Brendy Hale

Project Statement

Portland is a noisy city, and we love noise. As a local musician, the music community and I thrive on noise as a way to spread what we love with those around us- and to do so we need space to make noise.

City Sound PDX identifies and addresses barriers local musicians face in 2022 through community-based research and collaborative design. By looking into Portland's noise policy, conducting interviews, and publishing surveys within the community, my collaborators and I have found a divide between how noise is regulated, and how it is consumed. Those that practice music and hold music events are at the mercy of those around them, and a noise complaint from a neighbor can yield disastrous results, from crippling fines to venue closure.

The local scene and the music economy are products of design, and as an MFA candidate of Collaborative Design at PNCA, I made CitySound PDX as a tool of speculative design to help fix splintered rungs along the music ecosystem's ladder, so that all residing in the music community have equal access to flourish in this noisy city we call home.

Artist Statement

Brendy Hale is the only redhead in his family. A designer, touring musician, and painter, he owes his spark for creation to the sites seen and people met over the years, most recently on Route 66 in his ‘84 Ford van and teaching abroad in Colombia. Voted most huggable in eighth grade, Brendy maintains that it is through closeness, warmth and eager attentiveness towards one’s surroundings that genuine learning and connection occurs. That might mean sitting as an all-night wallflower at the neighborhood dive, armed with a pen and blank beer coaster, or joining a sunrise 13-miler with the local run club.

His songs play softly with the stories he’s lived and heard, to the familiar tunes of love, loss, and longing. These are shapes we all recognize and can see ourselves in. His graphic style echoes this familiarity with a strong tie to the natural world. Drawings that reflect water and plant life give rise to liquid forms that sway and bend, intertwining with one another. As a designer, he applies his visual toolbox and interpersonal experience in answering: how might we as designers give voice to past memories and agency to ideas from the stories we’ve learned? And how might we design for a human-centered experience together?

MFA in Collaborative Design