Mixed Species 08 costume contest BIG Wieners!

A hard decision born from many a contentious debate, each wrought with blood boiling anger and extremely high milk fat content has brought us to this years BIG WIENERS.

1st place goes to Atomic Glass Works with the depth defying Krakken of which we have nick named "Release the Krackalacken Krackalacka". Atomic Glass Works will receive a crisp $100 bill and #1 of the Let's French poster series signed and numbered by Hairy McSpecies 

2nd Place Is a tie going to Shannons 1970 for Flower Pot Kid and Pile of Leaves Kid. We've often thought about burying our kids beneath flower beds and in piles of leaves. Shannons 1970 will receive a $50 credit from the Mixed Species etsy store and #2 of the Let's French poster series signed and numbered by Hairy McSpecies 

3rd Goes to Spin Swim for Ari, The Unicorn Master. Hairy said of this fine costume "damn that's the face I always hope to see looking back at me after I snort a huge line of coke from my unicorn engraved mini mirror" and with that 3rd place was filled. Spin Swim with receive a free Purchasable Positive Review and #3 of the Let's French poster series signed and numbered by Hairy McSpecies.

We are late in deciding/announcing the big winners and we are sorry for that hold that we are the Mixed Species guys so suck it.

In other news, today is election day and we can't shirk our public duty to mention it in some form or another... So go vote as many times as you can! Vote early, vote often.

Please remember, no matter what side you're on we'll get behind you, cause hey we love those darn dirty mud flaps!

If the thought a literal ton of hairy man meat sprinkling themselves with those cheap packets of au jus powder doesn't get your motor running you may take solace in the up coming family film "Who's Nalin Paylin". Poppa and Corporate McSpecies agree "Who's Nailin Paylin brings it in a way Brolin and Dryfuss just couldn't", no offense to Josh or Richard but I think we're all glad they didn't. Enjoy!

Thanks to all who contributed!
Have Fun!

Mixed Species does Mosaic Masterpieces--Hot Pounding Artist ON Artist ACTION!

Ever wonder what became of the cutters back in school? If they ended up turning out work like C. Brennan of Mosaic Masterpieces then maybe all the crying in the mirror watching their eyeliner run listening to the Cure and working at the mall food court after school may very well pay off. Sorry there's still no excuse for the goth shoes. No not those ones, the elf ones.

Hairy McSpecies is the proud owner of a C. Brennan piece, a radical depiction of Twiggy the most glamorous female model ever. We all know who the most glamorous male model is?! Twiggy gave Hairy this fantastic mosaic of her after leaving him heart broken at the altar, it's a sad story that Hairy has yet to recover from. In the above photo, chillin' before a romantic fire Hairy reads a few Pablo Neruda poems to "his" Twiggy while washing away the tears with beer (he serves Twiggy's in a wine glass). Later he'll stumble to bed to smell the pillow twiggy last used better than ten years ago to see if he can still smell her. His guest appearance on last season's America's Next Top Model has brought up some strong feelings and it's a tough recovery.

Twiggy's just the start of the pop that spews forth from Mosaic Masterpieces massive musclely pulsating creation organ. Her poppy glass tentacles stretch from Seattle to Philadelphia. The city of brotherly love (ha) with a stunning mosaic recreation of Robert Indiana's famous Love. She then grabs us by the hair like rag doll (yes we like it!) and drags us all the way to New York City, adding some sharp edges to Roy Lichtenstein's Love Gun.

What do Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Jim Morrison and Madonna have in common? Other than mountains upon mountains of drugs copious amounts of alcohol and bagging mass chicks they've all been the subject of mosaics from the C. Brennan of Mosaic Masterpieces. We think it's fair to say that any average self loathing self absorbed artist, musical or otherwise would be honored to rendered in glass by C. Brennan's adept hands.

From the amazing intricacies of the George Harrison piece to Wood grain reveal in the Hendrix piece we are happy to give C. Brennan five out five guaranteed severed thumbs up.

You can also find C. Brennan and her fine work at these lesser known interweb joints
myspace
flickr
etsy
C.Brennan is also showing paintings at Glam Boutique in Albany Oregon through November

Mixed Species 08' Halloween Costume Contest!!

As October got going we became kinda freaked that Etsy may not host a costume contest so we decided to rock one our selves! Everyone is invited!

Our goal in doing this contest is to have fun! Well and shameless self promotion but that goes without saying, so we take that back. Feel free to invite anyone you want to join, the more the merrier. There is no cost to enter and feel to use our group to promote your art as much as you'd like. Above is our entrance to last years Etsy contest, Gene Richard Simmons you can also check out the video (below) of him singing "Heavens on Fire" with local rock gods Saintan. Gene Richard was very drunk that night, as a matter of a fact shortly (yes that is freudian) after that video ended he ripped of his camo undies and exposed his funky junk on stage. Gene Richard was fired as spokesman for Deal A Meal & Kiss Army LLC. shortly (that's twice) there after.

In hosting a super loose event like this on flickr we are able to invite everyone regardless of etsy membership, paypal account, country or any of that jazz. In truth you don't even need a flickr account as long as you know someone who does and con them into submitting your costume for you.

Here is the Mixed Species Halloween Contest flickr group to join/enter.

Here's how it will work (so we think)

Prizes

1st place a crisp $100 bill & #1 of the Let's French poster series

2nd place $50 shopping spree from the Mixed Species etsy store & #2 of the Let's French poster series

3rd place a purchasable positive review on our blog & #3 of the Let's French poster series

Rules

Enter as many times as you like.

There are no categories so you can enter what ever your mind and hands can create, that said please be moderately nice to animals.

Costume must be made mostly by hand.

All entries must be rad or some lame they are rad.

All entries must be in by 12am 11-01-08 (changed so people only have to put this crap on once).

Winners to be announced 11-03-08 on this blog and everywhere else we post, did I mention shameless self promotion.

The Mixed Species guys will contribute costumes but will not be competing (yes Corporate McSpecies that's directed at you bitch).

The Mixed Species guys are the judges so feel free to attempt bribes as I'm sure it wouldn't take much. A bidding war of bribes might be good plan.

Etsy is hosting a costume contest this year so by means enter that one also!

Mixed Species does WrenWillow in some HOT Artist ON Artist ACTION!

WrenWillow -

Like the phoenix designed for one of her baby onesies, WrenWillow will soon rise from the offal and debris of websites selling baby and children’s wear to heights of stardom! The Phoenix is one of the favorite symbols of our very own Face McSpecies. Face has often cited the legend of the Phoenix in explanation of his past love life. It’s only through the fiery crash and burn that one is cleansed enough to go out and make the same mistakes again! But we digress …

Upon first inspection you can’t help but notice WrenWillow’s beautiful artwork and the complete mastery of form of dragonflies and butterflies. As a shop of four guys our only suggestion would be if she made them robot dragonflies and butterflies. Or better yet, robot dragonfly and butterflies flying out from under a bloody rainbow holding the heads of the recently departed mates. (whoa, too much metal music lately) Our guess is this would be great fodder for the next deep clean found in a Billy Mays infomercial. But really, robots rule but robot dragonflies rule even more!

The MulberryPink Unicorn Kids Tees are perfect for both Isaac and Oliver McSpecies. The Pink Unicorn icon is a subtle reminder of what the Mixed Species guys spend our Etsy dough on. Our newest forms of alternative means of transportation are both Flying Unicorns for air travel and personal submarines when traveling by sea. The bottom line for us boils down to our mobility having the fashion sense of Freddy Mercury minus the reach arounds.

Another phenomenal WrenWillow product are her Diaper Covers! We'd suggest her diaper covers dyed in brown & yellow are perfect for us new fathers. We would coin the term "baby camo" for this particular tie died cover wash. Imagine we'd save a ton of water and energy not having to wash these covers. The stains would never show! We'd also suggest making the diaper covers reversible to double the wearing potential. Turn inside out and reverse to wear four times before “restaining” the same stain. We submit, it may not get any better than this!

Once again we are happy to award WrenWillow five out of five guaranteed Mixed Species stained diaper covers!

Have Fun!

-the Mixed Species guys-

Art we own and love, Shawn Wolfe

So stoked! We finally received the title painting "I'm Nauseously Optimistic", we scored it at Wall Of Sound's show for Shawn Wolfe.  The Shawn Wolfe painting below "I'm Nauseously Optimistic" is entitled "These Colors Run", the quote is from William S. Burroughs. We picked that up in Portland at the Grass Hut, a great gallery owned by two super cool artists Bwana Spoons and Scrappers. Shawn's art has been a fave of ours for a longer than we knew he was the one doing it! He is super super prolific, don't believe then go buy his book Uncanny or see his posters or go here and be blown away. I think Negative Land album art was the first taste I had anyways it hardly matters by the time I was living in Seattle the whole place was covered with posters of his Panic Now campaign featuring the Incredible Remover Installer.  All of this was apart of Shawn's Beatkit as he explains in this excerpt from an interview with CrownDozen.  

Beatkit™ was a brand without a product that promised to cease and desist in the year 2000, which it did. Beatkit's mantra was "the general gloss of falsity is our only product", which was a long-winded way of saying "Beatkit: it's all lies." So despite what I say it actually did have a product, the RemoverInstaller™, which was a baby rattle type of device except with no rattle and no moving parts. It had no function or utility of any kind, except to inspire an ad campaign around itself, Panic Now. Panic Now was similar to other real-world ad campaigns, except it dispensed with any pretense to romance or amuse you and instead just focused on the naked howling truth of all ads, i.e. "Stop whatever you're doing and look at this. You don't even know what it is but you need it. Don't try to reason your way through it or out of it, just panic. Now.

Have Fun!

Hairy McSpecies

Cozy Cabin Creations in the middle of Hot Pounding Artist On Artist Action!

Cozy Cabin Creations is a stone cold fox esty seller of whom creates plush wearable goods for the enitre fam. Cozy also rolls her own blog and walks amongst the stars as a member of Cafemoms Etsy Moms. We've been trying to infiltrate Cafemoms Etsy Moms group for a while now so we are taking this review as a sign that our natural pheromones have wafted their direction. 

Secretly luring distracted parents to their kids by way of the Football Team Pillowcase Dresses 

Cozy Cabin creates beautiful, subtle and powerful tools for parents to leverage a little family unity. Poppa was wondering if he could get an adult sized NFL pillowcase dress as his wife always seems more in the mood when he puts his NFL pillowcase over his head.

Please keep in mind we've used the terms like "parents" and "kids" rather than moms, dads, daughters or sons as we are well aware of families not always fitting into the nuclear family box. The McSpecies family is as far from norm as families get, Katherine Dunn wrote a book loosely based on our family called Geek Love.

While checking out Cozy's fabulous  etsy store Face McSpecies went from his usual dashing handsome self to near tears. We all understood when he explained that two of Cozy's products brought up hard memories of a Eugene ren faire love story gone awry. Seems Face fully embracing the ren faire lifestyle was drowned in mead with a chaw full of sour pig when a beautiful maiden wearing the U of O pillowcase dress beckoned him with her siren call to the back of a horse stall. It may have been the poor lighting or double vision that got Face there in the first place but neither were around to hide the truth in the morning light. Poor Face woke snuggling tightly with the not so fair and even less so maiden under a blanket with the same print as Cozy's A Family Outing Buck Fawn and Doe Rustic Table Runner. Face humming Lola boogied out as quietly as possible with his heart in one hand and dignity in other, this time it was the siren call of the mead barrels that caught him off guard. Face woke the next morning back in the horse stall and not alone.

Cozy's fabulously plush Eyelash Scarfs are finely crafted on her loom of eternal cremglocksnar . Yes we made up that word, we define it as; a golden encrusted object that spews forth the cream of crafty goodness like a pornicorn (2) on speed. After that fine definition all should grok cremglocksnar fully.

Corporate was just smitten with Cozy's aprons. The Transformers was his fave while Oliver is leaning to the Go Diego Go model. Sorry folks just gotta say that as Oliver's father I've watch many Diego shows. I can't think of a cartoon I would rather see have their vocal chords ripped out by glass laden flaming battle axes dripping with hot acid. Say click, take a pic!
Poppa was not about to let us leave off without sharing his excitement to find the Matching Mommy/Child Christmas Aprons. Let's keep it a secret but Poppa plans to score this one for he and his little guy.

We give Cozy Cabin Creations 5 guaranteed pounding "smell my" thumbs up!

Missemilygene's HOT Artist ON Artist Review!

Missemilygene aka Ashbury Lane

It’s not too often we come across a shop with the
diversity of not only highly polished graphic design
capabilities and services but also a homage to
George Carlin’s 7 dirty words! This “review” is
going to be fun!

Magnet Sets

The insect magnet set would be a great way to capture
the various entomology found in the pants of the Mixed
Species guys. Our code word for this product would be
“Crotchstacean”. And what better a way to redirect
attention from your ugly fridge than Isaac Hayes?
Better yet, if you have a “thing” for overrated wall
eyed manorexic singers there’s always a
Thom York magnet!

*note to selves –start a doom metal Radiohead cover band
called WallEye! Groupies!!

Jewelry – Ear/Necklace sets:

After explaining the “Crotchstacean” project to the
various Mrs. Mixed Species we’ll definitely be in need of
Missemilygene’s jewelry! We’d start with the
AquaPod earrings or perhaps the Bang Bang earrings.
Although the irresistible innuendos of giving Bang Bang
earrings would probably lead us right back to the doghouse.
Maybe we play it safe and go for the
Dimensional Olive Glass Pendant.

Skeleton Keys:

Don’t even get us started on the Skeleton Keys! Where did
they come from? Hairy McSpecies suggested they may be used to pick chastity belts and
Face McSpecies wonders if missemilygene is some sort of
closet diary hacker!?

Graphic Design

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5070168

We’ve been looking for an accurate way to capture the “essence”
of -the Mixed Species guys-. Primarily we’ve experimented
with the senses of taste and smell but perhaps portraiture
would be the best way to capture what IS Mixed Species. Maybe we can get one in scratch and sniff.

This, our new friends is how you get FIVE out of FIVE
Mixed Species thumbs up! Yes, there’s only four
Mixed Species guys. (you do the math)

Have Fun!
-the Mixed Species guys-

Art we own and love, Arbito

Along the way we have been lucky enough to meet and befriend some fantastic artists. With that in mind we've decided to share some of the art that each of us own and love with our fine readers. 

Arbito is from Seattle and is one of the nicest most talented cats one could happen to meet. I was introduced to Arbito and his wife Snaggs (also a fantastic artist, we'll get to her in the future) through my wife in 1997, we've been following their radical popish creations ever since. I often joke to my wife that Arbito must be some sort of closet engineer as much of his art is not just painted but is multi dimensional.    

The top piece is titled Motion Notion and is far and away my favorite thing in the house. Please keep in mind this is coming from Hairy McSpecies and I not only have most of the MS stock in my house but a full keg on tap in my garage. I took a quarter angle shot of Motion Notion so you could see the layered rainbow concentric head shapes of the headband sporting hippy fox. 

Next are two in a series of 14 (or more!) characters that Arbito has created, you can check out more in the series here. The coolness of this series just blows me away! Arbito has created a silk screen with a bicycle on it, he prints the same bike in the same place on rectangular wood painted white then paints one of his fabulous characters over that. Super cool super genius!

We also own a couple of rock posters Arbito designed a number of years back. They hang in my office and I did not have time to photo them before posting this blog. Needless to say rad work for rad bands. The poster Arbito did for Aphex Twin can be folded like origami to make the A shape of the Aphex Twin logo. I know dudes, totally mind blowing!

view Arbito posters here  

You can find out more of Arbito and his fantastically talented family on myspace

Arbito 

The Hiberts 

Don't forget flickr!

Cosmic Hobo rules!

Below are two you tube vids of Arbito art in action