image//hannah metz   words//kristina carucci

The multi-talented Landon Metz is a busy bee, if one ever existed. His resume boasts collaborations with big names, such as American Apparel and Spike Jonze, but his body of work goes far beyond the commercial. Landon took a break from his day job at art magazine the journal to talk to Artist Advocacy about his latest endeavors in a new city he can finally call home—New York.

What inspired your recent move to New York?

I went to school in LA. That’s why Hannah [my wife] and I moved there in the first place. We were living in Vancouver before that. I went to school and then I got a job at American Apparel. I was the assistant creative director there for about two years. During that time, I left art school and starting working full time. I wasn’t getting exactly what I wanted out of it. We always knew that LA was temporary for us. I feel like I had a good run in the office at American Apparel and I just wanted to come to New York because I love it here.

Wow, how did you land the American Apparel job?

When we first moved out to LA, Hannah was asked to do the vintage department for American Apparel. When she started working there, we were hanging out at her boss’s house one night at a party, and the creative director was there. We got to talking and she said I should come into the office a few days later. So I went in on Monday and she asked if I wanted to start tomorrow. I was in school still, so I wasn’t able to commit to anything fully. So I did like a three-month trial period with them doing mostly design work.

Isn’t one of your prints doing really well?

I’ve done a few for them, but the big one is the Afrika print. It’s cool to see people, girls mainly, wearing stuff that you do. My job description for them was so loose… I did a lot of textile work for them, like those prints. I also did some ads and in-store graphics, kind of anything that needed to be done. Some web stuff.

Speaking of web stuff, didn’t you recently design the blog “We Love You So” for Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are?

Yeah! Somehow my friend Dallas came across Spike Jonze. I don’t really know how that connection formed. Spike asked him if he knew of anybody who could work on this project and they contacted me.  I got to hang out before the movie came out and go check out the sets and props. It was really fun to get inspiration for a general aesthetic for the website.

Any plans to do more web design?

As far as design work, I prefer to do print work. That’s what I’m doing at the journal. The Company of People is my big web project. I’m also working on the site for Hannah’s new company [The Loved One.]  I don’t actively seek web design work, but I’m happy to do it when it comes my way.

The Company of People, your curatorial project, has a show opening in LA next week. How did that transition from online to gallery happen?

I was contacted by Urban Outfitters for a position for their branch in Philadelphia, but I didn’t want to leave New York. Anyway, as that was progressing, I became friends with Sue, who runs all of the creative stuff. We were going back and forth about different projects, and I told her about The Company of People and moving into doing exhibitions… In LA, there is a gallery space that Urban Outfitters sponsors and pays for everything that goes on there. It had just opened when I was on my way out of LA. I got to see the Tiny Vices
opening there; that was when the gallery was pretty new. I liked the gallery space and it had started building a name for itself.

How did you choose the artists to include in the exhibition?

Basically, the way I do everything is just stuff that I like: my friends and people whose work I respect. I just like to work with young people doing interesting things. Ben Shumacher is a good friend of mine. He does a lot of sculptural things based in the digital realm, and sort of internet phenomenons. So he’s in the show, and his friend Liam Crockard, who is a collage artist, is also part of the Company now. Peter Sutherland and his brother Andrew are both in the show too… Andrew does sculptural work that is based on referencing natural organisms with his lifestyle in New York—the piece that I am showing of his is a log he made out of newspaper.

Is any of your own work going to be shown?

Yeah, I am in the show. I am doing paintings—abstract oils and watercolors. And Hannah has photographs in the show.

Where would you like to see The Company of People in five or ten years?

I have a lot of really great people that have offered to work for me for free. The people that it brings into my life are all people that I enjoy being with and I would love to be able to pay them. I would like to have a small independent publishing studio, and I definitely am working on that and hoping to have a small studio within a year. I would like to have a community center type thing, where people can come hang out. We could do some small exhibitions and things like that. I want to spend more time rooting myself and all the people that are doing amazing things here before I ever attempt to open my own space. It’s going to take time. I just want to become closer to people that I know here and work on those relationships, and be part of the amazing things that are going on already.

I noticed your photos use mostly natural light, and have a filmic quality. How do you feel about the “digital revolution?”

I don’t shoot anything digitally. I do carry a point-and-shoot with me always, a Yashica T4. It has a really nice lens on it, which sets it apart from other point-and-shoots. I also carry an older SLR, which is a pretty run-of-the-mill Pentax, classic hippie camera. It’s really nice for natural light. I’m attached to quality and to tangibility, and to classic standards. I’m attached to things that are well done, well made. There are nice digital cameras, obviously, that are amazing for what they are.  Nike’s not going to be cool fronting hundreds of rolls of film. If you want to be a photographer now you have to learn digital, but personally I love the feeling—the textures—of film.

Where did the idea for your sound sculptures originate?

My musical inspiration has always been heavily drawn from people like John Cage. The minimalist movements from the US, from earlier to mid century. These guys were so ahead of their time. My personal background, aside from anything artistic, is that I practice meditation everyday. I practice mindfulness, which is a form of meditation that you apply to everyday life. It’s just about being present. And I feel that those kind of aspects of my spiritual growth take form a lot in my sound work and paintings in particular. I try to keep the pieces short enough for someone to listen to them. They are about three minutes long and actually have structure and composition in them. And if you want to spend the time to listen to it, the subtly of changes within those three minutes… It’s similar to a pop song.  They have structure and repetition, and choruses, if you will.

Where does your stop motion “Castles” fall into your work?

In my personal life, I’ve spent a lot of time outside the artistic realm, just on my consciousness development, and in the past year or so, for me, that has changed how I represent myself and my artwork. I love doing stop motion. I wouldn’t consider myself a pro at it, but I like the process of it a lot. It’s nice to just sit in a dark room by yourself with these lights and move things so slowly. It’s a less-recognized art form and I think it’s beautiful. It has been something that I haven’t really worked on in the past year. I think aesthetically it was part of something I was doing before, and it hasn’t necessarily fallen into what I’m doing now. It’s just very time consuming and the
things I would like to do require money, and that’s always an issue.

You work in so many mediums. What is your next focus?

I don’t ever want to limit myself. I started a band out here with my friend Ethan and Hannah. It’s similar to the sound projects I was doing, but we’re going to put together live sets.  I enjoy performing. Get weird. I’m just going to sink my teeth into New York , and keep working at the journal. I have no intentions of leaving here, which is a first for me. Whenever I’ve lived in a place it’s always been temporary. I don’t have any time span in New York. I am fully present and just want to see where it takes me.

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The Company of People Group Exhibition will be on display January 23-March 7, 2010 at The Gallery Space in Los Angeles. For more information, please visit www.thecompanyofpeople.com and www.space15twenty.com. More of Landon’s work can be seen at www.landonmetz.com.