Category: Art Life

  • PRINCE’S HOBBY ON THE OTHER SIDE – EVP September 26, 2021

    I have some exciting new EVP recordings. I’ve been trying out more of the EVP Maker software. The software allows yo to import a wave file containing voice samples, so that it can produce a randomized sound stream. This way, if there is any EVP, it will sound like the person’s voice from when they were living. I’m finding its results to be very hit or miss. But when it’s a hit, it’s really incredible stuff. So it’s worth trying, even if those sessions that don’t work out, maybe the next one will. I think they are learning to maneuver the process. It’s a learning curve for all of us.

    Prince with his camera, source not known.

    I know P loved doing photography as a hobby, and he still loves it. I hope one day his personal photography from his life will be published. I was hoping to see more of it in his memoir, but that didn’t happen.  As you know, we both love photography, and we both have the camera lenses to prove it!

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    In a recording session, I caught him talking to someone about his new camera, and then taking the guy’s photo, and then even printing it out! I am really stunned. I even heard what sounds like a camera shutter going off in the background as he was taking photos. I have a hard time imagining what it looks like over there, but hearing the sounds from over there is fascinating. I imagine that one day when we meet, he is going to show me his many volumes of photo albums.

    P said, “I got a new camera”.

    “Goes on the tripod. This one got at Henry’s”. Henry’s is a chain of camera stores in Canada. Did he go shopping there without me, I wonder? Or did he get it when I was there to buy a new printer last year?

    “Let me take your portrait”.

    “Let’s print that one”.

    “Let me test print”.

    “The main drums, it makes a great image”. I really wonder what he meant by this. Maybe he took a photo with his drums?

    I’m really glad to know that he gets to do the things he enjoys over there. I’m just in awe that I get to hear about it.

    Self-portrait, 2018.

    Here are a compilation of random clips I caught.

    “Andrea”.

    “Sleeping, wake up”.

    “I am Prince”.

    “Warning, vaccine”.  

    “All these complications”.

    “Good bye”.

    I will definitely keep trying more recording sessions with the EVP Maker. I wonder why some sessions are better than others.

    P/S I’m not posting on social media any more. In protest of censorship, I will no longer participate. If you want updates sent to your inbox, then you can subscribe to my blog feed by email. Sign up at the bottom menu on the right corner of this page.

    These recordings were recorded using  my EVP Wrist Recorder 3 along with EVP Maker 2.5, on September 26, 2021.

    Image above: “Prince Sun” by Andrea Mai. Available here.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

  • SPIRITS HELP ME SEE WHAT I CAN’T – EVP September 22, 2021

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  • I RECORED A NEW SONG – “MUSIC BOX” BY ANDREA MAI

    It’s been a busy summer. I’ve spent everyday in the garden, taking care of my herbs. I haven’t had much time to work on my art and music lately. But there’s a track that I just polished off recently. I composed it in an afternoon and recorded it during the spring. It kind of surprised me how quickly I wrote it, as I have very little musical training, only from middle school.

    In 2015, a friend who is a professional astrologer, gave me a reading. She asked if I sang or played any instruments. I said no. She said she saw some potential in my chart for music. I just kinda laughed. I look back at it kind of differently now. I’ve always had this thing where music just came out of me, but I was too intimidated to try doing anything about it. Part of it being, my visual impairment,  I find it difficult for me to read sheet music. So I never really learned. But I still liked to mess around on the piano once in a while when I had the urge.

    After P showed up, I’d have a stronger desire to play. Sometimes I record EVP as I’m playing, and I can hear him in the recording, guiding and directing me. So maybe, some of the ideas are really his. It was my dad who bought the piano, because he wanted me to play, like many of the wishes of Chinese parents for their kids. But I’ve had this strange psychological thing about not liking to play in front of family, especially my dad. It’s interesting knowing what P went through with his dad when he was a kid, wanting to learn piano.

    Me and my 432 tuned piano ©2018 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    I still don’t know that much about playing piano. I’d like to spend more time on it at some point. But for now, I’d like to share my new song with you. I call it Music Box.

     

    Card for sale here. ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    Image above: “Late Bloomers” by Andrea Mai.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

  • ART UPDATE: PRINTING WITH LIGHT ACTIVATED DYES

    I’ve been experimenting with light activated dyes for a couple of weeks. It’s been an interesting experience. The dyes react with UV light, and so different printing techniques can be applied. It’s an interesting medium for me to work with, as both a photographer and a textile artist, I get to print on both paper and fabric. Here are some of the results from my experiments.

    I painted the dye onto silk. I created folds and placed it under some lace and exposed it to light. It created this interesting mosaic effect.
    I printed on some silk satin and dyed it a light lilac color. 
    I made it into a hair scrunchie and it’s for sale in my Etsy store.
    The UV printing has given me an opportunity to revisit my photo catalog and reimagine them in a new way. When working with photographs, a negative has to be created by inverting the image and printing it on acetate or translucent paper. I’ve been printing on tracing paper with a laser printer to try it out, as it is more economical. This is my Prince Sun photo that I sell in my shop as a print. It is a photo of Prince’s gate from his former Toronto home. 
    I made a print on paper, and fabric (seen on the bottom right). There is a color variation that occurs depending on what material you are printing on. I like painting the dye in an irregular shape. I find that it gives it a dream like effect.
    I made a photogram on cotton fabric using lace and my Prince necklace.
    I used the fabric to make a face mask.

    The Solar Fast dyes come in different colors. Depending on the material used as the substrate, the colors will turn out differently. The same purple dye used on silk looks very different on cotton. Results can be unpredictable, which can keep things exciting, but difficult to replicate, so every print is one of a kind.

    Image above: “Mont Blanc in blue” by Andrea Mai.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

  • SPIRITS AFRAID OF GOING INTO THE LIGHT – EVP May 10, 2021

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  • SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL – PRINCE CELEBRATION 2021

    Today is Prince’s five-year anniversary since his passing. Ever since that year, I’ve noticed snow in April. Like the title of his song, Sometimes it Snows in April. It was never like that before, here in Toronto. And this year, I woke up to a yard full of snow. It was a strong reminder to me that he is here with me.

    I decided to go out for a morning walk, and I took my camera with me.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    Five years seems like a long time ago. So much has happened since. The world is really a different place now. It’s weird, it’s like become less innocent. I feel nostalgic for simpler times, preferably the 2000’s. When we still bought music on CD, and people didn’t rely on social media to communicate.  People seemed nicer back then. More civilized.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    Later in the day, I made this piece of artwork in his honor. I experimented with some new materialsI recently acquired, making this UV print with some lace and a necklace of his symbol.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    I hope you’re all doing well, keeping safe. Ttyl.

    Image above: “Flowers in snow” by Andrea Mai.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

  • ART UPDATE: EXPLORING NEW ART TECHNIQUES – PHOTOGRAPHY, SILK PAINTING

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  • I SEE THE FUTURE AND I’M NOT TURNING BACK

    Thoughts on technology…

    Since my last post, where I spoke about crypto art. I have been immersed in crypto related news and developments. It’s funny, it’s like a whole new world has opened up, like a little pocket of reality that the general public hasn’t yet awoken to. I am excited for the possibilities. Some major changes are coming in the near future involving crypto and technology. These are industry disrupting advances, and I want to be on the ground floor as much as I can.

    I was a young adult when social media emerged. I didn’t quite take it seriously at the time. Nobody did. And yet, we saw how the world changed. Those who adopted early saw gains and advancement for themselves. As someone who has seen technology come and go, I can tell you with confidence that it does not favours for anyone to hold onto the past. It is good to honour and respect the past, but when you resist the future, you are only making it harder for yourself to come to terms with the future.

    After seven years of holding onto a 2012 MacBook Pro, in 2020, I upgraded to the new M1. People speculated if such a leap would be successful. What I can say is that I ain’t looking back. I do not miss the days of the spinning beach ball. I am more productive in my work. In my opinion, resisting technology that could genuinely befit you, is holding yourself back from opportunity.

    Recently captured Electronic Voice Phenomenon…

    I recently reviewed an EVP recording from last year in May. I had put the recorder on in my basement studio, went upstairs and ended up staying there longer than anticipated. While I was away, the recorder picked up the spirit voices there.

    Here is a voice saying, “Nobody’s here”. I had gone upstairs, I guess the spirits left too. and someone came to find no one there. I find it kind of amusing.

     

    This one says, “Hey, Prince speaking”. “Hey, Prince, how are you?” I am guessing someone called P on the phone. They sounds so cute, like old friends calling each other up. Sometimes I find that P’s voice sounds very young. I suppose it would make sense, as many mediums have said that spirits assume a younger appearance in spirit. For example, a dog would revert to being a puppy.

    Do you find it strange that they would speak to each other on telephone in spirit? I found it a little shocking at first. I heard from spirit that Steve Jobs is still designing and making iPhones in the afterlife, and gifting his creations to others. It makes me wonder if some of our modern day inventions are ideas given to us inby spirit.

    But is that really so crazy? I know that when I dream, I see technology. I have been inside of a self-driving vehicle. I have taken photos with a digital camera in my dreams. It would make sense that technology could carry on in the afterlife as well.

    And what does this mean for the progress of communication with spirit? It was only because of the technology we have that we could find tangible proof of spirit’s existence. What evidence of spirit could we be capturing in the future? Alas, it could be technology that brings us back closer to spirituality in the end. It all comes back full circle.

    These recordings were recorded using  my EVP Wrist Recorder 3 on May 10, 2020.

    Image above: “Pink nihgt” by Andrea Mai.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

  • ART UPDATE: I FEEL INTO THE CRYPTO RABBIT HOLE

    Some time ago, I was experimenting with animating my photographs using video editing software. I recently learned how to turn them in GIFs. And since then, I’e been looking at my body of work from a new perspective. I’m excited. Photo animation opens up new possibilities for how my photography can be presented as an artwork. The pandemic has been hard on my photography, as we are all being stuck at home all the time. For me as an artist, I am inspired by being in different places.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    With all the hype in the news about Bitcoin and crypto currencies, I have learned something exciting. It felt as though I had just woken up from a coma. Everyone is now talking about Bitcoin, but they’re also talking about Ethereum, which I had never heard of before. Ethereum came about years after Bitcoin, and it was designed differently in that Smart Contracts can be built into the blockchain. This means when a piece of the blockchain has transferred ownership, there can be additional actions built in, such as commissions. What does this all mean, and why does it matter? For the first time in history, blockchain technology has offered a means to register an asset onto a decentralized public ledger. This protocol could be used for commercial applications like verifying authenticity, or to execute automated contracts like commissions on sales.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    In the art world, authenticity of an artwork by a master has always been in question, as works can turn out to be counterfeits. And after an artwork is sold, it is generally the case that it is the collectors and auction houses that take all the profits in its future sale, not the artist. Blockchain technology offers an innovative solution to this age old problem. Artists can “tokenize” their works on a blockchain, like Ethereum, and program a Smart Contract to receive commissions if the token is sold in the future. A token is that piece of the blockchain that the artwork is registered to, and it acts like a public receipt that proves ownership. It is kind of like the deeds to a piece of land, though it is not the land itself, it is a legal representation of it, and when you sell it, the deeds have to be transferred to the new owner. The deeds is the proof of ownership registered in the government’s land registry.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    This also solves an issue for digital artworks that tend to live on the internet, like animation and video. It could even apply to music. I can very much see this as being something major i the future of art, and I am excited to learn and participate in it as an early adopter. I have just added a new page on my website to explain a bit more about Crypto Art, the term being used to describe artworks that are tokenized. I have some of my animated photos there and will be posting more as I create them. The crypto art scene seems to like hanging out on Twitter, so if you want to join me there, come follow me at @AndreaMaiArt

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

  • RECORDING OF PRINCE’S DOVE IN SPIRIT, 2021 NEW YEAR GREETING AND CATCH UP

    First of all, I want to wish all my readers a Happy New Year. I hope you are doing well and that the new year will bring you something great, in spite of the world situation. Things here have been ticking along, the usual year end stuff, catching up on paperwork, getting things organized.

    On New Year’s I recorded EVP, and heard someone come to greet us “Happy New Year”, as the fireworks were going off in my neighbour’s yard.

    I have been reviewing EVP from over the summer, and I found a clip of a bird tweeting inside my home. I don’t have any birds or pets. And then I heard someone, kind of faintly, saying, “Play with dove”.

    I thought to myself, could it be? Prince’s dove? I’d seen him in my miind’s eye, fluttering about our home. But I hadn’t any confirmation of this.

    Then I heard someone say, “What’s is its name?”

    I heard P reply, “Majesty”.

    Prince had a pair of doves at Paisley Park. Divinity, female, and Majesty, male. Majesty died in 2017. Divinity and Majesty were both featured on the last track of Prince’s One Nite Alone album, titled Arboretum. Isn’t it nice to know that you can be reunited wit old pets?

    ©2020 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.

    Over the summer, I recorded while I was at Costco. I heard this voice say, “Mon cheri”. That is French for, my dear.

    Due to covid-19 precautions, they no longer hand out food samples. I’ve often heard EVP voices calling out to people to try the samples. This one was saying, “Green tea”.

    P often gets recognized by other spirits. Very often, people comment, “You’re Prince”.

    I found this clip of someone saying, “Now we’re lost”. I wonder what they meant by that, if they are lost inside Costco, or lost in the greater sense of things.

    Someone said, “Look out”. You can hear shopping carts crashing into each other. I found this to be a common thing, that spirits will warn people of potential harm.

    A voice here is saying, “Need more fish”. I guess they were telling someone to stock up on fish as prep for more future lockdowns.

    Some of you might be wondering what my take is on the whole virus situation is. Some of you know that I make and sell face masks. While I am aware of conspiracy by shadow governments, I am not buying what the alternative media is selling either. I don’t believe that anyone out there is spilling the straight truth about the situation. Alternative media is often used as controlled opposition to create the illusion of choice. It is a psychological warfare tactic. Offer them two choices that you want the public to choose from, both choices resulting in what it is you want to accomplish. Either way, if you buy into any of the two choices, you are falling into their trap. People accuse each other of not thinking for themselves, meanwhile they are still choosing one of the two given narratives. I don’t believe in either of the “official” narratives. My view is that every person is responsible for their own well being, therefore taking precautions in order to mitigate risk. You will not see me out there in a crowd protesting lockdowns, nor are you ever gonna see me in line for a vaccine. Think for yourselves. Question everything. Pay attention to what they are saying and pay attention to what they aren’t saying. Demand proof for all claims. So many alternative media figures claim to know what’s going on, they claim insider info, secret whistleblower sources. One’s credibility is in the proof they provide, not what they say. Don’t trust, verify! When you line up all the narratives and they don’t make sense, you know that something else is going on.

    God bless, and take care of yourselves.

    These recordings were recorded using  my EVP Wrist Recorder 3 in 2020.

    Image above: “Winter berries” by Andrea Mai.

    ©2021 by Andrea Mai. All rights reserved.