Time Capsule

My name is Colleen Mix, daughter of deceased artist William Mix. I’ve lived in St. Augustine, Florida, for the past 17 years, which is also where my father passed away more than 3 years ago.

In recent months, just after Hurricane Helene brought so much loss and damage, Hurricane Milton quickly followed and was making its approach. Still in shock from what Helene had changed for so many families and the topography of the earth where affected, the morning Hurricane Milton was to make landfall on the west side of Florida I decided to go on a reconnaissance mission to my mother’s rental.

My intent was to ensure that most of my father’s artwork there were in elevated positions in case of surge or flood. During this mission, I discovered and brought back home what are relics to me along with my father’s ashes.

One treasure trove I found was a collection of cassette tapes. Until those mostly rushed but fateful moments these tapes had been lost to me. I had known enough that they had existed, though, and I had been looking for them for years. I was not meant to find them until this pluvial but purposeful morning.

Some cassette tapes were recordings of Lawrence Welk, 1940s-era songs, or country music he captured from the radio in his art studio at our home. Other tapes were of my own voice at age 3 or 4, singing into the tape recorder microphone or reading and reciting books I had learned to read aloud.

While listening to this particular time capsule for the first time in recollection, I could tell my father had been pausing the tape recorder and pressing the record button on and off after preparing and prompting me to pronounce each line as clearly as I could at that young age. It was a project for him, this tape recorder. And perhaps... so was I—a project for him during some significant time in my very early childhood, as well.

I remember my father picking me up from elementary school in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1985 or ‘86. I remember the teachers discussing on the cement curb before I got into the car the fact that I had written out “Beautiful,” on the piece of art I had made in school that day with no assistance to spell the word correctly. My father pulled up in a blue 1984 Chevette.

I got in and settled into the passenger’s seat. He often handed me this cassette tape recorder and its microphone, ready to hit record. He would let me speak into it randomly on our short drives home and sometimes he would record our dialogue or sing together... Although if I hadn’t been distinctly reminded by some of these tapes I recently found, I might’ve forgotten the extent to which he actually did interact with me before age 5 or 6.

In this collection of cassette tapes was also his own recorded voice and intellectual property. I would like to share it with you, my audience. William Mix, my father, meant for these tapes to be found. This first one is a spoken essay, read aloud by him straight from the pages of his more than 400 pages of handwritten reflections and thoughts revolving around his deep, unencumbered devotion to art.

As robotic as his voice comes off in the following audio, the more clues come together to lead me to believe wholeheartedly that he was neurodivergent. At the time, and throughout my youth, there was no language that I knew of to describe or fully grasp his eccentric ways and recurrent behavior patterns not widely accepted in public settings.

I was 22 years old when I came to him and announced all at once that I accepted him fully—but still was unaware that the traits he displayed day in and day out were, in fact, traits that ring so true to the autism spectrum.

So, if you, as the listener, can also accept the robotic nature—as an aesthetic of the audio file from more than 25 years ago, which serves as a time capsule, opened and speaking to motivate you in your own endeavors—you may begin to get to know the artist, William J. Mix, on a deeper level.

This file merely scratches the surface but it is vivid evidence of his introspective nature. I feel it is the perfect way to open this project here on Substack.

To be brought along on this journey with me more fully and to access below the 33 minutes of audio by William Mix I’ve described, please consider becoming part of my subscribed audience.