was in its own way, like really really ahead
of its time, and my whole lifetime has been very
neglected unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
That's unfortunate.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
But that has its own beauty.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
You know.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
That was like the closest I had to park in
the neighborhood growing and there would be man there'd be
like the the tombs, like the above bound some of
the above ground tombs. They would have been missing the
door and the body and the whatever for like who
(46:12):
knows how long. So it was a fun little place
to go play and cut yourself in and go draw
and you know, be a little goffling, little baby baby cemetery.
You encountered such a thing. You're in freaking Pineville, Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
And there's nothing else to do but go hang out
in the cemetery. It hacks me up. I feel like
like in modern times people are like, why are people
hanging out in the cemetery, And it's like, well, that
used to be They were kind of built to just
be parks, a lot of them. That's what people used
to do, especially in Victorian times.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Yeah, and that neighborhood literally had three cemeteries, that being
one of them, and most of the houses are abandoned
and like just the stuff of awesome Southern Gothic dreams,
you know, covered in ivy and just nature recreating everything.
(47:12):
So yeah, it's you know, but also not really happened
in night life, well except at the seme exactly. You
have an imagination. You're all set, like to a probably
terrifying your self degree. Either grow up and be a
(47:34):
weird artist or I don't know, something else.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
I do wonder. Yeah, I'm like, what did everyone else
do while I was doing weird stuff like hanging out
in the cemetery. I have no idea.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Yeah, I guess they were at the skating rink. I
don't know. I wasn't invited, so.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I went to the probably skating rink too. Actually I
don't know where people were in.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
My Yeah, wherever I am, everybody's always been like You're
not from here, are you? And I'm like, I'm sorry,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
I feel like I get that a lot too, and
It's funny when that happens when I'm in my hometown
where I'm like, I am.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
Actually I'm the thing you've heard of that's that lives
in the forest.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
That's why we have you know, my hometown has the
love and frog, which is you know, the four foot
tall bipedle frog. And I'm just like, well, I'll find
them eventually. That's that. Actually, that is what I was doing,
is I was running around in the woods looking for
the frog.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
Well that's completely va.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
And all I ever found were coyotes. But maybe one
day I'll find them.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
And then look at where you are now, it's you know,
it's a.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Path exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
I think before when we were talking, I was babbling
a bit about how I see perfumery with like ghosts things. Yeah,
so this is like sketches of a night of ideas.
There's more just you know, more babbling on my part.
But so I think perfume is spirit when you think
(49:16):
about it, because spirit is an essence of something and
it can it's not tied to a place, you know, Yeah,
and a ghost tends to be tied to a place.
So I would say ghost and memory are rather interchangeable.
When you think about it, and our sense of smell
(49:38):
is fully developed when we're three months old in the womb.
It's our first fully developed and it's what we sort
of experience life with first.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yeah, before, but it can really use your eyes.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Yeah, And it's it's also the most difficult to articulate
because it was initially to keep us safe from things
that were like or bad or you know, not hygienic.
And but it is the sense most tied to memory. Yes,
(50:14):
And you know, people smell things and you can just
see them time traveling. But I see it all the time.
You know. It's a wonderful thing to be a part of,
to kind of be a witness and like be there
with them while they're smelling the things I've made that
I've made with Like this is my sketch and my
(50:36):
interpretation of what I feel this means. But that does it.
I don't want you to think the same thing. If
you don't, I want to hear what you think. You know,
this is like a row shark test. This is a talk. Yes,
So it's a very powerful thing.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Super time, you.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Know, And I think that when I really hit my
personal bingo with my perfumes, They're not just spirits or ghosts.
They're apparitions. I know, yeah, which I was looking into, like, well,
what's the source of apparition? And I'm not going to
try to say it because I'll butcher it. But it
(51:15):
was the Latin word for a peer, and I think
it was first used in the fifteen hundreds to describe
the three Wise men showing up or something. And I'm like, dang,
So it's like when something just shows up like boom,
that's an apparition.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
I'm trying to see if I can get it to
tell us.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
Something the Latin, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
How to say it, but it's not cooperating with me.
Speaker 4 (51:44):
Pary. I probably put in timoy re in there.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Ca Ricio something like that.
Speaker 4 (51:51):
We'll take that. Don't get real quick, like I'll sound
Louisiana if I'm mad or Reilly or drunk or trying
to say maybe for bench.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
That's the funny part. Being born in like southern Ohio
where you know where I was born, was real like
had like a thick accent, which is a very specifically
Southern Ohio northern Kentucky accent, and then that went away
just from years of people being like you know, you
needn't talk like this. And then being back in Kentucky,
(52:24):
now I can hear it come out real strong the
longer I'm here. And then also like all my extendon
families from West Virginia, so I get that too also
coming in it's just the twain comes and goes.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
And it's like you'll be doing it and not even
know you're doing it. And you know that's me too.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
I lived in Louisiana un til my early twenties, and
then I lived in Wisconsin, which is like the complete
opposite of Louisiana, very opposite but great in its own way.
You know. When I first lived there, I saw the
movie Fargo, and I know that snota but I like
did not get the humor, Like why is this funny?
(53:07):
These people aren't saying anything. Everything is just everything is
so flat, you know. And then I lived there, I
don't know, three months, and I thought it was the
funniest thing I had ever seen because I picked up
on the cultural nuances. Yeah, so I kind of see
Kustee like the mix of those two places.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
It kind of it kind of is it is like
a weird mix of uper a little bit of Midwest
and then southern. Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
Think of it like the southern Midwest. Yeah, Like there's
there's a lot of pepsi prada, what is that stuff?
Miracle whip?
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Oh, miracle whip, Oh my gosh, and.
Speaker 4 (53:55):
Know like those are my those are my Yankee tails.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Like my grandpa loved miracle and I was always like,
why are you putting that on a sandwich?
Speaker 4 (54:06):
A sandwich full of miracles?
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (54:08):
Yeah, but I really like it here. There's it's like
the it's like what I it's got a lot that
I love about the Deep South without a lot of
what I doult love about the Deep South.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Yes, yeah, that that's a great way to put it
to chiplomatic is that's a great way to put it
in very accurate.
Speaker 4 (54:35):
And there is a neat, weird, cool little town. We
found it when we were house hunting. I never knew
what the heck of Winchester was before then. We lived
in Lexington before moving here, and we just saw this
house on Zillow and we're like, where is that house?
Speaker 3 (54:50):
That place is cool?
Speaker 4 (54:52):
How does it get on the market for over a year?
It was the al eight luring you in that Ala
mald by the power of the pailing, just being like,
come here and buy it with pocket doors.
Speaker 5 (55:09):
Guard.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
I do love a good pocket door.
Speaker 4 (55:12):
Yeah, they're pretty sweet. I'm not gonna lie. I just
opened them and close them for dories.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
I wouldn't too if I had them, I'd be like,
you know what da is that?
Speaker 4 (55:22):
Man? Mm hmm. Our house was in nineteen o six,
and as far as I can tell, no ghosts. Maybe
sometimes like we he we have three cats, and it
seems like sometimes it could just be catnus, but it
seems like sometimes we're here like eight Yeah, but close
as it gets.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Yeah, I kind of It's always funny to me when
old houses aren't haunted where I'm like, this place really
looks like it should be haunted, but it's not.
Speaker 4 (55:50):
Yeah, I mean ours looks like it would be haunted.
That's why I bought it, Yeah, because that's the goal.
It's a what do they call it? A American four
square craftsman like kind of mission style Edwardian like, it's
not a super I say, gaudy in the best way.
(56:12):
I'm gaudy.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Yeah, Oh, I love gatdy stuff, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 4 (56:16):
It's not as like wonderfully gaudy. As a Victorian, but
it's like way more gaudy than like, I don't know,
a split level ranch now now yeah, of modern times,
so we love it. It's got a walk up attic
that has not and it makes me think of the
Hoodoo Room and Skeleton key.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:37):
Yeah, it's like you wait till I feel like messing
with that third Hoodoo room, Like I don't enough.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
That's the place I moved to. Now it's like this
little circle of town homes and they're nondescript, are fine,
but it was the main reason I liked it is
because there's a pond in the middle of all that,
which is great until now the geese are all trying
to get my garage and I'm like, please no, please no.
But the pond itself is really pretty and I just like,
(57:14):
none of them are in our yard or anything, but
I love the willow trees that are over the pond.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
I love just ah man curly willow is gorgeous for
like making wreaths and wonds and things.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
And that's the downside of since none of them are
in my yard, I'm like, are they gonna get upset
if I go and try to collect the willow branches.
Speaker 4 (57:43):
I bet they'll be like, no, you're doing us a favor.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
Yeah. I might just like, honestly, I might knock on
the door and be like, hey, do you mind if
I clean some of that up. I'm gonna make some wreathes.
So just figured i'd get some out of your way.
I am helping either that or I'm just going to
dive into the pond and go for it.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Yeah, feel but wait till you see somebody running it
up and be like, hey, I can take that for
you since you brought it this far.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Yeah, just let me let me get that out of
your way.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Yeah. My perfume seventy nine moons is the base of
that is popular buds, which are like nature amber, which
is in the willow family and is originated as being
from the willow family. So if anyone has sensitivities to aspirin,
the willow alone. But if you don't aspirin, you can
(58:37):
take some of that wood. I would check on the
varieties and you know, make yourself a nice like headache
easing team. Speaking of talking a bit about your interest
in teas before teas into Saints and all that could.
Speaker 3 (58:54):
I've been big on the Echanaesia tea recently because we're
frog infested. With two days, I completely lost my voice afterwards.
Anytime we do any event that's like more than one day,
I lose my voice. So all last week was a
lot of achinasia and honey.
Speaker 4 (59:10):
Oh good, I'm glad you're feeling better.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yeah, yeah, me too. I can I can hear it
still a little bit, but it's like, oh, I can
talk now, because like last week, when I tried to talk,
it was like it squeaking out where I was like, oh, okay,
we're not doing that this week.
Speaker 4 (59:25):
I guess Another one you might like along those lines
is Ela campaign and that's also known as elk wort.
And I learned about it because it's a plant for odin,
and when I made my odin sculpture, initially it was
like to put by the elf word in my garden.
And that's like nature's Camphoris losenges with the root. You
(59:49):
get it and you slice it up like like the
year old root. If you clean them well and get
a pint jar, put the little bite sized pieces in
there and cover it with local raw honey, and you
have this fantastic medicine for like your whole lungs and
throat and everything. But be very careful because it put
(01:00:09):
you powerfully to sleep, or it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Does mean I mean sometimes that's the best thing of medicine.
Like that is like, well, is gonna make me feel better?
And then also I'm going to be asleep.
Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
It's got this beautiful fragrance too. It's like cold violets.
It makes me think of like Orris root a bit
Ooh yeah, I love them.
Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Oh wow, we're at the top of the hour. I
just noticed we're not distracted talking. Since we're at the
top of the hour, we'll go ahead and sign off
from Strange Talk. So good night everyone and good luck bye.
Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
You are listening to Radio Art Effect on sixteen sixty
MAN in North Side and ninety one point seven MHD
to WBXU in Cincinnati.
Speaker 6 (01:01:16):
Sh S s S.
Speaker 5 (01:02:20):
Offing for
Speaker 6 (01:03:27):
Sass S
No space.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
In good evening and welcome to the hour dedicated to
(01:28):
talking about all things strange, weird and paranormal. You're listening
to Strange Talk broadcasting on sixteen sixty AM, the North Side,
ninety one point seven FM, HG two WVX You and Cincinnati.
We're also streaming at Radio Artifact dot com around the
entire planet Earth. The intro tact to this episode, in
most of our episodes, is the Strange Talk Intro by
Star Silk and I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Your host, Alex and we have a very special guest tonight.
If you want to introduce yourself.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Hello, I am Sarah Joseph Clark of Moon and Sun Emporium.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, and uh, just so our listeners know kind of
how this came about you. How I found you was
you made a perfume called Hant Country like Olivia and
Matthew's book that we've talked about before on the show,
and it smells amazing. Genuinely, it is one of my favorites,
(02:21):
and it like stays on so much longer than my
other perfumes, and it just has this nice earthy Appalachian dirt,
like good dirt soil.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
It's just it isn't fun time to describe fragrance.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It is where it's just like, how do I describe this?
It's good, it's it's dirt, but in a good way.
It's dirt but not dirty. It's like soil that is
ready for plants, is how I like to think of it.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Ripe maybe ripe soil, ancestral soil.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, I've taken classes in trying to better articulate scent myself,
and I work with scent every day and it's still
difficult for me.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah, I feel like that's the part of it I
would be better at, is like trying to describe it afterwards.
But yeah, as we were talking for a while before
this before we start recording, and you've been making perfume
for you said twenty years now.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yes, I have been making for twenty years. I got
into it because I could not find solid perfume at
the time, and what there was in most of today
I would classify more as like a lip bomb base
pcent rather than what I consider solid perfume. I are
(03:51):
afard of. Mine is cream perfume when I make those sorts. Yeah,
very like decadent in oily, And you know, the basis
they're usually like floral waxes.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
And just yeah, it's a little it's smoother, but it
doesn't necessarily stay on as long when it's that kind
of creamy balmy.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
At least that's what I found.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Yeah, I remember just one of my formative memories of
perfume as a young girl was like solid perfume, and
so it was sort of it made it all the
more magical, and when I couldn't find it, it just
was the sort of like, well, let's let's see who
we can figure out how to do this. And I
(04:38):
initially had ten cents and I had them all in
a shoe box and I just made them for me,
and other people loved them and wanted to buy them,
and which was very nice and unexpected, and just kind
of grew from there, and people wanted to know if
(04:59):
I had read the book or seeing the film Perfume
Story of a Murderer, which I find to be a
great compliment in its own wonderfully strange way. So that's
kind of how I got started, was necessity as the
mother of an invention, and my perfumes were what would
(05:22):
be called like at the time, like full spectrum or
mixed media perfumes until about a handful of years ago
I decided to make them all completely natural, and I
went to the Natural Perfume Academy, which to my knowledge
is the only accredited school for such an education in
(05:43):
the world, And it's based in Ireland, Brazil and California,
and it's, you know, a wonderful course. I can't recommend
it enough. If anyone has any interest in perfumery, go there.
The future, because it's the past, you know. I think
(06:04):
a lot more people are a lot more interested in
pronounceable ingredients and things.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yes, that is a good point. A lot of perfume
ingredients are not pronounceable in the same way a lot
of food ingredients are also, like sodium's orbital stuff like that,
where it's like you don't know what that means at all?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
It means you just know and at all what does
that taste like? I don't know. I don't want to know. Yeah,
So that's what I do my perfumes. I grow some
of the ingredients, I extract some of the ingredients I
otherwise try to source. Essential oil is absolute, formal waxes,
(06:54):
all of that I try to source from. Like people,
I know, usually through school that work that either are
themselves or work with like mom and pop type type
farmers that like their passion is this one ingredient. Let's
say one of my suppliers, whose name is Cher, if
(07:15):
she's listening, hey girl, share she owns eo Apothecare and
she'll like go over to Egypt to buy violet leaf
concrete for the rest of us, and just uh so
cool and be able travels.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, yes, that's so cool. I know, I know, honestly,
what a dream job to be able to travel around
and source perfume materials for people.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
It's so true. And there's a lot that's also like
if you're willing to experiment, there's a lot you can
do in your own garden, however large or small, where
you can just kind of to me, it's just it's
a beautiful thing. It feels. It makes me My magic
(08:09):
is very affected, you know, Like my magic and my
perfumery is all very like elemental planetary and so for
let's say, for some you know, for something to have
all of the elements in it, like it grew in
the earth and it was fed by their rain and
the sun. It went through like face steamed distillation, and
(08:33):
so it had fire in that aspect somewhere, you know,
Just like that to me is so poetic.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, we were talking about it before. We were according
to about how it's kind of like your way to
get to participate in alchemy in the modern day, which
is so cool and so fun, and why is alchemy
not part of more in our lives?
Speaker 4 (08:54):
I know, to me, alchemy is where psychology and chemistry meet,
and so like spagirics from alchemy would be it's just
for brevity. I'll just say, to like reduce something down
to its essential salts after everything else has been taken
(09:14):
from it, and then to like reintroduce that back into say,
if it was a perfume. And there are there are
perfumers out there that you know, make spagiric perfumes, They're
few and far between. I have a little bit of
that work in my own, but that's something I'm still learning.
(09:34):
You talk about just some big, big folk magic with that. Yeah,
that's that's super neat though, thank you. It's just so cool,
really cool. You're gonna have to do it. You're gonna
have to do it.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
I know I've been wanting to.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Well, whenever it aligns, you'll have to come over. I'm
in Winchester and yeah, that's my crazy Perfumer's organ with
all this madness.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, literally literally let me know anytime. That sounds amazing. Yeah,
we'll have to. We'll get Olivia to come to so
she can sign her hat Country Books sign.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yes, she's the elusive one.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
She is.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I feel like that's the most artists, Hi, Olivia, that's
most artists. Is uh. They have to be a little
bit elusive. They have to be a little bit, you know,
of a cryptid.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I rather be like direxel in a good way, Like
I'm still a mystery to you for true romance. But
maybe I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I'm trying to think of like there's a single artist
out there that is not somewhat of a mystery, and
I cannot think of one other than like maybe Andy Warhol,
but like his stuff was intentionally really consumer wristic. But
I can't think of anybody else. I feel like everybody's
got some air of mystery to them. Did I lose you?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
There? Oh?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
There we go? Oh there we go? The audio cut it.
I was like, did I lose you?
Speaker 4 (11:23):
I was saying nonsense. I know there's always more.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
It was that was your mysterious secret nonsense.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
You're being too straightforward in that.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
The technology said.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Recently, I went in Dillard's Sometimes I just like to
go in the big box stores in the perfumery and
just like be nosy, and I was like, how many
of these are natural? And he just looks around and
he's like, none of them? Where are you? I'm like, oh,
(12:07):
I just was curious. I'd make ones that are natural.
It's like, what do you make it out of? Like
wood or something? Wow, that's so neat.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I like that wood is The first question is is
it made of wood?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It's hand carved perfume, hand whittled. Oh boy, my rock
and whittle a perfume.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, that's a really nude. Part of me is also
wondering if he was just like none of them, because
he was like, I have no idea.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I didn't read the manual. I don't tell.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
M h uh they're all natural or none of them
are natural, somewhere in.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Between, isa hahaha, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I feel like I'm always honest about that when I'm like,
I don't know, I've got no.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Idea, Like if you don't, you don't know, there's no shame.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Usually I'm like, I don't know, let's google it because
I can look things up now, And that's really nice
and helpful.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
You have the thing in your pocket that is an
extension of your brain.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yes, it's I think about that because like when I
was a kid, you know, the Internet existed, but it
wasn't like something that everybody had access to yet. Yes,
And I just think back to back then, and there
was just like so much stuff I didn't know. Like
the biggest thing is like I would go to school
and like there'd be a holiday coming up and everyone
(13:48):
would be talking about it, and I'm like, how does
everybody know when these holidays are? And I didn't have
the internet, so I couldn't just look up when is
this holiday? And so I was so confused all the
time time. So it is nice now to just be
able to be like, what is that that?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yes, I'm gen X and I think I started using
the internet late nineties maybe yeah. I was born at
seventy eight, let's see, And the first thing I used
the Internet for was there was this website called the
Misfits Bible, and it was the entire discography of Misfits
(14:28):
Sam Hayne Danzig of like all of the seven inch
records and bootleg vhs that you can track down. And
I was at university at the time, and I printed
out that whole thing and you make a manual whole
puncher and had a binder, and as I would would
acquire things, I would like highlight them, you know, out
(14:50):
of that was that was like the best invention ever. Like,
there's this thing called you can find out about like
the whole Misfit Sam Hayne dancing discossions.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, and then you you can print it out. I
completely forgot like early Internet, anything cool you found on there,
you would print it out, like your GPS instructions. You
would have to look it up and like map quest it,
oh my.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Gosh, and like all I did with it for years
would be little things like that, and I completely forgot
about it, I think until I started selling online, you know,
and then I was like we should do that too.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, the IDA has changed so much. Like yeah, early Internet.
I remember when I was younger, it was like me
and my brother would like go through and find guitar
tabs for everything and print them out and meticulously organize
them in this binder, and I would alpha, I would
help them alphabetize them. Yes, and that was the early Internet.
(15:47):
It was you'd have to print it off and then
you'd have to organize it yourself.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Did you have one of those punches that did all
three at once or did you have to do each
individual punch?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I honestly think I didn't have either, and I just
stabbed it through the blinds.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I think I had just an individual.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Punch and Eric whoever, whoever made the one with all
three genius genius, real real solutions to real problems. I
missed the forum days of the Internet.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Yeah, I guess it's some things try to be now,
but I completely forget all about all of that.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, it's not the same as it was. The Internet
used to feel like it was a small group of people,
and now it's everybody is on the Internet everywhere, and
half of the Internet is fake.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
It really is. I remember way when I was first
selling perfume online, it was my web presence. I had
like a video trading website for bootlegs like I was
talking about, of vh and and rare movies, and that
(17:04):
was my main website. It was called the house that
screams and this one little it was like an angel
Fire side.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
You know, I missed angel Fire too, but.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
It paid to get rid of pop ups though. Okay,
it was like a page extension of that for my perfumes,
because you know, then people just started buying them. I'm like,
how did you find me? What are you doing?
Speaker 6 (17:32):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (17:33):
And I got all high tech and I had like
one PayPal button for domestic and one PayPal button for international. Yeah,
all figured out. And yeah, you didn't even have to
have a picture.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, no, you didn't have to have a picture. You
didn't have to have anything.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
And now people want like QBC but like you're there's
so much competition. They're really yeah, like if you're if
you're able to do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
That's actually I think that's part of why the Internet
is so different now, is it's like we're almost reaching
like this sort of like technological singularity, but just in
terms of all websites are slowly starting to look exactly
the same. Yes, I yes, and it makes it that's
what makes me miss things like angel Fire, where you
would have these or GeoCities where you have these just
(18:31):
wild websites where it's just like the whole background is
glitter and moving and everything is spinning, and I kind of.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Like the MySpace of websites.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, oh, I think really cool. I can directly I mean,
it's fine, I'm right there with you, but like I
can directly pinpoint the two reasons I end up working
in it. Where one because my brother kept breaking the
computer and I didn't fix it. We didn't have a computer,
(19:02):
And two was MySpace. Learning to code on MySpace is
how I ended up in my first I job.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well, I see people are like rock stars now, I
mean they're they're like they're like rock star utility providers.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's you know what I mean, that's it's starting to
fall out of fashion now. I think only because of
like COVID and all that. I think so many people
started in it now that that's now kind of like
slowly starting to go away, and it's not going very fast.
But it is interesting because, yeah, it used to be
when I started it, which was ten years ago, you
(19:41):
would have what we would always call like the it Wizard,
which is like the guy that has been there forever
and like he wears the same thing every day and
no one says anything because he knows how everything works,
so we're just gonna let him do what he needs
to do.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, that was the like the I don't know Cuthulhu
Mythos elder god of Icy. That's kind from a drop
guy from the Simpson Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It's very much like that.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I aspired to one day be one of the old
like it Wizards of just like, yes, I know how
it all works.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
I think my husband is kind of that modern equivalent
of that. He he's gosh, he's a senior software developer
for a firm out of Boston. Oh cool, Like his
PhD is in cybersecurity. He wrote his first program when
he was I think four, Oh that's so cool. It'll
(20:43):
be forty five. And he's British, so it all no
matter what he says, it's not smart.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
People like ways talking about I don't know what he
just said, but he knows.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
In it.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
So yeah, that's really funny. Yeah, the Internet has changed
so much.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
It has like I try to learn from it and
adapt with you know, I've been an artist, the self
representing artists for a really long time. I've seen a
lot in all these years, and it's really interesting. Like
(21:23):
from a sociological perspective, and but you have to like
keep up with it and understand. I don't know what
normal is for people now, you know. Yeah, I mean
I've always I've always like really like I won't put
anything up until it's ready, and I have some made
(21:45):
of whatever it is, if it's perfume, culture, if it's
prints of my paintings, you know whatever, because a million
and one things can happen, and you know, you want
to make people glad they sent you money, is actually
they don't know you. I know that that's a really
ridiculous concept, but.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
But yeah, you don't want to let anybody down to
like plans change.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
That's even like when I said in the radio show
in I don't like announce that episode until it is
end and I know that it is in the queue,
just because I'm like, anything could happen, the Q could
mess up, and I don't want to be like this
week's episode. Oh nope, nope, that's not out.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Sorry, my bad, because I bet even though you're a
creative person, you're probably more of an engineering mind. Yeah,
but that know that I actually am in my way,
like I'm like compared to I love y'all, but a
lot of artists, I know, I am, you know, this
(22:45):
little old lady stuck in the mud, you know, when
it comes to structure in my bedtime and boundaries.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And that's funny because I feel like my my schedule
is so just pure chaos. And part of that, I
think is because my day job is so structured that
once I'm like not doing that, Like it's just pure chaos.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
You structured your structure, and now you have scheduled your chaos.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
That is a great way of looking at it, because
that's how I've always described I'm like, it's organized chaos,
is how I like to call it. It's like I
know where everything is. It looks like a mess, but
I know where everything is in that.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Mess, absolutely. I know. Dave even talked a lot about
the importance of a routine and structure, Like every day
for years at two o'clock he would go, have you know,
a chocolate shake and a coffee at the very same
big boy, ye know, I think, like even years or something.
And he had a lot to say about how behaviors
(23:53):
like that really free up your mind to be created
because you're not having to think about these things.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, that is that is a great way of looking
at it too.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
So I'll say, no, I'm like David Lynch, I'm not
you know, not.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
You're saying that I'm looking at Like one of the
books that I keep on you know, my desk that
I record everything at is Room to Dream, David Lynch's book,
because I like his philosophy of like things is just
like it's so perfect to how I do things where
it is yeah, organized chaos, and then also you know,
like at the same time, just he has this weird
(24:33):
like positivity through everything, Like when he was doing those
weather reports during quarantine, that was just the best thing.
That was like the highlight of my day every day.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
I know, oh I missed him so meeting, But I
grew up with you know, his work and it's a huge,
huge influence on my own work. You know, Twin Peaks
when that originally aired, and every week I would you know,
sit down and record it on BHS and you know,
(25:09):
when the movie came out, I saw it in the theater,
and years and years later though, when the return came out,
I was like, I am not watching this until it's
all available. I waited every week.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Everybody smart that is so smart.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
All I'm just going to buy it out right and no, no, no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I think that is the fun difference kind of between
like it shows you stuff will wait every week and
now it's just like you can bing it all at once,
so it's like why would you wait?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
And now it's like they're kind of like it's the
eternal recurrence of television. I swear it's like doing it
again where there's commercials and you have to wait a
week for the next episode of White Lotus and it
drives you insane.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
But you know, as we were talking about with Perfume, though,
you've got to wait for good things. So true, it's
learning relearning that patience.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Like you need to just forget about it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Not being able to forget about it is sometimes a
good thing.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
It is, it really is. Yeah. There's this book ready
years ago and I wouldn't say I was able to
fully grasp every bit of it, but man, I feel
smarter just saying the title. It was called The Origin
of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and
it was right, and it was about, basically from what
(26:39):
I understood, we're only able to hold so much in
our conscious at a time, but everything, like in the
sort of Youngian sense separately, like everything doesn't want to
get sponged up, it's just kind of knowing how to
access it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, And that was kind of one of the big
things through David Lynch's were too that, like I really
resonate too is yeah, like sort of these ideas that
come from your subconscious, and he was really big on that.
I think that's actually part of why I like Twin
Peaks so much. Like even then, you know, Agent Cooper's
talking about, you know, all these different techniques to access
(27:17):
your subconscious, and I went, yeah, that makes sense to me.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I really am of the opinion that David Lynch's Dune
is special Agent Dale Cooper's origin story.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Oh I love that idea.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
And yeah, and I think that as a kid he
was Jeffrey Beaumont before he was in Dude. I really
love that idea. But if you know, if you think
about it, you're like, well, I mean, how did he
get so smart? He was, well, he was the dude and.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Dude, yeah exactly. And also I just love Kyle maclaughlan.
He's also such a weird person he.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Is, and like I just I couldn't stop laughing at
his little hair clips. I don't know why. I just
was like, oh, we got like Evil Western Cooper.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I love Evil Western Couser.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
And we're all named after Twin Peaks characters. We have
Special Agent Dale Cooper and Diane and Lucy. We did
we did have Audrey, but she died of a brain
tumor very very young baby. This is but you.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yes, but those are great, great names. Have you Have
you ever made any like Twin Peaks kind of themed
perfumes or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
I have worked on them. I used to make one
called Candy Colored Clown years ago that was like a
blue velvet one. Obviously. Yeah, I love that. I sketched
out ideas for the Black Lodge, the White Lodge, and
the Red Room, and like the Great Northern and where
(29:05):
the police station in Twin Peaks with like the donuts donuts,
like I think I overwhelmed myself.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, I'm just gonna start with one.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
And I was like, let's just calm down. You just
need down, Yes, because it's easy to do. I like
way before that I made years ago. I made a
sort of an endorsed set of perfumes for the film
spider Baby. Have you ever heard of spider Babies?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Not?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
It was Sid Haig's first film when he was nineteen,
and I believe it was Lawn Cheney Junior's last film.
It was directed by Jack Hill and it's except you'll
love it. You have to look it up.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yeah, I've pulled up with the Wikipedia page. Oh and
it's on TV for free, so I can watch it later.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
But years ago, gosh, this was probably fifteen years ago,
I made like a like an official endorsed set of
perfumes inspired by that film and the characters and the places,
and so I like, you know, things that I love
(30:31):
like that, you know, I do love to collaborate ideally officially. Yeah,
And I made an unofficial set around the same time
for the original Wickerman. Oh that's cool, thank you. And
it had like let's see like a myrtle says and
(30:57):
a martyr's death and and take the flame inside you
like there's quite nine or freaking twelve of them or something.
And around that same time, I sculpted Nuada the Sun God,
and I do still sell casts of that original sculpture.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Was that was that the sculpture you had at the market.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
It may have been. Is it like a really creepy
sun Yes, yes, that's Nuada, the sun god from the
original Whipperman. I also have sculpted things I make like
al Caa rings from Gwinipeaks fire walk with me. It's
like it's like more of an assemblage with sculpted elements.
(31:48):
And I've sculpted Odin, you know, the Norse god Odin
santam Werta. Let's see. I think my most recent one
kind of took the life out of me for sculpting
for a while. And it's an atomically correct, life sized
human vertebrate candle holder. That is cool, it's sick. I'm
(32:12):
not gonna lie. I have just super cool and make
a little baby ones too, because you don't want to
be you don't want to just offer the big one,
you know, like, well little babies if you you know.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I see the deep down, we're all crows and we
love a little trinket.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
It's true, true. And I sculpt a lot of like jewelry,
and I teach a class on that at you can
find Arts Institute on Sculpting learning how to make platinum
silicon molds and cold casting metal and porcelain jewelry. And
you can use like every step of that separately, or
(32:52):
you can scale it up to make your own great, big,
fine candleholder. You know, I'm like doing go do it.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
That's also super cool. And I'm like, I just see,
I love the all the things you do because I'm
always like, that's all just like stuff that I am like,
that would be really fun to play with you if.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
You should do it. Thank you. It's you see inspiration everywhere.
I think I've spent the last couple of decades learning
all these crazy different processes, and you know, for the
longest time, I would hear things I'm a self educated
artist other than perfumery, I don't have any formal art education. Yeah,
(33:39):
and I would hear from galleries and things that would
initially like be interested, and then they'd be like, well, actually,
you know you're not brandable. You know, you do things,
and you know, I just imagine like these emails written
like the tone like they had their cheese held together
or something. And so I've you know, I'm more than
(34:01):
accustomed to not being the cool kid, and you know,
so I'm fine being my own brand by now. By now,
it's like I make the incense and I make the
incense holders, I make the candles, and I make the
candle holders. Yeah, prints, I make jewelry, I make you know, like,
(34:24):
what are you going to do? I don't. I'm my
own damn art gallery. I don't need you.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Know, exactly well, and that's super cool too that you make,
you know, the candle and the candle holders. So you
get to be part of like all parts of that,
you know, creation, and I.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Can like be honest about what it's made of, and
you know, I delve over into things that I see
a lot of adulteration too. Like one of my perfumes
is moldibite first and foremost, because I wanted to source
real moldibite because that's one of those things that people
(35:01):
just like lie and.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Say is in there when it's not.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yeah, or say that they're bringing and it's like, well,
that could be a L eight glass, you know, I.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Love that.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
And blue lotus absolute as far as ingredients go, that's
like incredibly expensive, and so I try to be a
source of like first and foremost the things I create,
but also things that can be kind of like adulterated,
or most people don't they're like intrigued by, but they
(35:41):
won't know the real thing if they saw it, if
that makes sense. So yeah, even if you see it
in person, or even if they just smell it in person,
that's probably going to stay with them. If it's something
they're interested in acquiring. It didn't even have to be
for me. I don't care, and I do that. I'm
working on doing that with food as well, because ood
(36:01):
is just I collect ood. It's incredibly like if I
was a billionaire, I would have like super huge pieces
of food, but I am not so and I have
a little bit from all kinds of areas. But it's
it's fascinating stuff. It's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And that's just like one of those one day if
I ever win the lottery things.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yes exactly, or if I, uh, I don't know. I
just don't have the taste to do any like super
great big it's gonna seize all of pop culture type
you know, collaborations, and I'm I get that, you know so,
(36:45):
but like I can only make so much stuff anyway.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Exactly well, and it's more fun, I think to be
able to create what you want to create.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Absolutely, And I am super huge on the personal relationship.
I I'm not good at small talk, but I can
talk your head off as you're like, seeing about that,
I feel like talking about forever.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
I feel like I'm a little bit the same way.
Like the only reason I can do any small talk
is because if someone wants to talk about the weather,
I can talk about the weather all day. And then
they get a little unnerved that I'm continuing to talk
about the weather.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
And they're like, what are you really up to?
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I just think it's cool.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Conversation at all.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
You told me to talk about the weather. I'm talking
about the weather. I don't know what you want.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Yes, And for me, though, my you know, I do
what I do. I'm fortunate enough to do what I
do full time, and I just am kind of like
in this room of my home most of the day
doing it. And I'll leave a few days a month
to bend at an event or teach. I sell mostly online,
(38:01):
and but every bit of it. It's it's like I
more am just kind of looking for my people, if
that makes sense, not in you know, in a wholesome
way of like if you like what I do, I
bet we'd be friends. Yes, Yeah, that's a language.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
It is that that is a great way of yeah
phrasing that too, of like, if you are enjoying this,
then we will probably get along.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
I used to hear nonsense like oh and if you
may like like if you know, if you have so
many great ideas, you go do it. Yeah, you can
leave it. I will probably not get everything made that
I have planned out right now before I.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Die, so right, the ideas will continue to come.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
And the only sort of custom work I'll stop everything
and do at this point is if a friend of
mine loses a pet, Yeah, I will, you know, I
like friends, like, it isn't something I sell or anything,
But if they lose a pet, I you know, I
wait in an appropriate amount of time, and I you know,
(39:12):
and I say, like, you know, if you would like
a piece of memorial jewelry with their hair or their
cremaines or whatever you have, let me know, let me
know what you'd like it to look like, and I
will make that happen for you because you mean everything
to me. And I'm like a gift love language kind
of person. I guess, wow. But other than that, like nope.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, that's that's such a cool idea too. My snake
passed away last year, and so I have her buried
on the side of my house and I'm waiting to
get her bones out because I want to put them
back together. Yeah, because I was like, I want to
hold on to that because like, she's so important to me,
and you know, I first and last person I talked
(39:57):
to every single day for over six years.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
So no, And if there's anything I can make for you,
of course, I.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Might ask you some questions because I'm like, I want
to put her bones together, but I feel like it
would be cool to have something as well. A friend
of mine actually three D printed me and I also
keep this yere when I record, a little kind of
skeletal snake that I keep here that just reminds me
of her when I record, so it feels like she
gets to listen in on all of my recordings.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Still, do you have any of her sheds?
Speaker 3 (40:33):
I I think I do, actually.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Because I know offhand I have some extra like glass lockets.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
And that's a great idea to.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Give you one of those, you know, and see or
you might like it for the end result later too.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because I was always like, I
never know what to do with her shed. I know
that I could do cool stuff with it, but I
don't know what to do with it.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
I I have a friend who her her snake is alive,
and she gives me the sheds, and I'll like make
something here and there in return. And my Salas Sallus
was an ancient Minor, ancient Roman goddess of prosperity, and
she was always portrayed with bowls feeding the snakes and
(41:19):
the perfume incense in her honor, and like the packaging
always has ethically acquired shaped shed snake goodies. Yeah, it's
so pretty.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
They're so pretty, and they're such sweet little creatures.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
I would have them if my cats would be like.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Cats and snakes historically don't super get along unfortunately.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Dang.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yeah sometimes though, But yeah, I've been I've been having
dreams recently about ball pythons, and so I'm like, does
this mean I need to get another one soon?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
All that's yeah, you got to listen to those dreams.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yes, yeah, such sweet creatures.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Oh, I'm a big believer in dreams, big believer.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung. Have you read that?
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
My minor in school was also psychology, and so like
I was like, I'm super into this stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
Oh gosh, I love Carl Jung. He's like the not
film director David Lynch.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
You know, yes, yes, they may may or may not
be the same person.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Actually, yeah, absolutely. I think when I read Synchronicity, I
think it's like his shortest book. But it was another
one that was like, Okay, why is this so hard
for me to like fully get this concept when this
book is this short. Yeah. And I finally like kept
(42:50):
repeating the subtitle on the cover like it is an
a causal connecting principle. That's all you need to know.
Just repeat it until it's.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Until it's just in there. Something they talked about before
we started recording. You said, there is a cryptid where
you live in Louisiana.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
So I was born and raised in Louisiana. I lived
there till my early twenties. I lived several places in
the state. I'm from Rapid's Parish and there's the parlangois
is specific to my parish, and he is half alligator
half human. I think the human like alligators, can climb trees,
(43:40):
but they usually tend to do it from what I understand,
when they're little, but imagine.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
The bigger they get, the harder that ya.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
And so the Parlangoa and like grun up a tree
with you know, your boyfriend and eat him. Oh. In
I think the sixties where there was a car oh
I think it was a car that was like kind
of had kind of the psycho treatment where it was
(44:13):
like submerged in a lake or something and they pulled
it out and all the people in it had been
like devoured and they're parlang Wi. It was totally the
parlang Yeah. And so he tends to show up in
like the local Marti Gras parades the most, and usually
(44:34):
that's why.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
There's some alligatormen in there. I always wondered about that.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
Yep. So usually the top half, but I've seen it
where like the whole thing is like this like hybrid
too as far as like portrayals and things. So he's
specific to where I'm from, and Rapid's parish is right
smack in the middle of the state and and the
(45:02):
other thing. I think that was a huge cool influence
growing up. There was a Rapid Cemetery, which was an
established cemetery as far back as forty years before Louisiana
was part of the United States, Like it was oh yeah,
and it had the cool thing of like socioeconomic status
(45:29):
and race, ethnicity, gender, none of that mattered as far
as who was buried there.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah, that's pretty rare in cemeteries.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
It was in its own way, like really really ahead
of its time, and my whole lifetime has been very
neglected unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
That's unfortunate.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
But that has its own beauty.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
You know.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
That was like the closest I had to park in
the neighborhood growing and there would be man there'd be
like the the tombs, like the above bound some of
the above ground tombs. They would have been missing the
door and the body and the whatever for like who
(46:12):
knows how long. So it was a fun little place
to go play and cut yourself in and go draw
and you know, be a little goffling, little baby baby cemetery.
You encountered such a thing. You're in freaking Pineville, Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
And there's nothing else to do but go hang out
in the cemetery. It hacks me up. I feel like
like in modern times people are like, why are people
hanging out in the cemetery, And it's like, well, that
used to be They were kind of built to just
be parks, a lot of them. That's what people used
to do, especially in Victorian times.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Yeah, and that neighborhood literally had three cemeteries, that being
one of them, and most of the houses are abandoned
and like just the stuff of awesome Southern Gothic dreams,
you know, covered in ivy and just nature recreating everything.
(47:12):
So yeah, it's you know, but also not really happened
in night life, well except at the seme exactly. You
have an imagination. You're all set, like to a probably
terrifying your self degree. Either grow up and be a
(47:34):
weird artist or I don't know, something else.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
I do wonder. Yeah, I'm like, what did everyone else
do while I was doing weird stuff like hanging out
in the cemetery. I have no idea.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Yeah, I guess they were at the skating rink. I
don't know. I wasn't invited, so.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I went to the probably skating rink too. Actually I
don't know where people were in.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
My Yeah, wherever I am, everybody's always been like You're
not from here, are you? And I'm like, I'm sorry,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
I feel like I get that a lot too, and
It's funny when that happens when I'm in my hometown
where I'm like, I am.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
Actually I'm the thing you've heard of that's that lives
in the forest.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
That's why we have you know, my hometown has the
love and frog, which is you know, the four foot
tall bipedle frog. And I'm just like, well, I'll find
them eventually. That's that. Actually, that is what I was doing,
is I was running around in the woods looking for
the frog.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
Well that's completely va.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
And all I ever found were coyotes. But maybe one
day I'll find them.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
And then look at where you are now, it's you know,
it's a.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Path exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
I think before when we were talking, I was babbling
a bit about how I see perfumery with like ghosts things. Yeah,
so this is like sketches of a night of ideas.
There's more just you know, more babbling on my part.
But so I think perfume is spirit when you think
(49:16):
about it, because spirit is an essence of something and
it can it's not tied to a place, you know, Yeah,
and a ghost tends to be tied to a place.
So I would say ghost and memory are rather interchangeable.
When you think about it, and our sense of smell
(49:38):
is fully developed when we're three months old in the womb.
It's our first fully developed and it's what we sort
of experience life with first.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yeah, before, but it can really use your eyes.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Yeah, And it's it's also the most difficult to articulate
because it was initially to keep us safe from things
that were like or bad or you know, not hygienic.
And but it is the sense most tied to memory. Yes,
(50:14):
And you know, people smell things and you can just
see them time traveling. But I see it all the time.
You know. It's a wonderful thing to be a part of,
to kind of be a witness and like be there
with them while they're smelling the things I've made that
I've made with Like this is my sketch and my
(50:36):
interpretation of what I feel this means. But that does it.
I don't want you to think the same thing. If
you don't, I want to hear what you think. You know,
this is like a row shark test. This is a talk. Yes,
So it's a very powerful thing.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Super time, you.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Know, And I think that when I really hit my
personal bingo with my perfumes, They're not just spirits or ghosts.
They're apparitions. I know, yeah, which I was looking into, like, well,
what's the source of apparition? And I'm not going to
try to say it because I'll butcher it. But it
(51:15):
was the Latin word for a peer, and I think
it was first used in the fifteen hundreds to describe
the three Wise men showing up or something. And I'm like, dang,
So it's like when something just shows up like boom,
that's an apparition.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
I'm trying to see if I can get it to
tell us.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
Something the Latin, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
How to say it, but it's not cooperating with me.
Speaker 4 (51:44):
Pary. I probably put in timoy re in there.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Ca Ricio something like that.
Speaker 4 (51:51):
We'll take that. Don't get real quick, like I'll sound
Louisiana if I'm mad or Reilly or drunk or trying
to say maybe for bench.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
That's the funny part. Being born in like southern Ohio
where you know where I was born, was real like
had like a thick accent, which is a very specifically
Southern Ohio northern Kentucky accent, and then that went away
just from years of people being like you know, you
needn't talk like this. And then being back in Kentucky,
(52:24):
now I can hear it come out real strong the
longer I'm here. And then also like all my extendon
families from West Virginia, so I get that too also
coming in it's just the twain comes and goes.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
And it's like you'll be doing it and not even
know you're doing it. And you know that's me too.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
I lived in Louisiana un til my early twenties, and
then I lived in Wisconsin, which is like the complete
opposite of Louisiana, very opposite but great in its own way.
You know. When I first lived there, I saw the
movie Fargo, and I know that snota but I like
did not get the humor, Like why is this funny?
(53:07):
These people aren't saying anything. Everything is just everything is
so flat, you know. And then I lived there, I
don't know, three months, and I thought it was the
funniest thing I had ever seen because I picked up
on the cultural nuances. Yeah, so I kind of see
Kustee like the mix of those two places.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
It kind of it kind of is it is like
a weird mix of uper a little bit of Midwest
and then southern. Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
Think of it like the southern Midwest. Yeah, Like there's
there's a lot of pepsi prada, what is that stuff?
Miracle whip?
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Oh, miracle whip, Oh my gosh, and.
Speaker 4 (53:55):
Know like those are my those are my Yankee tails.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Like my grandpa loved miracle and I was always like,
why are you putting that on a sandwich?
Speaker 4 (54:06):
A sandwich full of miracles?
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (54:08):
Yeah, but I really like it here. There's it's like
the it's like what I it's got a lot that
I love about the Deep South without a lot of
what I doult love about the Deep South.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Yes, yeah, that that's a great way to put it
to chiplomatic is that's a great way to put it
in very accurate.
Speaker 4 (54:35):
And there is a neat, weird, cool little town. We
found it when we were house hunting. I never knew
what the heck of Winchester was before then. We lived
in Lexington before moving here, and we just saw this
house on Zillow and we're like, where is that house?
Speaker 3 (54:50):
That place is cool?
Speaker 4 (54:52):
How does it get on the market for over a year?
It was the al eight luring you in that Ala
mald by the power of the pailing, just being like,
come here and buy it with pocket doors.
Speaker 5 (55:09):
Guard.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
I do love a good pocket door.
Speaker 4 (55:12):
Yeah, they're pretty sweet. I'm not gonna lie. I just
opened them and close them for dories.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
I wouldn't too if I had them, I'd be like,
you know what da is that?
Speaker 4 (55:22):
Man? Mm hmm. Our house was in nineteen o six,
and as far as I can tell, no ghosts. Maybe
sometimes like we he we have three cats, and it
seems like sometimes it could just be catnus, but it
seems like sometimes we're here like eight Yeah, but close
as it gets.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Yeah, I kind of It's always funny to me when
old houses aren't haunted where I'm like, this place really
looks like it should be haunted, but it's not.
Speaker 4 (55:50):
Yeah, I mean ours looks like it would be haunted.
That's why I bought it, Yeah, because that's the goal.
It's a what do they call it? A American four
square craftsman like kind of mission style Edwardian like, it's
not a super I say, gaudy in the best way.
(56:12):
I'm gaudy.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Yeah, Oh, I love gatdy stuff, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 4 (56:16):
It's not as like wonderfully gaudy. As a Victorian, but
it's like way more gaudy than like, I don't know,
a split level ranch now now yeah, of modern times,
so we love it. It's got a walk up attic
that has not and it makes me think of the
Hoodoo Room and Skeleton key.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:37):
Yeah, it's like you wait till I feel like messing
with that third Hoodoo room, Like I don't enough.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
That's the place I moved to. Now it's like this
little circle of town homes and they're nondescript, are fine,
but it was the main reason I liked it is
because there's a pond in the middle of all that,
which is great until now the geese are all trying
to get my garage and I'm like, please no, please no.
But the pond itself is really pretty and I just like,
(57:14):
none of them are in our yard or anything, but
I love the willow trees that are over the pond.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
I love just ah man curly willow is gorgeous for
like making wreaths and wonds and things.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
And that's the downside of since none of them are
in my yard, I'm like, are they gonna get upset
if I go and try to collect the willow branches.
Speaker 4 (57:43):
I bet they'll be like, no, you're doing us a favor.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
Yeah. I might just like, honestly, I might knock on
the door and be like, hey, do you mind if
I clean some of that up. I'm gonna make some wreathes.
So just figured i'd get some out of your way.
I am helping either that or I'm just going to
dive into the pond and go for it.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Yeah, feel but wait till you see somebody running it
up and be like, hey, I can take that for
you since you brought it this far.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Yeah, just let me let me get that out of
your way.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Yeah. My perfume seventy nine moons is the base of
that is popular buds, which are like nature amber, which
is in the willow family and is originated as being
from the willow family. So if anyone has sensitivities to aspirin,
the willow alone. But if you don't aspirin, you can
(58:37):
take some of that wood. I would check on the
varieties and you know, make yourself a nice like headache
easing team. Speaking of talking a bit about your interest
in teas before teas into Saints and all that could.
Speaker 3 (58:54):
I've been big on the Echanaesia tea recently because we're
frog infested. With two days, I completely lost my voice afterwards.
Anytime we do any event that's like more than one day,
I lose my voice. So all last week was a
lot of achinasia and honey.
Speaker 4 (59:10):
Oh good, I'm glad you're feeling better.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yeah, yeah, me too. I can I can hear it
still a little bit, but it's like, oh, I can
talk now, because like last week, when I tried to talk,
it was like it squeaking out where I was like, oh, okay,
we're not doing that this week.
Speaker 4 (59:25):
I guess Another one you might like along those lines
is Ela campaign and that's also known as elk wort.
And I learned about it because it's a plant for odin,
and when I made my odin sculpture, initially it was
like to put by the elf word in my garden.
And that's like nature's Camphoris losenges with the root. You
(59:49):
get it and you slice it up like like the
year old root. If you clean them well and get
a pint jar, put the little bite sized pieces in
there and cover it with local raw honey, and you
have this fantastic medicine for like your whole lungs and
throat and everything. But be very careful because it put
(01:00:09):
you powerfully to sleep, or it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Does mean I mean sometimes that's the best thing of medicine.
Like that is like, well, is gonna make me feel better?
And then also I'm going to be asleep.
Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
It's got this beautiful fragrance too. It's like cold violets.
It makes me think of like Orris root a bit
Ooh yeah, I love them.
Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Oh wow, we're at the top of the hour. I
just noticed we're not distracted talking. Since we're at the
top of the hour, we'll go ahead and sign off
from Strange Talk. So good night everyone and good luck bye.
Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
You are listening to Radio Art Effect on sixteen sixty
MAN in North Side and ninety one point seven MHD
to WBXU in Cincinnati.
Speaker 6 (01:01:16):
Sh S s S.
Speaker 5 (01:02:20):
Offing for
Speaker 6 (01:03:27):
Sass S
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