Carl Sagan was an amazing scientist that actually made an extreme effort to make science accessible to all. With his PBS series Cosmos : A Personal Voyage, Mr. Sagan embedded himself into the minds of an entire generation of kids who sat and watched with amazement in science/astronomy classes across America. The images and ideas in the series always inspired me and continue to as the series has been rebroadcast on Discovery Science Channel.
Just spent the last 2 days as the stylist for a shoot for NAS & Fila... pretty crazy, but that's what Los Angeles is all about... the images from the shoot should be out in 2 - 3 months... for now here's the NAS tour bus sponsored by Fila
Friend and recent LA to SF transplant, Kelly Lynn Jones, has a solo show opening on Saturday August 9 in Los Angeles at the Little Bird Gallery Her work is really great, and her paintings are very "California" in the way that David Hockney's work is... but with a completely different color scheme and of different subject matter... I'm telling you though, there is a loose connection...
Art/craft/design/zine fair on Saturday Augut 9, 2008 at Studio Number One in Los Angeles. Curated by friends Joel Speasmaker & Justin Van Hoy... come out tomorrow from 1-7 PM, I'll have a table with a bunch of stuff for sale!
Unwound is one of the most influential bands in my life. I started listening to them when the released their third album "New Plastic Ideas" when I was in high school and they really bridged the gap between some of the "harder" sounding stuff and the "indie" rock I was listening to. Unwound exuded such a strong positive D.I.Y. ethic that really resonated with me and was one of the reasons I started "making music" with my friends and it eventually lead me down a career path of making art. They really had a great sound that was way arty and dark, and in no way sounded like hardcore which, sorry, I was never a fan. The music varied from very stripped down indie/garage rock (ex. Entirely Different Matters), to very cinematic and epic (ex. For Your Entertainment), and they concluded their amazing run with the artful double LP "Leaves Turn Inside You" which was an amazing departure from their self titled first LP. Through the years I kept buying their records and singles and each time was amazed by their very obvious growth between releases, but their independent attitude and aesthetic always fought it's way through. They never signed to a major label, and have the second greatest number of releases on Kill Rock Stars, (next to giants Sleater Kinney).
Which brings me to the second part of this post which is tied in w/ Unwound, and that's basically the entire music scene from Olympia, WA (and surrounding areas) from the early to mid 1990's. In 1994 when I was in high school I went out there with some friends for a music festival called Yoyo-A-Gogo, which featured like a hundred of the most amazing bands from all over. Built To Spill, Lync, The Spinnanes, Lois, GodHead Silo, Slant 6, Neutral Milk Hotel, E 17, Dahlia Seed, Heavens To Betsy, Beck, Versus, Team Dresch, Some Velvet Sidewalk, Crayon, Mary Lou Lord, Hush Harbor, Fitz OD, Karp, and so many more.... It was the greatest week of my high school years... such a huge influence as I still listen to the majority of these bands almost 15 years later.
Kevin Lyons is my mentor, well, one of them. I had the privilege of working with and around Kevin at Urban Outfitters for roughly 7 years. Kevin's resume is pretty impressive and includes Creative Director @ Urban Outfitters, Creative Director @ Stussy, art director @ Tokion, typography professor @ Pratt, amongst a multitude of others achievements in the corporate design world as well as "fine art" world with a series of international exhibitions. I had always been a HUGE fan of his work when I was in college and when I graduated I started working at Urban... 7 years later I'm on my own and learned so much from him (and others @ UO) but it was a real honor to have worked with an artist that you have always admired. Now, I no longer think of him as someone to learn from, or as a friend, but more like the older brother I never wanted. My second year of working at Urban I had ALMOST cut the tip of my finger off in a freak accident and about a month later we had corporate end of the fiscal year meetings in Philadelphia with the CEO & Presdent etc all in attendance. Kevin gave a presentation showcasing the future art direction of UO, and about every fifth slide was a random image that he culled from Google Images of severed hands and fingers etc. and he continually announced throughout his 30 minute presentation "...and this is Chris Bettig's finger." It was very non-challant, and he breezed by them as though it was nothing... he'd be talking and showing slides of the new 3d store signs, or the new graphics, type treatments, then a bloody finger, then right back to business. Anyway, for that and everything else, thanks Kevin.
Kevin Lyons is blogging for Arkitip and has a really interesting series going of the 100 most influential people, a theme which appears in his work quite a bit... makes for some good reading.
Dublab's newest art / music venture is called Into Infinity and debuts this friday 08.08.08... each artist was given 12" card stock circles to create works on and musicians donated short audio loops (my pieces are above next to the flyer)... the epic radness is unleashed on 08.08.08....
Poolga offers you free wallpaper downloads for your iPhone or iPod touch... and they just released 2 designs by me... personally I've been rocking my design called "Pyramid Technology" on my iPhone for a while now...
I met Cody in early 2004 when I was co-curating exhibits with Amber Busy Being at the now defunct Four X Four Gallery in Los Angeles. I had been a big fan of his work for a long time and had always wanted a reason to contact him, and luckily enough I was asked to put together some shows at the gallery. Cody was the first one on my list... his work is so rad and has evolved into some really beautiful installations... check him out tonight if you are in Portland as his new solo show opens at Fifty24PDX Gallery ... he's also got a 2 person show still up in LA at New Image Art Gallery....
The Mountain Label is the design studio of Christopher Bettig, a French / American artist living and working in Los Angeles, California. Chris is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA degree in painting, but finds himself spending a lot of time developing products, graphics and installations for a diverse group of clientele.
themountainlabel.com
