When a video artist can direct for Bjork and Sigur Ros, make commercials for Google and Lexus, hold meetings with JJ Abrams, win a Webby with the Museum of Contemporary Art, and still get confused for a YouTube musician boasting the same first and last names, you’re reminded the internet can be a really weird place.

Like a lot of innovative thinkers, Andrew Thomas Huang’s creativity operates on the edge of a few categories. On paper he goes by his full name to help differentiate from said internet musician. When it comes to work, Andrew’s aesthetic has carved him a niche uniquely his own as a filmmaker and artist. He is perhaps most often recognized for his use of tactile and organic inspired CGI as a singular part to the whole of his mixed media creations. “Definitely more a visual director as opposed to an actor’s theater director. I feel like my fine art education sort of bubbles to the surface.”

In 2007, Andrew caught his first wave of success with his animated art film “Doll Face,” which clocked in over 5 million views and earned him a Best of YouTube nomination. He was about to graduate from the University of Southern California with a degree in Fine Art, but after a few visual effects internships at Sony and similar studios disillusioned him a bit, he decided he wanted to “take ownership” over his VFX work. “I knew my gateway into film was through art.”

“’Doll Face’ was “very dark and shiny and sleek and metallic,” a sort of VFX capstone for the epoch of a junior high kid who “sat at home making dorky visual effects stuff.” Nowadays, “Doll Face” and all of Andrew’s initial post-collegiate work is missing from reel. “It’s not that I’m not proud of it” he says, “I just don’t think it’s who I am anymore. I’ve been able to come out with a much more concise statement recently.”

The foundation of Andrew’s second wave of momentum and critical success is in his most recent art film, “Solipsist.” “’Solipsist’ was a reaction [to my past work]. I wanted to create something organic, but not explicitly alien—I didn’t want it to feel so literal, you know? I didn’t want to make, like, latex alien parts or anything.”

“Solipsist” tells the not-so-narrative story of heady, psychological, philosophical, and psychedelic convergence from the perspectives of three other-worldly creatures. It’s a master work and perfect marriage of practical and special effects works. It collects Vimeo and YouTube comments like “I still can’t believe this exists.”

It’s safe to say there aren’t a lot of filmmakers with Andrew’s creative abilities and sensibilities—Chris Cunningham, Guillermo del Toro. Andrew understands the importance of honesty in visual art, even when creating fiction. It’s an understanding that comes partly from his exposure growing up on the outskirts of Hollywood, partly from his commanding knowledge of polished visual effects, and partly from growing up in an era where he’s been able to toil away in front of a computer screen for hours on end. “I’m honestly influenced by movies and Hollywood and I think that’s OK …to look that polished. It’s OK to use the tools to make the same kind of high-end Hollywood effects on art films to explore something really personal. …It’s always hard to place oneself in a historical context [in LA]” but “the space and the constant good weather I think allows you to fill that space with your craft and …affords you the mental freedom to make what you want to make.”

Manual or automatic?

Automatic.

Apartment or house?

Apartment.

Favorite drive thru?

In-N-Out.

First thing you ate or drank this morning?

Cereal.

Last thing you drank last night?

Vanilla almond milk.

Favorite place to drive?

Umm. Hmm. Favorite place to drive? I would say the 10 Freeway on the 4th of July.

What do you listen to in the car?

Oh gosh. CDs.

Malibu or Hollywood?

Malibu.

Big Bear or Joshua Tree?

Joshua Tree.

Vegas or Tijuana?

Oooh neither.

Favorite place in LA?

Hmm. Favorite place in LA? Little Tokyo.

Favorite place to shop?

Oh god I haven’t done shopping in so long. Little Tokyo.

Where were you born?

Torrance, CA.

How long have you lived in California?

Oh god, my whole life. I can’t wait to get out. I’m thinking about maybe moving to London. We’ll see. I say it but, I’ll see if I do it.

Thing you love about California?

Hmm that’s a good one. Thing I love about California? I think it’s the light.

Thing you hate about California?

Oooh so much to hate too. I don’t know though. What’s the thing I hate about California? Uh. Oh god I’m sorry I’m overthinking it. I guess just traffic, it’s kind of a bland answer.

What’s your favorite place on the Earth?

Oooh I have to go through my mental catalog. Favorite place on Earth? I would just say the California coast in general. I feel like it’s, like, the best. Yea the whole stretch. Taking the 101 up to San Francisco’s, like, awesome.

Place you last traveled to?

I last traveled to Brooklyn.

Where do you consider ‘home’?

L.A.

What’s a place that makes you feel calm?

Place that makes me feel calm? Umm I would say, uh, my shower.

What’s a place where you always feel excited?

New York City.

Best quality in a friend?

Listening.

Your idea of misery?

Not being awake.

How do you start your weekend?

Checking my email. I keep my phone near my bed and it’s terrible. I roll over and I check my Gmail, it’s like the worst habit. It’s the worst. Like, it should definitely be in another room. I feel like it messes up the vibe of your day.

Fill in the blank: LA is _________

LA is sifting, like sifting sand.

 

ANDREW THOMAS HUANG | andrewthomashuang.com

PHOTOS: MEGHAN MCGARRY | WORDS: KELLY SHERMAN

When Guess launched its extension line G by Guess in 2007 there were four people tasked to develop the line. “It was really just three men’s designers and then our director… One super urban guy all into hip hop, rap, all that… this guy from Kentucky that’s super punk rock, in a band and plays guitar, and he’s a singer and really into that side of things.” And then there was Reid Uehara, a Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, and Spanish mixed-ethnicity kid from Orange County, CA. “You know, basically filling in the rest of the cultural groups… It was this really eclectic group. It’s what we all started going after with the whole G by Guess thing. Music was our life, and that’s what we’re inspired by and that’s what we aspire the G by Guess brand to be.”

Reid wasn’t expecting a career in fashion when he landed at Guess as an intern in college. He was studying Business and Graphic Design at Cal State Long Beach. His roommate was a street artist with whom he’d occasionally stencil t-shirts. He thought, initially, he’d end up designing websites. But when a budding friendship with the iconic brand’s Design Director started to grow, Reid quickly found himself immersed in the Guess legacy of denim Americana. He was suddenly under the wing of the man in charge of design, and on a new career path that ultimately lead him to Senior Men’s Designer in charge of Guess denim, bottoms, blazers, vests, jackets, sweaters, and knits for G by Guess.

“I’m from Orange County, so I’m definitely inspired by the whole surf/skate lifestyle type of thing that, you know, Guess doesn’t really have, but I love [Guess] for the culture of what Guess is. I’ve learned everything working at Guess.” The brand, it seems, has learned from Reid as well, as G by Guess has proved successful and highly profitable for its parent company. “It’s LA or it’s Orange County or it’s Hollywood or whatever you want to call it… The kids are buying it to go out and impress people and show themselves off a little bit. I think it’s something that, it’s definitely something that is very LA, you know? You come out to LA and everybody tries to be themselves and tries to stand out, trying to find themselves through what they wear a lot of the time. Definitely an LA brand for sure.”

For Reid, Los Angeles and Guess aren’t necessarily the end all, be all. Though he’s kept close quarters with Southern California so far, he finds himself drawn to the subcultures and underground music scenes of both coasts—a little California electronica, a little A$AP Rocky. “I’ve always been really into underground things that have the potential to become commercial. Always been curious about how that happens and what makes that happen, and why.” There, too, is his love affair with denim. He’s a regular at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Flea Market where he searches for vintage washes. Housed between his home in Los Angeles and his parents’ home in Fullerton, his jean collection stacks to over 150 pairs. “I think it’s really important to know where the washes come from …so it’s important to hang onto those. One day it could be a part of something that I start up on my own.”

Manual or automatic?

Immediately my brain wants to say manual but I always feel like I’m on automatic, like, auto pilot the way that I kind of move. But when I’m able to stop and think about it, I think manually.

Apartment or house?

Um. Oh man. Apartment.

Favorite drive thru?

In-N-Out.

Favorite place to drive?

Oo, uh, Venice Beach.

What do you listen to in the car?

Oh man, a mix of everything. Right now I’ve been working on my own little DJ mixes, so my own mixes of electronic music and little bits of indie folk mixed in.

Malibu or Hollywood?

Hmm, Hollywood ‘cause I’m out there so much.

Big Bear or Joshua Tree?

Probably Big Bear because I snowboard.

Vegas or Tijuana?

Vegas.

Favorite place in LA?

Favorite place in LA? Oh that’s a good questions because I love Downtown, I just wish there was more energy, like how New York is. Let’s say Downtown ‘cause there’s so much down there that I think has a lot of potential.

Favorite place to shop?

Um. Melrose because there’s so much to shop up there, so many good spots.

Where were you born?

Anaheim, CA.

How long have you lived in California?

My whole life.

Thing you love about California?

People that I’ve made friends with.

Thing you hate about California?

The fake people.

Favorite place on the Earth?

Hawaii.

Where do you consider ‘home’?

Fullerton.

What’s a place that makes you feel calm?

Deserted beaches in Hawaii—Waianae.

What’s a place where you always feel excited?

Disneyland.

Best quality in a friend?

Loyalty.

Your idea of misery?

Idea of misery? No music. Yea, no music would be misery for me. I would die if I had no music.

How do you start your weekend?

Um, uh, a couple drinks at Villains Tavern.

Fill in the blank: LA is _________

Hard. Is that a weird thing to say? I think a lot of people struggle to be themselves and struggle to be what they want out here, you know? But I think it’s possible.

 

REID UEHARA | biastechnique.tumblr.com

PHOTOS: MEGHAN MCGARRY | WORDS: KELLY SHERMAN

You would not imagine a styling associate for Rachel Zoe to wear jeans and t-shirts but she does. You would not imagine a girl on “The Rachel Zoe Project” to be very private, but she is.

You would also not expect someone succeeding in the New York fashion scene to decamp to Venice Beach, but Eileen did. It started with a year back and forth between the coasts for various projects. Then she booked her first job with a celebrity stylist, and spent two straight months in LA. “After spending two months here, I was like, I can’t go back to New York. I think I moved back to New York and packed up my apartment in like, 5 days or something.”

“It really was a lifestyle choice,” the Marin, CA native says. “I had been living in London and then New York so I’ve been in a city from the age of 16 so I was really ready to… have a little bit of nature and sunshine.” When she’s not working—for Zoe or on other freelance styling jobs—she parks her car and bikes instead.

“The pace is totally different and fashion is a completely different animal but I think it’s all about how you personally work and take advantage of it and you know, make things happen, really.” From her years as a stylist’s assistant (not just any assistant—she was working with legendary stylist Alex White at W), Eileen carried over a love of being overprepared into her new role as a solo, freelance stylist. As an assistant, it’s your job to give your boss every tool she could possibly use, and she now tries to do the same for herself. That’s not to say she will use everything. Personally she ascribes to the old adage (often attributed to Coco Chanel) of getting ready to go, then taking one thing off before leaving the house. Her styling work and personal style are very different, but less-is-more connects the two. Even surrounded by the more accessorized LA aesthetic, she’s sticking with that instinct. It seems to be working alright; she just styled a portrait of the singer Hanni Al Khatib for Interview magazine, plus his latest music video, and worked with Maurizio Bavutti on a video for Dazed Digital and a portrait for V Man. She also returned to the familiar pages of W—this time on her own, styling Ireland Baldwin as the May issue’s “It Girl”—Baldwin’s first feature after a much buzzed-about modeling debut.

Now that she’s booking her own jobs and controlling her own schedule at a non-New York pace, Eileen is branching out into jewelry-making as well. “It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do and didn’t necessarily like, have the time or energy to put into it,” she says. Someday it could be business. At the moment, “I think it’s just a creative outlet, making something with my hands, also keeping myself busy when I have downtime.” Her influences are the mixed metals and stones of North Africa and the Middle East. “I went to the museum in Cairo and just haven’t been able to forget it.” She’s learning by trial she says with a laugh, and from a neighbor who is a jewelry maker. Not a neighbor down a hallway in an apartment tower—a neighbor whose old Venice cottage is next to Eileen’s. It’s on a street that used to be a canal, a few blocks from the beach, where the concerns are what to plant in the neighborhood garden (she’s starting with succulents and an avocado tree) and the great challenge of how to fit one more surfboard in the little century-old beach house as, with summer coming, Eileen’s about to buy her first.

Manual or automatic?

Manual, as a goal.

Apartment or house?

House.

Favorite drive thru?

In-N-Out.

First thing you ate or drank this morning?

Smoothie: bananas and berries.

Last thing you drank last night?

Red wine.

Favorite place to drive?

The desert.

 

What do you listen to in the car?

My boyfriend’s playlists.

Malibu or Hollywood?

Malibu.

Big Bear or Joshua Tree?

God that’s tough. Both.

Vegas or Tijuana?

I haven’t been to either.

Favorite place in LA?

Home.

Favorite place to shop?

Barneys.

Where were you born?

Marin County.

How long have you lived in California?

I lived there until I was 15, then I moved back about a year ago.

Thing you love about California?

Weather.

Thing you hate about California?

Distance from Europe.

Favorite place on the Earth?

Anywhere with my family.

Place you last traveled to?

Palm Springs.

Where do you consider ‘home’?

Hm. Well, I’m in my 5th apartment this year. Probably my parents’ cottage in Northern Michigan.

A place that makes you feel calm?

The ocean.

A place where you always feel excited?

The ocean.

How do you start your weekend?

With a good sleep.

Fill in the blank: LA is _________

Home? That’s a little bit of a contradiction…

 

EILEEN HAYES

PHOTOS: MEGHAN MCGARRY | WORDS: GENEVIEVE ERNST

“The two of them inform each other.” Steven Harrington is talking about his design studios. One, in Los Angeles’ Atwater Village, called National Forest, was founded shortly after graduating from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA with his friend and business partner Justin Krietemeyer. The logic was straightforward: “I either have to go find a job somewhere or I can just start making work, and immediately we started getting a great response off the work we were putting into the world and scored some pretty big catalog and kind of commercial projects.” The second studio is strictly personal. “While we were working with these clients I continued to make this, just, intuitive art that I’ve always made my entire life on the side, not necessarily knowing where it would go, but just making it out of the necessity of kind of needing to make my own personal mark. I’ve struggled with finding the meaning or reason behind why I intuitively feel the drive, the very strong drive to make work that’s outside of commercial work, because as you grow older you start to realize that there isn’t necessarily direct or immediate financial compensation that you’re handed from sitting down in your studio and making paintings all day.”

Steven’s stylized aesthetic hits all the best heads of fine art illustration and graphic design, and his brand of uniquely personal and inherently identifiable vibrant colors, symbols, and creatures has appointed him a founding father of California’s contemporary psychedelic pop art world. He’s designed interiors and exteriors for both of the right and left coast’s hippest hotel chains, The Ace and The Standard, fabric prints for shoe brand Generic Surplus, iPhone cases, and the complete LA Live branding for the Grammy Awards, to name but a few projects. In 2012 he was included in a Los Angeles show curated by street art icon Shepard Fairey, and brought one of his creatures, a friendly seeming ampersand symbol to sculptural life in a solo exhibition at the Known Gallery in Los Angeles. “As we’ve grown the studio my personal work has grown along side of it, out of this idea of always making time to create that very personal body of work.”

Like his characters, most of which have identifiable anthropomorphized features like hands or eyes,  there is both a strong and playful cheeriness to Steven. He was born outside of LA, he went to college in LA, he now lives, works, and plays in LA, and for him, his attitude and his inspiration are connected to location, both anchored in it and fed from it. “I think that even the sun alone and the connection that I feel that I have with the sun plays a large part in what I make and how I make my images, and it especially plays an extremely large role in the colors that I find myself consistently coming back to. If you’re fortunate enough to design your life within Los Angeles like I am, and you’re fortunate enough to say, I want to live here, and work here, and then I want fun time to be in this area, and then play time to be in that area, and then chill time to be over in that area, and you can group it all together, I think it’s a really cool and fun place to live. I just feel really blessed to be able to experience that on the day to day.”

Recently, Steven’s been looking backwards to reverse engineer his creative process. “I very much like to use my hands, and more recently it starts out as a really basic graphic pencil on white paper.” He looks past the brand he’s built and the body of work and reputation he’s created, to the basics of how it all begins. “I’ve started to look at my art making as engineering in a sense. Say if you wanted to build a large public sculpture, if you just pull out a white piece of paper and just draw on that page your three story public sculpture, then that is the very first step in building almost anything. I’ve now started to look at that page as almost anything you know, the possibilities that are here, and it’s such a medium that I think we take for granted. “If you can sketch something,” he says, “if you can throw something down on paper, you can almost do anything.”

Manual or automatic?

Manual.

Apartment or House?

House.

Favorite drive thru?

In-N-Out

First thing you ate or drank this morning?

A banana.

Last thing you drank last night?

Cognac.

Favorite place to drive?

Big Sur.

What do you listen to in the car?

Bill Withers.

Malibu or Hollywood?

Neither.

Big Bear or Joshua Tree?

Joshua Tree.

Vegas or Tijuana?

Tijuana.

Favorite place in LA?

Ummm hmm that’s a very difficult one to answer. My house.

Favorite place to shop?

The St. Vincent’s thrift store.

Where were you born?

In La Verne, Ca.

How long have you lived in CA?

For 34 years.

What is something you love about CA?

The sun.

Something you hate about CA?

My car.

Favorite place on earth?

California.

Place you last traveled to?

Umm what was it? Let me see here. I think it actually was Big Sur.

Where do you consider home?

That’s a difficult one. Geez that can get pretty abstracted huh? I don’t know, I don’t know, where do I consider home? With my family.

What’s a place that makes you feel calm?

Let’s see. The Arroyo in Pasadena.

What’s a place where you always feel excited?

At, um, let’s see. I’m trying to think. I feel so excited at a lot of places. Trying to think—at The Verdugo Bar.

Best quality in a friend?

Ummm how much they can drink.

Your idea of misery?

Wow my idea of misery… drinking too much. Like a terrible hangover. I’m actually very frightened of terrible hangovers these days. It’s almost like near death experiences now. I hate ‘em. But anyhow.

How do you start your weekend?

By driving home to Chic. You know the disco band, Chic? C-H-I-C? 70s disco band from way back. You’ll instantly know who they are.

Fill in the blank: LA is ______

Radical so badical.

 

STEVEN HARRINGTON | stevenharrington.com

PHOTOS: MEGHAN MCGARRY | WORDS: KELLY SHERMAN

“Today, less than 2% of swimmers registered with USA Swimming, the competitive swimming association, are black. Compared to 69% of the National Football League. Nearly 60% of black children can’t swim, compared to 30% of white children.” - White Wash

When Airrion Copeland started surfing, he wasn’t a black surfer; he was a guy working in a tea shop when an instructor came in to leave flyers and offered him a free lesson. When he showed up for that lesson, he wasn’t a black surfer. He was a guy not knowing what to expect, who was uncomfortable with how tight the wetsuit was and with the weight of the borrowed longboard. And then he was a guy who fell in love with the freedom of being carried by a wave, and with the demand of the ocean to be totally present.

 

It was Ted Woods, a friend of Air’s, who first asked him about being a “black surfer.” “The irony was that Ted is a white dude and he had more curiosity and more interest in the nature of race in the water,” Air recalls. “And I as a black surfer was sort of immune to that whole concept in general… until he made me aware of it.” The pair started discussing the fact that Woods, who was in the Peace and Justice Studies program at Fordham, had even asked the question. From those discussions, White Wash was born: a film “about black surfers” that had nothing to do with stunts, and everything to do with the disconnect between black communities and the ocean. Woods convinced Air to be his producer. Neither had any filmmaking experience; they found themselves reading equipment manuals in the car before shoots.

 

White Wash opens with scenes of America discovering the ocean. As a narrator proclaims “fun for young and old” at the beaches of Los Angeles, showing black-and-white images of blonde young people frolicking in the waves, arrest footage cuts in showing young black people being corralled off of beaches by white police officers.

It’s part of the modern narrative that blonde, tan men—now some women—surf. It’s a practice that, in fact, was extinguished from black communities hundreds of years ago. White Wash traces the history of surfing in Hawaii and on the western coast of Africa. It establishes strong links between Jim Crow laws, still in effect as water safety was standardized and Americans flocked to the ocean, and the enduring absence of swimming in African American culture.

 

Air’s attraction to the White Wash project came from growing up creative: doing theater, writing poetry. This mixed with the development of his awareness, through his conversations with Woods, of just how unusual his experience on the beach was. Looking back on the offer of a surf lesson, he doesn’t know why he said yes. But once he joined the project, he found it becoming a lot more personal.

Newport Beach, CA, boasts the deep, endless sandy beaches of California postcards. The city itself is affluent, and conservative. As of 2000, the population was 92.2% white. People wind down the streets on beach cruisers in bikinis and swim trunks, even in winter.

It is a popular place to surf, and during the making of White Wash Air was out there one day. “It was a good day, great surf,” he remembers. “And one of the dudes next to me, he was just like, ‘What are you doing here?’ And this was in a lineup, you know, which is how we’re all waiting for waves in order, and I was the only black person out there, of course. And it just made me think, ‘Well I’m just surfing, you know?’ and he said, ‘Well, you’re not supposed to surf here.’ And it just took me a minute, because this was my second year, I think—this was 6 or 7 years ago, and I was just like, ‘Wow, I thought I could just surf in the lineup,’ and he was like, ‘Sorry man, there’s no brothers here.’”

 

Now, on the beach Air gets recognized for his involvement in the film. When White Wash was released, people expected a “surf film” but when it didn’t give that, they embraced it anyway. Kelly Slater is in it, but not surfing. He’s visibly uncomfortable, discussing the discouraging lack of diversity in his field. Historians weigh in, and prominent black surfers talk about their experiences in the water. Ben Harper narrates and the Roots contributed to the score, lending credibility to a passion project by a dedicated but small team. They managed a theatrical release without a distribution company, through the generosity of audiences who wanted the opportunity to see the film, and learn.

 

Since White Wash, Air has continued producing—at the moment he’s focusing on Mr. SOUL!, a documentary about Elis Haizlip and his revolutionary “black Tonight Show” and a feature film, a psychological thriller about a schizophrenic artist who believes she is possessed.

Also in the works: a documentary about Mike Salisbury, the branding genius who coined the Levi’s “501” jean (he asserted that “Shrink-To-Fit Blue Jean” wouldn’t catch), who created the controversial Joe the Camel, and put the one glove on Michael Jackson. Air met him through White Wash—Salisbury designed their poster, which is now in the Margaret Herrick library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He began learning about Salisbury’s career during the process, and was amazed Salisbury wasn’t a household name. “He’s been creating all these magical things for the world and nobody really knows who he is, and I was like, ‘Dude, we’ve gotta tell your story.’”

Mr. Pop Culture, the story of Mike Salisbury, is currently in pre-production. It will be Air’s directorial debut.

 

 

Manual or automatic?

Automatic.

First thing you ate or drank this morning?

Mate green tea.

Last thing you drank last night?

Red wine.

Favorite place to drive?

That’s an interesting one. I like Sunset.

What do you listen to in the car?

My favorite band to listen to is Belle and Sebastian in the car.

Malibu or Hollywood?

Hollywood.

Vegas or Tijuana?

Vegas.

Favorite place to shop?

Well I do AA a lot. I like American Apparel.

Where were you born?

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Thing you love about California?

The weather.

Thing you hate about California?

The weather. [Laughs]

Favorite place on the Earth?

I would say Anza Borrego.

Place you last traveled to?

Just the dessert.

Where do you consider ‘home’?

Wherever my wife is.

A place that makes you feel calm?

Transcendental meditation.

A place where you always feel excited?

In bed with my wife.

Best quality in a friend?

Integrity.

How do you start your weekend?

Usually yoga.

AIRRION COPELAND | airrioncopeland.com

PHOTOS: MEGHAN MCGARRY | WORDS: GENEVIEVE ERNST