Liz:

Hi, are you awake?

Ian Christy:

Morning!

Liz:

Morning, have fun last night?

Ian Christy:

yup, drank with friends and watched two bad films, fun!

I'm mentally preparing for the excitement of tattoo later today, another 3 hour session. phase two in revamping my 10 year old tattoo

Liz:

WOW, a 3 hour session! Which films did you and your friends watch?

Ian Christy:

old flick called Jubilee (criterion) with Adam Ant, silly, and recent lo-budget indie called Horror, never rent films named after a genre

Liz:

Adam Ant!!! I saw him in concert back in the day. Haha! I loved him.

Ian Christy:

nice, he's a hottie, well, was, dunno about now

Liz:

Do you and Yujin cohabitate?

Ian Christy:

yup, she rents the second bedroom, which is neat because she has everything there arranged in a very efficient style, while my room is dense and cluttered. We both have wires and machines everywhere, though, so clearly we're akin, ha ha!

Liz:

*Ian shows me Yujin’s picture* She is really beautiful, e.

Ian Christy:

thanks, I think so too, especially mentally, she's sharp and has no reservations about speaking her mind or asking VERY direct questions (makes our pals squirm when she does that, such a social sadist sometimes). Learning a lot from her, for sure. Dunno what she's learning from me yet, but she claims I'm inspirational, now that's a scary thought' yeh, i tend to be "audience" to the culture(sub cultures) as well mostly. i like being able toswitch clean cut to punk with a choice of costume, so to speak, rather than go full tribal. A friend of mine just dropped a book, I feel all proud, he's a god: http://www.digitalapocalypse.com/ that's his site, mad skills in the digital photo montage thang

Liz:

Damn, that’s exciting!

Ian Christy:

yup, totally. Can't wait to see what he does for an autograph for me. I have this habit of getting autographs that vary on the theme "fuck you, ian" and he and i are obnoxious so should be very funny. i have one from Mark Hammil "Fuck you Ian and I really mean that" while Bruce Campbell said "Fuck right off Ian" a play on Oregon expression "right on" hee hee. William Gibson was the first one I ever got like that. I'm so odd about celebrity crap.

Liz:

hahaha! That’s so funny. It makes perfect sense that you would come up with something like that, something different,

Ian Christy:

I tried to get one like that from Japanese god Nirasawa, but he drew a hot demon bondage girl instead, so can i really complain, nope!

Liz:

Your friends stuff is really cool, does someone like this inspire you?

Ian Christy:

Yeh, raises the ante for me since we use similar tools and have similar background aesthetically. We're also both from games, he worked at 3DO back when i met him, then in porn making the DVD interfaces, he has more code skill than i do, but draws way less, uses photos instead so to point i think it's good to look to people that do what you do, better to look at people who cross over what you do, and even better to have a healthy dose of cats who do something entirely different than what you do

Liz:

Your so lucky that you get to do what you love for a living, what is that like?

Ian Christy:

Love is a strong word, ha ha. "Related" and "educational" would be better. I'm SO 9-5 and that chaffes, but I guess I'm a ho for the dough, so it goes. Seriously, I dig what I do, sure, but sometimes I get extremely bored. I'm just rebuffing someone else's license or creative (using that term VERY loosely) material, adding my flava as much as i can get away with, and meantime honing technical skills and learning from my diverse array of immensely talented co-workers. and i dig the research i have to do. I've learned all this stuff about map making, queens NYC, the carribean and latin america in the past few months researching for designing the world for the game i'm on. that's rad learning about places i wasn't previously very interested in.

Liz:

Do you see yourself taking off to the US at any point? Seeing what happens there for your work? NYC, maybe?

Ian Christy:

I love NYC. I'm from the states, so Vancouver still feels mildly exotic to me. I went to Manhattan last Febuary for the big toy fair on the Toy2R tip, awesome, My pal Jed was attending Parsons so I hung with him and his predom Korean crew at night. Ruled. Wandered around a bit by myself, loved that, every block a new world, new ethnic spin, seemed like and it was freezing, just days before that big snowstorm hit, one that snowed my pal Raymond from Toy2R in, prevented him from getting back to HK for a week.

Liz:

Parsons is an tremendous school, turns out a lot of illustrious designers.

Ian Christy:

yeh, parsons seems rad, although most of my experience with it is seeing some of the people's work and hanging out at the cafe / deli / grocery store across the road from it, Korean place with great to bo ki, fun, cheap coffee too, always a plus.

Liz:

So for now your content with where you work?

Ian Christy:

So yeh, I'm content with Radical, although I hope to move into film as a production designer, that's so dreamy to me, and why i did the film school thing last year, to make that transition.

Liz:

Film production seems like an obvious step for you. Your always creating. Who inspires you?

Ian Christy:

who? pretty much everyone I run into in some way, mostly positive, sometimes negative, mostly positive though. i don't have much ego about my stuff. in it, sure, but about it, no.

Liz:

When did you first know that you could be an artist and make money at it?

Ian Christy:

I didn't actually know i could make a living with art involved until i went to University of Oregon and a prof there referred me into what became a 5 year stint with Dynamix, a Sierra studio, working on games. I think since I'm from the south i was in a denial state about doing things i enjoyed and getting paid for it, like somehow i thought to be an adult i needed to do stuff i hated. so when i first went to school in KY i kept changing majors, ended up finally in architecture, spent a year and a half there, all studio time, fell in love with studio and out of love with architecture, o figure, decided to take a break, work and pay off my student loans, find a school better suited for me. few years later end up in Oregon and far happier.

Liz:

Your art, how would you describe it?

Ian Christy:

my art? amateur. ha ha! underdeveloped and prone to ruts of low brow content. i tend to get bleary eyed when actually trying to grow up and do work i'm more passionate about, a byproduct of working full time i expect, hard to switch mindsets, easier just to slack and draw stuff that makes me grin.

Liz:

What else are you passionate about?

Ian Christy:

passion? film, design illustration, graffitti (although i don't do any, love the kind that comes from cats with a bit more educated ability to render images, art school vandals i guess), web animation, books, esp. art books, Asian pop culture (although been burned out on that lately, think I over did it the last few years), toys (esp. designer related toys like Micahel Lau, Mez there in NYC, Etc.). Which gets back to the working at different levels question. i'd love to. production design is one outlet. like Terra (japanese illustrator worked on anime Blood and film Moon Over Tao) or Guy Dyas (the X-Men 2 guy). Gallery is something i'm considering more lately. Yujin influence maybe? When I met her she had a show up, and I went to it and just loved the way work isolated like that spoke from the walls like a chorus.

Liz:

Galleries seem like a inevitable scene for you , and now you have a woman that encourages you, that is really exciting. So life is good for Ian Christy:?

Ian Christy:

pretty good, yeh, I think so. Not perfect, I break even bills to paychecks, so that doesn't leave much room for risks or travel (another thing I love). Not a lot of time for personal work ether, so weekends become like pre-exam cram sessions, you know?

Liz:

Breaking even? Wow, thats rich in my book. I like to travel too much. haha

What locations would you want to travel to?

Ian Christy:

Korea, esp. now, like Dagu and Soeul and Japan, like Tokyo (esp. Shinjuku) , Osaka, maybe the opposite coast for some rural bliss. I tend to avoid tourist stuff as much as I can, and I have several friends in both places, so it's interesting to me to see where they grew up, what sorts of things shaped them into the interesting people that are my pals, I'd also like to go to England, my sister lives in Manchester with her family, that's pretty much excuse enough

Liz:

Tourist stuff is the worst. I never go that route. London is awesome and Japan is on my list. So when I come to Canada I can look up you and Yujin and avoid the tourist scene? haha!

Ian Christy:

right on. yeah, that's right, you tore up London. Cool!

Liz:

London inspired the hell outta me. The people are great and the country is beautifully clean and austere and elegant.

Ian Christy:

Of course. Vancouver is a nice place. Not mondo exciting, true, but extremely multi-cultural, not a term i love, but in this case it actually is true.

Liz:

I am seriously a fan of all of your endeavors. Tell me about “Thus Loathing”. Is that still an active project for you?

Ian Christy:

yup. just added a little poem yesterday. it is sorely neglected, but everything that goes there has such quality from outside submissions and such passion from my submissions that i feel very proud of it and don't mind a bit that it has a minute circulation and limited content. kind of refreshing after the overdose of my own site, which needs a serious house cleaning, ha ha!

Liz:

You were raised Catholic, as I was, and I know that can be a lot to over come.

Ian Christy:

word. Catholic school scars galore. and i was ALWAYS in trouble for doing stuff they had NO idea what to do with. Writing, drawing, wearing Motley Crue buttons on my sweater vest (took them a week to put that one together, ha ha, and me even longer to reaLiz:e that they might be offended by such, whacky).

Liz:

hahaha! My “mortal sin” was wearing makeup. The nuns use to drag me out into the hallway to blast me about getting attention from the boys. *sniker* So how do you feel about religion today?

Ian Christy:

Nice. Now, I'm agnostic at best, resentful at worst. hard to shake the warmth of thinking there is some reason for life, although I'm way more on the Bhuddist / Karma side of the fence with that line of sentiment. I do have a deeply rooted instant hostility towards anyone that comes on puritan style, the whole conservative white Christian do goody loathe all those not towing the line self righteous types. way too much of that in the south. gets old. that's not to blast all about church or religion, not at all, sometimes the social elements are awesome, like the 3 hour Sunday services I'd go to with my black friends, a whole community and love and gossip and great food and more love, just awesome, not like the overly rituaLiz:ed and empty stale cold and judgemental white protestant and Catholic stuff i'd see through school or through my biological father (he was a presbetarian preacher for a while)

Liz:

have you see the film, “Bowling For Columbine?”

Ian Christy:

yup. love that Michael Moore cat. He seems as if he’s manipulative as hell, love that about him as well.

Liz:

I saw that flick in NYC, with Anne and we loved it. We were like , finally a little perspective on the Media and guns and the part that fear plays. Canada came off as so much more sane than the Midwest (US).

Ian Christy:

yeh, that's part of the manipulative part though, sadly. Canada is safer, sure, and more sane, but they do have bouts of problems that while less paranoid are nearly as bad. like the leaving doors unlocked thing. no one i have talked to from anywhere in canada (except places always under snow) leaves their doors unlocked. esp. here in BC where there is a lot of vagrancy, addicts looking to steal for their next fix.

Liz:

You referred to your biological father. Are you adopted?

Ian Christy::

adopted? oh, no, just grew up with my mom and step father. My biological father was a real character when i was young, and we had a lot of conflict later on because i was so hell bent on not being like him. we get along very well now, we're both older and have some perspective and I'm a hell of a lot more certain of my personal character, more or less.

Liz:

One of the most frightening moments in a persons life, is when they catch a glimpse of themselves acting like the parent they swore they would never be! Haha! Who did you inherit the talent from?

Ian Christy:

yeh. i think on the surface i'm reserved like my mom, but my friends all think i'm obnoxious (in apparently an endearing way generally) so must just be my wishful thinking. underneath i'm a mix of all influences, i suspect, and at times seem like my mom, my awesome step-dad, and occasionally like my biological dad, which used to drive me insane, now just makes me smile, really can't be helped.

Liz:

Sure. It called genetics Hun. The name of this blog is Urban Addiction, what are you addicted to, anything?

Ian Christy:

knowledge, inspiration, perception, view. I have an extremely short attention span, so i need new and different stimuli constantly. I used to watch two films a day, now i find more active things to do, films are sometimes just too passive for me, go figure, and i jump genres of content a lot because sticking to one genre runs into the same voice thing, start to feel like been there done that seen that getting all jaded and redundancy annoyed. get a break from it and the joy returns to the genres.

Liz:

I hear ya Hun. I needed a new creative outlet and Anne wanted to do the blog, so I said why not? I already knew a lot of fantastic people that were blogging and willing to help us out. I like reading your stuff and browsing the provocative art work. What are your plans for your site?

Ian Christy:

Rght on. Blogs are cool. i like photo blogs as well. Yujin has mentioned adopting a sketch blog for the new draw jam site, something like that. I want to streamline my site and better sort it in support of my refocusing on the future, which means shedding baggage and getting on with supporting who i am rather than trying to finally accomplish whatever agendas i had back when when notions were foggy and agendas ill defined. Guess i'm finally growing up a bit. as much as i'm willing to anyway. And i really really want to pull a "David Choe" and get signed to illustrate for a cool magazine or enterprise and end up with a coffee table book. Long story as to why, but that would be a huge validation for me someday.

Liz:

I totally get where your coming from. Sooner or later chasing shit just doesn’t get it. You want to be Ok inside. The hardest thing for me was too know, I'm OK right this minute.

Ian Christy:

yeh, you nailed it. So, i have to jet, need to help with errands before the tattoo session at noon.

Liz:

God luck with the tattoo, have fun!

Ian Christy:

this has been awesome, you're asking great questions, my mind is smoking with contemplation! fun!

Liz:

I really appreciate you taking time to talk to me this morning. I loved getting to know you,

I'm really a fan of you and your work.

Ian Christy:

no problem! we'll pick up more later if you'd like. good to get to know you as well!

Have an awesome weekend!!!

Liz:

So listen e, I want an autograph when you send me a drawing. Maybe you’ll sign it, “Fuck off, Liz:!” haha!