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Not long after the call for submissions opened for MIST1015, it became clear that most of the former Mistigrivians who had emerged from their long slumber for MIST1014 had, upon seeing their gloriously 16-coloured shadow, been scared back underground and would not be joining us for another kick at the can. No problem, I thought, I’ve moved through plenty of creative circles in the meantime and maybe I can tap some of them! My first stop after the Mistigris train ground to a halt was The Living Closet and my inquiries to the former principal players of that (similarly long-defunct) concern resulted in some interest – most of which didn’t pan out (observation: present company excepted, people with children seem to be less vulnerable to the predation of nostalgia on their scanty free time). But one person – Claire Roberts – expressed interest which bore through all the way to a work submitted (and released) in MIST1015 at the eleventh hour.

Back in the ol’ LC days, she was a fire-breathing, belly-dancing painter, and in the meantime she had burgeoned her creative skillset (I know: painting, belly dancing, fire-breathing – you thought she already had all bases covered!) in all directions simultaneously, especially in our traditional field of computer arts during a long stint at local code shop Relic Entertainment. (Isn’t that always the way? First you stop releasing computer art, then everyone you’ve ever met becomes a computer artist. Fortunately for us I got back on the wagon.) Additionally, she had ascended through the ranks of an entirely different underground art community, one based out of the Black Rock Desert for a few days every year.

Claire had never been part of the artscene back in the day, but something about the call for submissions piqued her and she diligently boned up on all the treasures of our past, watching hours of demos and reflecting to herself how easy those neat-o effects would be to achieve using her workplace toolchain (which would, doubtlessly, find it easier to crunch those particular numbers being hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than the machines the demos were made to run on 8) She lined up an old computer nerd friend (we can be handy to have around, especially when you need a stereo system hooked up) to collaborate with her on a musical experiment, but he didn’t end up being available in time. The reason, however, that I am profiling Claire here today is not because she let that obstacle stop her, but instead she boldly went forth without her seasoned collaborator to create something in a wholly new-to-her idiom without any help or past experience: bringing art forth through sheer force of will alone – sheer force of will and Audacity. (That’s Audacity with a capital A.)

We released her musical piece, “It’s Like A Collage”, in MIST1015, and in homage to the gutsiness of its circumstances (Claire is gutsy: after I proposed to Mistigris’ collected music department that we put together an album for FAWM, we have nothing and she has made big inroads into one of her own), we have made its constituent recordings (assorted vocal noises and sounds from the kinds of musical toys you might find in your belly-dancing gig bag) the grist for our imminent Tracker Fix mill. She didn’t know what she was doing, but came up with something anyway; surely those of you who do know what you’re doing, given the same materials, can do no less!

(And in a neat case of synchronicity, just as her turn to be profiled was coming up in the queue here, a free mobile game she was working on was released to the public – you can find out more information about it here: The Fourth Phase, the snowboarding movie, the game.)