NW/NY 3: The Little Dun

This next installment in my NW/NY interview series is with renaissance woman Sarah Honda. I first met Sarah in Seattle in the early '90s, when she was an editor at The Flavor magazine, and I started working there. Sarah and I spent many late nights in the office, editing and organizing to the sounds of Mobb Deep and Raekwon. Her roommate at the University of Washington was this girl named Emily. Sarah introduced Emily and me at RKCNDY one night, and to make a long story short, we ended up getting married a couple years later.

Mobb Deep Give Up the Goods / Just Step mp3

Sarah moved to New York and worked at the legendary Payday Records before taking a job at Empire Management, handling the day to day careers of DJ Premier and Gang Starr, among others. We used to hang out and go to brunch a lot, and walk around the city—actually, she walks so fast, it's more like trotting around the city. It was really fun and a good way to see the sights. The way I see it, Sarah has been an ever-present force during two of the goldenest of golden eras of my life.

Three years ago, Sarah moved back to her hometown of Honolulu and started a fashion magazine called Smart. (They have a blog now too...you can tell which posts are Sarah's because they have titles like "Protect Ya Neck-lace.") Sarah also produces the film festival there, has a radio show, promotes a bunch of club nights, and lives the fast life in fast cars.

This week she was in New York for her annual pilgrimage and I forced her to sit down and answer my questions.

Emily and Sarah at Wildwood Barbecue

How's your NYC trip been?
The trip has been amazing – I’ve seen everyone and done everything that I wanted to. Highlights: Takashi Murakami exhibit in BK. Grand Groove at APT with Chairman Mao. Hanging out with Andrea and Trevor Duncan Mao in Harlem. Seeing the Royal Tenenbaums house in Hamilton Heights. Going to Headqcourterz Studio and hanging out with Premier, Gordon, Phat Gary and Show. Derek Jeter/Brand Jordan party at Marquee. NERD show/Paper party at Santos Party House. Wo Hop with Max and Matt. Cheap Malaysian food at Sanur with Pei. The Wackness. Dark Knight. WXOU with Chen, Joey, Hua and Betty. Santogold, Diplo, A-Trak and the dancers at Summerstage. Pre-Fab homes, Dali and George Lois at MoMA. ego trip dinner at Lombardi’s. BBQ with Strath and Em. Momofuku with Darcie. Gelato (twice!) with Jeff Staple. Half hero and daily grain special at Olives, Ernie & Bert Ante Up video. Spice Market with Roya. K-Town grocery shopping with Jones. Beatminerz, Alchemist, Tony Touch, Dart, Crazy Legs, Eclipse, Lord Sear and more at APT (again). DJ Lindsey at The Hump.... And I didn’t even mention any shopping.

When we had dinner you mentioned that you feel settled into your life in Hawaii now. What was the hardest part about adjusting after living in New York for ten years?
I miss how fast people walk. Of course there is more to miss in New York, like sample sales, live music, amazing public transportation, museums, great restaurants and all my friends. And New York is where my dreams came true. But on the real, people in Hawaii walk super slow.

Emily and Sarah blazing up Diamond Head past slow Hawaiians last summer

What do you like about living in Honolulu?
Surfing, shave ice and flip-flops 365 days a year!

What about Leonard's?!
And Leonard's.


What are you into lately?

Acai bowls

Alexandre Herchcovitch

Mexican loteria cards

Bliss Lau body jewelry
Boston Red Sox
Babies
Chie Mihara shoes
Not getting haircuts

What are your plans/power movements? What's next for Sarah K. Honda?
On-air radio personality. A girl can have another dream!

How come you never wear your Bone t-shirt any more?

You know what? I do wear my Bone t-shirt. Don’t doubt me kid!

Anything else you want to say?
Special shout out to Dan. Another thing I miss: the digs.

NW/NY 2: Trace Elements

I'm starting a new series on ye olde Pacific Standard wherein I interview people who are from the Northwest and live in New York, or vice versa, or are interesting people who should be interviewed regardless of where they live, if they moved, or where they're from.

So basically it's an interview series. You might be next so get ready.

First up (well actually second, if you count my interview with Byron Kalet from the Journal of Popular Noise) is Mexico City-born, Northwest-raised Brooklyn resident and Creative Director of Trace magazine, Katie Constans.

She just launched a website to show her work, which is truly impressive.

Being a rule-breaker, Katie didn't really answer all my questions—but the good news is that she sent back a bunch of photos, and a picture is worth 100 answers, so we'll just run with that.

Tell me about your path from the great Northwest to becoming Creative Director of Trace in New York City—what's your background?
I spent a lot of time in high school with fashion magazines—this is my closet [in Edmonds, WA] pasted with magazine images of Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista.

All the walls of my bedroom were always an ever-shifting magazine collage.

This is my Grandmother and me standing outside the house she was born in [in Anacortes, WA].

Right after I graduated high school in Edmonds, I won a modeling contest in Bellevue Square with TCM models, a local modeling agency. I won a trip to New York with Terri Morgan the owner. We went to all the fashion shows and my favorite part was getting Cindy Crawford’s autograph. It looks like it’s gotten a bit moldy now.

I ended up modeling for 10 years all over the world. I spent a lot of time in Europe and Asia. This cover from Seattle Bride circa 2001 was my last modeling assignment. It meant a lot to me because it was shot by my favorite photographer based in Seattle, Jim Henkens, who also shot my first test shoot ten years earlier. It felt like I had come full circle.

I studied graphic design at Cornish in Seattle and started doing assistant styling work locally for The Bon, Eddie Bauer and Nordstrom.com. I was always inspired by French fashion magazines and by American artists in the ’20s and ’30s that moved to Paris to pursue and develop their art—Man Ray, Lee Miller, Edward Steichen, and Alexander Calder. I decided to do the same—I moved to Paris to study photography at Parsons in Paris and pursue styling.

This is an example of the type of styling work I was doing there.

I was hired from Paris to come to New York to work at Trace magazine. I started working as the photo editor.

Who and what are your influences?
My biggest inspiration of course is Alexey Brodovitch. I often think about how he used to say “Éttonei Moi!” (surprise me!) when commissioning photographers. I wish I could get away with that but it’s just not the same coming from a Seattle girl without a French accent.

Last question—what are your plans this summer?
This summer I plan on doing a tour of all the beaches near NYC. Visiting my family on Whidbey Island and collecting more of those rocks with the white ring around them. I will be talking on my phone from New York to Seattle and Seattle to NY a lot. Going to as many photo openings, art galleries and museums as possible. Dreaming of images, design and cinema while on the subway. Dancing, dancing, dancing, laughing, riding my bike, going to outdoor concerts, making fun videos and staying inspired.

Check out Katie's work at katieconstans.com

NW/NY 1: The Art of Noise

I first met Byron Kalet when he was our star design intern at Visionaire. He landed a full-time job there even before graduating from Parsons, but it was clear he had some weirder stuff up his sleeve as well, and it wasn't long before The Journal of Popular Noise was born. Billed as an "audio magazine inspired by the traditions of pop music, printed periodicals, and the delight of a finely crafted artifact," the semi-annual JPN comes in the form of a beautifully letter-pressed poster, folded into a square accordion formation that holds three 7" slabs of vinyl. The artists involved are given specific editorial guidelines before recording, and the finished sounds represent widely varied responses to that structure. The third edition (issues 7–9 – each record represents one issue) is out this week with contributions from Past Lives, Bora Yoon + Ben Frost, and Na + Junko (listen while you read: Past Lives All Is Well MP3). With release parties coming up in both Seattle (June 8) and Brooklyn (June 13) I figured I'd check in with Byron and see what's up.

Explain the origins of The Journal of Popular Noise.

It began as a culmination of several different ideas. First off it was a way for me to reconcile the ten+ years I spent playing music in Seattle with my new life here in NY as a graphic designer. In school I was leaning more and more into books and magazines, it occurred to me that all the same rules applied to designing a magazine as to composing a record. Some of my teachers would use “a great song” as a metaphor for a cool poster or something. But to me it wasn’t a metaphor, I could feel my brain doing the same thing with both outlets. So I wanted to see what would happen if I very overtly applied the magazine structure to making a record. Much to my surprise, it worked! Beyond that it became my outlet for all the stuff I was into; from quasi-scientific Muzak diagrams to John Cage scores; Ultra-thin-sans-type kerned absurdly close to rigid swiss-modern grid systems. The whole folding-paper thing was a fluke.
How do you go about picking contributors?
I started out by asking my friends and the people I grew up playing music with. I grew up with so many amazing talented people that even if I didn’t grow up with them, they would still be on my list. But for the first one it was less “who do I want” and more ”who can I convince to participate in this hair-brained scheme.” I’m still putting out my friends' records, but now its getting to be friends of friends, serendipitous connections. The network is branching out but I want to keep it community based. I think its better that way, it will be a long time before I cold call someone to be a part of this.

Who would your dream contributors be?

As far as musicians, I would love Brian Eno or Kraftwerk, Stockhausen, Cage, et al. Really all the people that inspired me to explore new ways of looking at and making music. I’ve been harassing Miranda July to do one. I really want to expand into other realms of sound art beyond music, I really want to do a melodramatic Radio Play with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken...

What else are you listening to?

This winter I got really into some of the big UK electro stuff, Simian Mobile Disco (contributing to Spring/Summer '09!) and Hot Chip (working on it). Other than that I’ve been getting back into a lot of early '80s hardcore. Minor Threat will never get old to me, D.R.I., Bad Brains, Black Flag...I just saw Negative Approach a few weeks back. There’s a cool new hardcore band out of Oly called Sex Vid. But mostly I stick to the classics.

The JPN reminds me of Fluxus. Is that a connection you're consciously aware of?

Sort of, it was one of those things that I was reading about in school along with all the other stuff I mentioned earlier (Cage, Reich, Eno, Schaffer, The Barons, Stockhausen ) but I much more consciously drew from Muzak, I’m obsessed with Muzak. I wrote a paper about it in school, I could go off for hours, but I’ll restrain myself here.

Who or what are your design influences (both for the Journal and personally) and what other publications do you like?

Ugh, unfortunately I spend way more of my time making magazines than reading them these days. I tried reading Wooooo but it was gross. I’m really obsessed with Tron right now, the Truckasauras record art I just finished draws heavily from it. I rabidly consumed all the classic graphic design stuff in college, so now I’m trying to look elsewhere for inspiration. I went to a lecture on particle physics last Friday that was really great. I’m not sure how that will apply to design but one day something may occur to me. And old stuff is always cool, I spend a lot of time in thrift stores whenever I go home, I’ve always found a lot of inspiration there.

You grew up in the Northwest and obviously retain a connection to it—in a way it's like New York is big on design and Seattle is big on music. How does that influence your outlook?

Well one thing that I think is really great about the JPN it is that it helps me stay connected to my friends out there. The release party in Seattle is actually a co-release with another record I’m putting out by Truckasauras (their debut release Tea Parties, Guns & Valor, in collaboration with Fourthcity Records). I went to junior high with half the guys in Past Lives and ALL the guys in Truckasauras, as well as our Associate Editor Daniel Mitha. This is the first show those guys have all played together since the talent show in the Kirkland Junior High cafeteria. It feels really good to me to be releasing both of these new bands' first records. It’s a really rare gift to still be able to continue working with these rad people after all this time. I usually describe Seattle as being consistent and sedimentary (sometimes as an insult, sometimes as a compliment) but the idea of staying rooted both in an idea and a community seems to be a developing theme with the Journal.

What's next for ol' Byron Kalet?

Once the release parties are behind me I’m just gonna sit back and watch the money roll in. I really want to take some time off (and by take time off that just means I don’t do any work outside of the normal 50+ hours a week at Visionaire). I need to spend some time taking things in, listening to records, reading magazines, looking at art. But I’ll most likely end up continuing to spend all my time making them instead. Could be worse.
The new issue of The Journal of Popular Noise is available at Opening Ceremony, Printed Matter, Sonic Boom, Wall of Sound and a bunch of other stores (complete list here) or online at popularnoise.net.

Click here for info on the release parties (Sunday June 8th at Nectar in Seattle, and Thursday June 12th at Listen:Space in Brooklyn).