Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Brightside.
Hi Katie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Welcome to the Brightside, is a creative agency. The company is impassioned with a melting pot of creatives from vast spectrums of the arts and delivers unique design and artistic projects. The firm also houses The Digs Collection, a homeware company highlighting illustrated mural scale artwork, wallpaper, and handmade kimonos.
Over the years I have has secured several public art installations and personally received a 2022 WeHo Artist Grant to produce a performance art/fashion show on the Rainbow Crosswalk.
In 2021, I received the Phyllis Morris Women in Leadership Award from the West Hollywood Women’s Advisory Board.
In 2022, the company, Welcome to the Brightside won the John Chase Award for innovation of Art and Design at West Hollywood Creative Business Awards.
Due to launch late Spring 2023 is the ultimate dream project, Once Upon a Cocktail – West Hollywood, a recipe book featuring 55 local venues across the city.
With every project, I’m passionate to defy all creative boundaries.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Life is never a smooth road, that’s called the human existence. We are a culmination of both success and failure.
I was once given the advice to be indifferent to the outcome. Which means to not dwell on a loss or to lose yourself celebrating the win. I choose not to look back or to skip the present to live far in the evolving future.
I did ride the bumpy road for many years, only to find it exhausting. These days I focus and choose to ride on a straight freeway rather than board a rollercoaster. This is a huge undertaking and does not come easy to an emotional creative. I just refuse to buy into the drama of the highs and lows. It’s with practicing this I have found a glimmer of happiness caught in the now.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Early 2022, I received an Artist Grant from the City of West Hollywood. As a creative looking for inspiration, I find the historical past vital to develop ideas from. Whatever comes to fruition is a modern twist on something once lived. What makes it unique is the signature style of the person creating it.
I used this grant to explore several of West Hollywood’s past secrets to make their history relevant to a new generation.
For example, I was informed about Kate Sessions from a meeting with Sunset Strip Documentary Director Hans Fjellestad, I was intrigued to know more. From my own deep dive and appreciation, I wanted to use this grant opportunity to shed light on Kate Sessions as a thank you for our beautiful treelined streets. I did this by illustrating an exclusive West Hollywood print encompassing two Yellow Chevron Parakeets nesting in Jacaranda flowers and leaves. Aptly named Jacaranda and Parrot Print. From this point, I created a few items of clothing for the performance art/fashion show on the Rainbow Crosswalk.
The Camels dress was made from 44 plush handmade camels. Each camel took 2.5 hours to hand make with the total dress time of 120 hours. Each camel is individually named and created; no 2 are alike. The Camel Dress, aka The Beanie Baby Dress coined by Jackie Tohn at this year’s CBAs (Creative Business Awards), was created to highlight there were 6 camels purchased by Henry Hancock around 1860. These camels lived by West Hollywood’s first adobe, located near the stream that ran down Kings Road. My future plan is to start a campaign for the camel to become West Hollywood’s mascot.
The final presentation of the grant project wraps at 3 pm, December 17th, 2022, at Artlounge Collective on La Brea concluding with the performance thereafter on the Rainbow Crosswalk.
A dream project I’m working on is called Once Upon a Cocktail – West Hollywood, a cocktail recipe book featuring 55 of WeHo’s most prominent bars, restaurants, and hotels. This project is what I love to call an impossible-possible project with so many moving parts. Nick Rimedio is the producer on the book. With Nick’s passion behind me, I would have never pulled it off. It’s definitely a who’s who of West Hollywood. Through the entire process, the Chamber of Commerce has been super supportive. I’d actually say it’s a team affair with so much encouragement and championing. It’s incredible to see a city bond over this creation and further proof this city is like no other.
I have been working with WeHo Historian Jon Ponder and the director of the Sunset Strip Documentary, Hans Fjellestad to add in a few historical nuggets and facts.
Another fabulous addition to the book is Sarah Mengoni from Historically Drinking, Nick Rimedio introduced Sarah and I early Jan 2022, and we have not stopped working together since. Sarah leaped onboard as the cocktail curator. She turned an idea into a stellar recipe book as a standalone curated list whilst making each Bar, Restaurant, and Hotel shine. Sarah and I did some hard-core research; we pretty much covered every bar in town. Every venue who said yes, I squealed with delight. I went from pitching 25 venues to 55 involved, each location has really put support behind us knowing it’s a community adventure.
Our partners so far include the West Hollywood travel and tourism board, the city of West Hollywood, the Sunset BID, the Design District, Southern Glazer Wines, and Spirits, Del Maguey, Beverly High Rye, Kuleana Rum, Liquid Alchemist, Beam Suntory, Ketel One, Tina’s Vodka, Kastra Elion and Casamigos.
We aim to launch this magical guide to drinking in late spring 2023. I’m really hopeful to engage the locals and tourists alike. Until then, we highly recommend having a few Highballs until the book launches!
Early this year the Bad Romance, Pretty Toxic Thing art exhibition previewed at the Magic Box in the Mondrian West Hollywood June 2022. It was inspired by the song of the same name. Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance entwines the over-arching lyrical meaning and fairytale to create a new world of highly imaginative mural scale artworks. The artwork explores pretty things that are toxic.
The collection, which redefines wallpaper, includes an 84-artwork series, Oracle card, and Color-in Book set, and an Instagramable hand-painted mural on the Skybar entrance wall, in collaboration with Artlounge Collective and paints sponsored by Dunn Edwards.
Artlounge Collective was the first to sign the collection to their growing management firm, led by artist and entrepreneur K. Ryan Henisey @artloungecollective.
“You can feel the magic behind Katie’s work,” says Henisey. “She has created a delicate and unique world that encourages you to explore all of its depths. Each illustration touches upon the next, creating windows into a fully developed view of the beautiful and dangerous.”
Bad Romance is a portal to the world of imagination. Each pretty, toxic thing is a beautiful microcosm to itself, rich with symbolism. The artwork, mural, oracle cards, and color-in book are meant to inspire. They encourage others to look beyond the reality.
I’ve a narrowed focus on illustrating the re-telling of fables and moralistic stories. The exhibition at the Magic Box was an opportunity to explain the meaning behind the symbolism and metaphors in the artwork. I proceeded to approach this by creating an Oracle Card Deck and Color-in Instruction Guide Set that worked hand-in-hand with the artwork in the show.
All artworks from Bad Romance are available through Artlounge Collective, which now displays artwork in multiple LA-area venues that include a brand new La Brea/Beverly location, Mondrian Los Angeles, and The Artist Tree.
Another example of the symbolism in the work is the 2021 commission by Lauren Miller’s Modern Art Services (MAS) to create original artworks for the skylights in the state-of-the-art MRI rooms at the new City of Hope, Orange County Cancer Center.
I created a radical imaginative project that calms and distracts the patient from their reality. A reality with many possibilities that can cause anxiety. The intention was for the patient to occupy their thoughts for a second by focusing on the dreamscapes, therefore making the time pass a little more pleasantly.
It’s been an incredible 2022, with more exciting things to look out for. In particular, the announcement that in early 2023, Welcome to the Brightside is set to collaborate with the Hyatt interior team on the remodel of the infamous Andaz Hotel, Sunset Strip. I intends to bring my full creative force with a site-specific concept as a feature wall in 237 rooms. This incredible commission was secured early 2022 with a sample room mural which inspired a full hotel remodel.
I never do things by half!
What matters most to you?
To day by day, evolve into a better human, and to live in the glimmer of happiness of the now.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.welcometothebrightside.com
- Instagram: @welcometothebrightside
Image Credits
West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Awards, 2022
© Jon Viscott Serenity, 2021
© Jeff Mclane
