This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Leah Walsh: Hi, and welcome to The Compass, the podcast documenting the struggles of life as an artist.

[0:05] Leah Walsh: I'm Leah Walsh.

[0:06] Leah Walsh: My guest today is Ryan O'Byrne.

[0:08] Leah Walsh: Ryan is an actor and a visual and performance artist.

[0:12] Leah Walsh: He and I overlapped at Juilliard and we did outreach work together while we were there.

[0:16] Leah Walsh: His drive and courage as an artist is something I really admire.

[0:19] Leah Walsh: He moved to California two years ago, so this conversation happened over Skype, so the audio might sound a little bit different than usual.

[0:39] Ryan O'Byrne: Hi.

[0:40] Leah Walsh: Hi.

[0:41] Ryan O'Byrne: How are you?

[0:43] Leah Walsh: I'm good. How are you?

[0:49] Ryan O'Byrne: Well, let's dive in.

[0:50] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[0:52] Leah Walsh: So how do you try to keep yourself from going to the dark side as an artist, Ryan?

[0:58] Ryan O'Byrne: Um, well, I think um, and you know, as we were kind of talking a little bit before this, I think one thing for me is I'm actually realizing like I'm going through it and into it as opposed to trying to avoid it.

[1:14] Ryan O'Byrne: And um uh there's a lot of deep breathing that's probably gonna happen because even in just like talking about it, I start to get anxious because I'm so at this point right now, I'm like coming through a pretty, I guess difficult or challenging time.

[1:36] Ryan O'Byrne: And so um I think and I listen to your podcast, and so to know that I was gonna be asked, like, what do I do to get out of it? Or to try to get out of it.

[1:45] Ryan O'Byrne: Or to try to get out of it, exactly. What do I do to kind of maybe get out of, try to get out of it or protect myself from it?

[1:52] Ryan O'Byrne: I think for me, I've been thinking about it in terms of how I go through it and how I listen to it and how I let it um teach me or tell me something without doing damage.

[2:10] Ryan O'Byrne: Because I think I um I I've uh I've suffered from like some pretty serious like post-traumatic stress disorder.

[2:20] Ryan O'Byrne: I uh I don't have to get into the reasons, but uh there was a pretty traumatic event when I was like 19.

[2:29] Ryan O'Byrne: Um I can kind of just give an overview, so I was pretty much like brutally attacked by some police officers.

[2:38] Leah Walsh: Oh my god.

[2:38] Ryan O'Byrne: And so um I've been uh you know, and there were reasons why it happened or whatever, but it's like it's created this like really close relationship to anxiety and stress and um fear, and so over the years I've learned ways of running from it, hiding from it, um, which involved a lot of drug and alcohol use, and I've been sober for four years.

[3:09] Ryan O'Byrne: Um I just celebrated four years in February, and um and so now I think it's gone from protecting or hiding or running from the fear and kind of entering directly into it.

[3:28] Ryan O'Byrne: Um but it's something that's at like a constant stuff is present all the time.

[3:35] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, I mean it's it's always there, it's always kind of leaking under the lurking under the surface, and I think there's a lot of times when it takes you know different kinds of narratives, and being an artist and you know, trying to understand what it is to tell a story and what stories are important and what what does like narrative mean?

[3:54] Ryan O'Byrne: Um I've gotten really good at creating narratives around my anxiety and around my PTSD, and so I think I'm now at a point where I'm trying to um just see what it what it actually is without the kind of extra narratives that I put onto it.

[4:15] Ryan O'Byrne: And I like I said I listened to your podcast a lot in the other day.

[4:18] Ryan O'Byrne: I was listening to it, and I was on a hike, and um I just like looked up at the clouds.

[4:24] Ryan O'Byrne: This is gonna just sound really cheesy and dramatic, but it's true, and like I just saw this, like these gorgeous clouds, and they weren't like you know, cumulonimbus or like cirrus clouds, they weren't like one of those types that you see in the textbook or whatever, but they were these gorgeous, like weird wisps, and like I just saw them and they looked to me like um like a visible visualization of what air is, like as if we could see air, because we know it's ex like it exists, right?

[4:54] Ryan O'Byrne: But we don't like if maybe if we had some sort of different kind of vision, we could see the molecules in the air, or we could see something different in the air.

[5:01] Ryan O'Byrne: And I just like thought about this, like you know, the clouds, these specific clouds, as like giving life or a visualization to what exists in the air, and so for me, I think it just made me really think like how can I let my fear and anxiety and you know trauma kind of teach me a lesson by being like being able to just kind of be more receptive to what it's telling me and listen to it a little more because I think there's something so beautiful about nature, which is you know everything seems so perfect, and I think the more I can try to like stop and listen to what it's trying to tell me, I think the better off I'll be, as opposed to trying to like beat it away, which I think I've been doing very for so long, right?

[5:57] Ryan O'Byrne: In various various different forms.

[5:59] Leah Walsh: Or like hide from it in some way.

[6:01] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[6:02] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, and I think you know, that takes that in and and that's the other thing I keep thinking about when I listen is that to your podcast is that so much of what everyone's talking about is just being a person, and like be as like artists and actors, like our goal is to be kind of the best person we possibly can be, because then that's the best that we're gonna make the best work we can when we are the best people we can be.

[6:30] Ryan O'Byrne: And so um, yeah, I don't remember why I was saying that because I because I'm also just like looking at your face.

[6:38] Ryan O'Byrne: I know this is a what it's just like so nice to see you.

[6:41] Ryan O'Byrne: So I just like calling as Leah.

[6:43] Ryan O'Byrne: But um, yeah, so yeah, not not hide from it or run from it.

[6:48] Ryan O'Byrne: Um oh, I think I was just gonna say, um, for a long time I hid or run from ran from my sexuality, being a gay, cisgendered male.

[6:57] Ryan O'Byrne: I ran from that.

[6:59] Ryan O'Byrne: So it's like there's a lot of things I've been running from and hiding from for for a lot of my life, and I think, yeah, and I g I guess I'm just saying like that just makes you a human being, and what makes a good artist, I think, is a great I don't know, a truthful human being or whatever.

[7:18] Ryan O'Byrne: I don't know, but an awareness of all the things that make up the person that we are.

[7:26] Leah Walsh: Yeah, yeah.

[7:27] Leah Walsh: I'm sorry, can I ask you to tuck in the right side of your collar?

[7:31] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, is this here?

[7:32] Leah Walsh: Yeah, do you want me to go change my t-shirt into a t-shirt real quick?

[7:35] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, sure, go ahead.

[7:36] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[7:37] Ryan O'Byrne: Just because I think it's bumping the mic.

[7:40] Leah Walsh: We're back, we're back.

[7:42] Ryan O'Byrne: The mic's fine.

[7:46] Leah Walsh: So, how has um you left you and your husband left New York City two years ago?

[7:53] Ryan O'Byrne: Is it longer than that now?

[7:54] Leah Walsh: Yeah, no, that's right.

[7:55] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, two years.

[7:57] Leah Walsh: And now you're in California, so it's having all that nature around, what's that been like?

[8:01] Ryan O'Byrne: That change.

[8:02] Ryan O'Byrne: Oh my gosh, it's been so amazing.

[8:04] Ryan O'Byrne: So when we left um New York, I decided to leave because I had left my agents uh um a little bit prior to us leaving New York, and I wasn't really auditioning anymore, and I was kind of starting to make my own work, uh, performance and some visual arts stuff.

[8:24] Ryan O'Byrne: And so when Ryan, my husband's name is also Ryan, when he uh was offered a position to teach in California, we're in San Luis Obispo, and um which is about halfway between LA and San Francisco, and when he was offered the position, I decided I was just gonna come and try it because I didn't really necessarily need the geographical circumstances of a big city like New York because I was making my own work, and um, I know you asked me about the nature thing, but one thing that was that I want to say quickly was that when I first got here, uh I got an email as we were literally driving across the country from New York Live Arts inviting me to audition for a residency, and I was like so excited, but I was also freaked out because I was like, I don't have any new work, I don't, you know, I don't know how I'm gonna audition for this.

[9:18] Ryan O'Byrne: And so I started sending emails to people in San Luis Obispo just asking if I could rent space for you know, dance you know, a rehearsal space or whatever.

[9:28] Ryan O'Byrne: And like within a day, this guy from San Luis Obispo Little Little Theater named Kevin Harris was like, Yeah, here you can have our key uh rehearsal spaces open anytime you want, you can just come and use it anytime.

[9:42] Ryan O'Byrne: So I was like so shocked after you know spending a couple years like applying for residency after a residency and grant and all these grants, and like scraping by, you know, just you know, crawling on my knees for studio space.

[9:58] Ryan O'Byrne: It I this this, you know, so this opportunity came to just like have free space anytime I wanted it out here.

[10:06] Leah Walsh: Oh my god, before you even got out here, yeah.

[10:09] Ryan O'Byrne: So it was this really weird kind of shift of like, oh, yeah, there are so many things that happen in New York City that we think are the way that everything works, and it's like, no, that's not the only way to be an artist.

[10:20] Ryan O'Byrne: And I think being out here has been really hard because I've been trying to hold on to to a lot of ideals and um assumptions of what it means to be an artist, not only geographically, but also like circumstantially and whatever.

[10:36] Ryan O'Byrne: And so having to spend this time really kind of letting go of all those assumptions has been really great, and one of the most amazing parts of being here like you said is the nature like when I first got here I would just like go to the beach every day and it was just like being able to go and sit on the beach and look at the ocean was just like I could I would feel like so depressed and like miss the city or feel like I was like giving up on something because I wasn't in Los Angeles or New York and I would just like look at the ocean and I would go home and I would be fine.

[10:36] Ryan O'Byrne: And it was just like this healing thing and it's like I go for a 10 mile hike every day if I can when I'm not working with my dog and it's just like it's so healing oh my god like my heart is breaking here and we there's actually I know you're from Michigan and did you ever go up to Trevor's city with the like sand dunes?

[11:34] Leah Walsh: It's beautiful when I was younger.

[11:36] Ryan O'Byrne: What's that when I was little we went when we went camping up there.

[11:39] Ryan O'Byrne: It's so beautiful there's these huge sand dunes that we go to that's like it reminds me so much of Trevor City because my husband Ryan is also from Michigan.

[11:49] Leah Walsh: Yes.

[11:50] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah.

[11:50] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah well that's a that's a huge question I have too and that I think this podcast is about is like what is the definition of how can you define success for yourself instead of having it look like you know the straight up and down ladder.

[12:06] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[12:06] Ryan O'Byrne: You know that we all know people who are successfully climbing.

[12:11] Ryan O'Byrne: Like it's not something that's um you know a foregone conclusion even though we all have the same training and not everybody gets the same opportunities.

[12:19] Ryan O'Byrne: So that's what I've been trying to do too.

[12:21] Ryan O'Byrne: Is like, how can I have a happy day-to-day life?

[12:24] Ryan O'Byrne: How can I feel like I'm creating something?

[12:27] Ryan O'Byrne: How can I give my own work or my own self-worth without other people's feedback all the time, you know, or someone else validating me?

[12:37] Leah Walsh: Yeah, and I think that's such a I think those are two of the most dangerous things that you just said about being an artist and being in this profession is number one is that like I feel like in a lot of us, you know, I started doing this when I was 11.

[12:52] Ryan O'Byrne: And I and it was for me, like it was it was actually interesting.

[12:56] Ryan O'Byrne: This is a whole different thing, but it was interesting when I got to Juilliard and realized that like a lot of people had like gone to like performing arts high schools and like we're doing all these acting competitions and stuff like that.

[13:05] Ryan O'Byrne: There's a lot of different ways into how you do all this stuff.

[13:09] Ryan O'Byrne: Because I mean, I was just like, I was just like, I love this.

[13:12] Ryan O'Byrne: I used to like my poor aunts and uncles, like my dad was uh sick, and so my mom was either either working when I was younger, she was a nurse, or taking it like at the hospital with my dad, because he was uh she was always she was like always there if she could be.

[13:28] Ryan O'Byrne: And so my aunts and uncles and like friends were like in charge of getting me to like play practice, whatever. And I remember them shuttling me from Lockport, New York, which is a little suburb I'm from, to Buffalo to like the Marriott Hotel, so that I could go to some like model talent search when I was like 10 years old. Because I just wanted it so bad, I didn't even know what it was, you know, right necessarily. But I think you know, there's this thing, it's like a lot of us when we're young, we want it so bad, and we know exactly what it is, and it sets us apart from a lot of our you know, peers who are not sure what they want, especially as we get older and people are starting to decide what kind of career choices they're gonna, you know, investigate or whatever.

And you know, I think all of a sudden there comes this time where it's like oh I thought this was you know, this set me apart and it made me feel good because I knew exactly what I was chasing after, and I knew exactly what I wanted and whatever. And then when you kind of meet the reality of a situation, which might be your husband gets a job and you have to move across the country, or you decide you really want to have a kid and you don't want to audition every day or whatever, or the hundreds of other reasons that happen, I think we hold on way too tight to this idea of what it means to be like a successful artist that we like kind of start to you know starts to develop in our heads, and we like hold on to it so tight that we don't get to see what's really in front of us, that whatever the opportunity might be, or like what other options, yeah.

And I and the other thing you said was like what people think of, you know, what what what other people think is success for us, or what um, you know, trying to define it for yourself is such a difficult thing. And I think I'm at a point where I'm really trying to do that, and I think for the first time, like I'm really feeling what it would feel like to maybe not be so intensely um in such an intense relationship with what I think other people are gonna think about my work, because for so long the work was really just about that relationship. And it's like so long as my work is about this relationship where I'm so obsessed with what other people are gonna think about the work, there's no truth getting through in the work like that can be the struggle that like leads you to some some other part of the work but like for me it was such a painful you know couple of years being like I can't get over this I am obsessed with what other people are going to think of my work that they're gonna say I'm a failure that they're gonna say you know what are you what do you think you're doing you went to Juilliard you should be an actor why are you making visuals you know visual art or performance like you just want to you know whatever XYZ and just all these all this bullshit that like I'm still not over I'm still like trying to get past that but actually like wrote down a bunch of stuff before this because you know in listening to your previous guests that you had on and some of you know people who I close friends with it's like some of the things they said were really helpful and like it was so great to find that kind of solace in something like this and so it's like I'm sure which was why you wanted to do this to provide yeah well I'm I'm learning a lot and it's helping me because I have all these same questions.

[17:13] Leah Walsh: I know and it's so amazing especially I think too to have this kind of conversation um because it really is difficult to have I mean when I was first started like making work in New York I like just I went right for like people who I thought were really great artists and I just sent them emails and I was like, hey, can you sit and have coffee with me, etc.? And while a couple of them did, like most of them, of course they couldn't. And so for so long it was just like trying to figure out how to have conversations with other artists about their work and about my work. And you know, there was one point where I was an intern for this amazing performer named Anne Liv Young, excuse me, who I really love. Um I interned with her for a couple years, and I she was just so busy and like so entrenched in her own work that like I never once got to sit down with her and talk about the work.

[18:07] Ryan O'Byrne: Like really?

[18:08] Leah Walsh: I yeah, and I mean I babysat for her child when she was giving birth to her other child, and so like it was just like we had a really pretty close and like strangely intimate relationship, strange, very strangely intimate relationship, but yet we could never talk about the work, and I think there's this, you know, people don't want to talk about it, whether people think it's like guiltily indulgent or whatever, etc. But like I think it's so important, especially right now, for artists to be in conversation with other artists and to talk about you know what's going on with them and what kind of work they're doing and and what exactly what you're doing, you know, and so um, but anyways, what I was I was just saying, I wrote so much down because I want you know, I want so badly for it to be of some service, just like any artist, we do the work because we want to help other people, like at the at the bottom, you know, at the really at the end of the day, I think that's what it's about. And I've been so nervous and like so scary, like, oh my god, I didn't have to see the perfect thing.

[19:10] Ryan O'Byrne: Well, I'm glad you read that's good, thank you. We'll make sure we get to go through all of them because I want to hear everything.

[19:15] Leah Walsh: Oh my god, so silly. So, can you tell me a little bit? Because I you know, I've been like aware through like social media and stuff of the work that you've been making over the last couple years, but how did like is visual art and like movement and stuff? Is that stuff that you were doing before Juilliard and kind of got back into? Or how did you start focusing on like solo performance and stuff?

[19:40] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah. Well, so um after school back when I was like sixteen, I used to I always I've been always making things, like I always was making something. Like I remember making this hideous like little sculpture for my mother from like all this garbage that was around our house. And of course, the narcissist that I am, it in the center of it was a little picture of me. And I like gave it to her as a gift. I'm sure she loved it.

[20:06] Leah Walsh: She loved it.

[20:07] Ryan O'Byrne: She loved it. Um but so I've always been like making things and um when I was like sixteen we moved out of a house and then the house that we moved into had a little tiny shed in the backyard, and mostly I used to just sit in it and smoke pop. But when I was out of it, when I, you know, was back there by myself, I started painting on the walls. So I just like had these, you know, huge plywood basically canvases that I used to just paint on and then paint over and paint over again. And so I always loved it. And I remember finding like an electrolo an old like electro lux vacuum in the garbage, and I like turned it into like a sculpture, but I didn't have access to like knowing that that was a thing, like that that was art.

And I know that sounds like I'm from some like backwoods crazy place, but like I was actually thinking about it the other day, like I I didn't know what contemporary art was. I didn't go to a museum. I didn't I mean I feel like one of the first things I remember about an experience with contemporary art that I had was our first year in New York, and I went and saw a Kara Walker exhibit at the Whitney, and I just remember going there and being so floored and like going to one of the community meetings that we were having at Juilliard and like standing up afterwards and being like everyone needs to go to the Whitney and see this Kara Walker exhibit. I felt like it was my duty to like make sure people had no idea, like I didn't know anything about it, I didn't know that it was a real thing.

[21:32] Ryan O'Byrne: And so as I was graduating from Juilliard and coming through Juilliard, I was realizing the kind of contemporary mindset that I was really interested in wasn't necessarily accessible at Juilliard. I think it's changing a little bit, especially with the plays and stuff that they're choosing. It's they're at least a little more contemporary. But um, so after I graduated, I auditioned a little bit, and I was just really unhappy and not really doing what I wanted to be doing, or I at least I think. I mean, I still don't know what I really want to be doing, and you know, but um, but I realized I went, I was working at the French Institute Alliance Francais, and I was like catering there, but I was also it was great because I got to like watch shows and stuff.

And I remember um someone, oh my gosh, I'm getting goosebumps because I'm realizing he ended up becoming one of my favorite choreographers, but I didn't realize it at the time. Uh his name is Jerome Bell, and he does these amazing and really interesting pieces, but I was watching it, and he was doing a solo piece on a dancer who danced with Merce Cunningham, and this dancer was doing a solo that Merce Cunningham had made famous. So it was like these three sections removed of someone else's work or whatever. And I was just so blown away by it, and I fell in love with it, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna learn this solo from this me from Merce Cunningham. And I like didn't really know a lot about Merce Cunningham or Jerome Bell, and um actually went back to Juilliard and like rented out this used a studio and like made this video of this performance or whatever, and it just became this something very different from actually just like remaking a solo on myself, and from there I just started getting into like um you know John Cage, John Cage's work and who I had kind of you know knew who he who he was and his work with Merce Cunningham, and and while I was at Juilliard, I always loved the dancers.

I was always like, I wish I was a dancer, I wish I was a dancer, I wish I was dancer, and I actually used to take ballet when I was younger, but like the like studio that I danced at in Lockport, I was on a scholarship, and the guy um his name was William Gentase, and he was the Lockport City Valet. He put me on scholarship because I couldn't afford it otherwise, and then he was like, if you dance with me for three years, I'll you know have you be you'll you'll be able to go to New York and be a dancer. And I was like, Okay, yeah, yeah, let's do it. So I was dancing with him for like seven, you know, seven times a week, but I was also in a production of Joseph and the amazing technical dream code at the time. So when it came down to it, he was like, if you can't be at the studio every day, then I can't keep you on scholarship and you have to leave. And lo and behold, I chose Joseph.

[24:33] Ryan O'Byrne: And so I think maybe now it's like slowly trying. Yeah, like slowly trying to get back to dance, but anyway, so through through sorry, I feel like I'm talking so much but it's like you don't I you don't have get an opportunity to have these kind of conversations so it's like it all just kind of spurts out when you think what I want to hear about um so after I watched saw this your own bell piece and I tried to do a you know use it as inspiration to create my own work I just started getting really obsessed with the idea of you know there are these forms that um in other in in contemporary work where you know there's the the like the form of dance seems it seems to me in my imagination that it can be manipulated or changed based on certain ideas or the theories so there's like a theoretical kind of um there's something that can happen theoretically that that um intervenes on the form of dance itself and changes it and then it becomes something different and I just kept thinking like how do I do what you know contemporary or modern dancers did in the 60s with Yvonne Rayner and people like that um with acting and it was like okay so how do I do that I'm not sure and so I think I don't know that it's possible and it's like it's like beyond just trying to like it's something different I imagine that it's something different than using contemporary text or um a contemporary you know um set or like costume technology and projections and that kind of thing.

[26:26] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, I well I think there's yeah I think it's I feel I feel like but with the with the with the with us as actors like what is it that it can be that can become something different and with performance and I and I I'm putting my eggs in a basket as I don't know how that phrase really works but I'm gonna just I'm like choosing to believe that there is a there will come a point if I can persevere in this you know in this thing that I'm trying to do that I will at least develop the question that I'm trying to answer because I think that that's the thing I I don't know that I'm it's ever gonna really happen what I like imagine I want but if I can develop like a clear question then I can work for the rest of my life trying to get that answer in whatever whatever or just like trying to answer the question doesn't necessarily mean you get an answer but I can keep trying to answer it.

[27:26] Ryan O'Byrne: Right that's so amazing because then um sorry my computer's doing some weird feedback thing because if you set that large of a task for yourself then like you said you always have something to work on.

[27:43] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah I think it's um and that's where I say where I say like kind of honing in on what the questions are because for me it for too I think for too long it's been just this big thing and like now having to just keep working and and and through different through different mediums too.

[28:05] Ryan O'Byrne: Cause it that's what I like. I was like, okay, well, maybe what I need to do is I need to dance. And so I can do use these chance techniques and I can use whatever as a dancer and make dance or whatever, and then come back to acting and see how those things can like influence a form of performance or whatever.

[28:24] Leah Walsh: Do your pieces involve a lot of text or is it more about the images? Like are you are you writing too or what's that? Are you doing a lot of writing also, or is it more about the physical stuff?

[28:36] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, I think really it's all of it. I mean I'm like constantly writing. I don't use a lot of my writing because I'm afraid I'm like afraid of it. I don't I and I've never I don't really share it a lot. The first time I used text actually was um when I did my first piece in New York and I um uh I used text from the seagull and what I did was I read I read um I read the text, it was the last scene, Nina's speech in act four, and I read it into um programs that dictate what you're saying and as a note. So like you read it into your phone and then it dictates what you're saying, you know?

[29:17] Ryan O'Byrne: And so when I was did it, I guess this was like four four years ago or so. And so when I was doing this, the technology is not what it is it even what what it is today. It moves so fucking fast. But it was like it was so much uh it was so much like more rudimentary that so many of the words got jumbled and like effed up and like it wasn't really a a clear translation of what I was actually saying when I would read the text into the um phone.

[29:48] Ryan O'Byrne: So it became this really weird, strange text, and often it was like so beautiful and poetic and like strange and alien and and um and I just loved it. And so I that was the text that I used because I wanted to kind of and for that for me that was an example of trying to um articulate this kind of these kind of like contemporary ideals that are used in ab abstract expressionism or whatever, or you know, contemporary visual art, contemporary dance or modern dance or modern art, and trying to use them, direct them towards performance, and I think this is a good example for me, anyways, of it kind of making sense to me, and so then the text became this other text, it became this different text that when I spoke, you know, there was this subtext of knowing what had been happening in the actual text, but then this other level of you know, this a weird alien language that was also affecting my body.

[30:54] Ryan O'Byrne: So it was like the subtext of Nina's actual speech, and then this other subtext of this weird weird newly created speech kind of rubbing against each other. And one thing that I liked about the like technically technologically like created speech was that I was so getting so obsessed with this idea of like you know, um romantic like like virtuosity as an actor and being like, oh, I'm I'm not supposed to have that, because there's this idea I think in modernism that it's like any sort of like beauty or virtuosity is looked down on or something.

[31:30] Ryan O'Byrne: So I was listening to that voice. I don't believe that anymore, but I was listening listening to that voice. So there was this idea that like, oh well, I didn't create the language, this machine created the language, so I'm not in charge if it becomes virtuosic or whatever. So anyways there was this just really I just really liked it. But um there was also this really amazing part of it where like um it was such garbled language and then right when she gets to the part about saying um like you know the point is to just keep on going no matter what happens just keep on going believing in yourself or whatever that that line came through perfectly clear.

[32:12] Ryan O'Byrne: And so then there was this just like weird I just was like oh my god so there must be something about that line in particular that even unconsciously I'm speaking so precisely that it could hear and pick up on that tiny like precision that I was even unconscious of and so it was like oh my god like that thing that I need to hear and believe came through because I don't know it was just such a beautiful moment of this like in this like creation of this text. And like you're strangely like telling that to yourself even though it's another voice.

[32:53] Leah Walsh: Yeah yeah it was so interesting.

[32:57] Leah Walsh: Yeah but sorry to sorry got you cut you off I was gonna ask I mean I know there a lot of time has passed between like you making that that piece you're telling us about in New York and now but what has it been like since you went to California like have you found are you really finding solace in doing a lot of this work alone or have you found a community out there that's you've been able to collaborate with or have support?

[33:26] Ryan O'Byrne: Um that's a great that's a that's it's something I think about a lot. So um this has been a pretty like I wanted to say solitudinous. That's a lot solitary. Solitary. I like solitudiness though.

[33:43] Ryan O'Byrne: Oh god. Sounds like a musical term.

[33:46] Leah Walsh: Yeah, yeah. Something.

[33:48] Ryan O'Byrne: Um yeah, it's been a pretty solitary thing. Um what what's been great is that being out here offers us a lot more space. So when we were living in New York in our tiny apartment, I was like building our my sets for pieces in our tiny little living room, and our poor dog was like freaking out every five seconds, like not knowing where to go. But here I basically have a studio in our house.

[34:11] Ryan O'Byrne: And so I I so that has been a really huge like thing. Um uh had that that in of itself, this the actual space has created this shift in my ability to actually make things. And actually it started when I which was really awesome. Like it started when I was on a doing a um, I was doing a Shakespeare festival in Lake Tahoe, and they had these little cabins, and I had it all to myself, and I was like, oh my god, this space.

[34:39] Ryan O'Byrne: And I like made this little set and I like created these videos, and so it's like, you know, it's so much is about opportunity, and I think I've been thinking that about that so much, especially with you know, um, Oscar is so white and just and just basically any arts program is this like how oh, and and listening to this amazing um podcast with um oh my gosh, I'm blanking on her name, uh Missy Copeland Misty Copeland and hearing that sh like her like she became the dancer she was because somebody saw what she was doing at like a YWCA after school program.

[35:17] Ryan O'Byrne: And so it's I'm not saying like I'm gonna become the next Misty Copeland of the art world, but like it was it's just like these opportunities that I've been given that are allowing me to expand the work and make it better and whatever.

[35:29] Leah Walsh: And is it like even changing the way you're thinking? Just having that even having a room of your own to

[35:31] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, totally. Absolutely.

[35:35] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah.

[35:38] Ryan O'Byrne: So it's really great. But it's all like you said, it I haven't quite found the community. Um I I volunteer at the Slow Little Theater, which is the San Luis Obispo Little Theater, so I'm there like a a few times a month, just like ushering or serving drinks or whatever.

[35:52] Leah Walsh: But um And is that a commun that's a community theater?

[35:55] Ryan O'Byrne: It's a community theater and it's what what was great about it when I was telling my husband, you know, it was like, God, it was so wonderful to like be in this little space and be like, oh yeah, this is why I started doing this. And like I saw a sign that said all actors are volunteers and I was just like, Oh my god, yeah, that's right.

[36:11] Ryan O'Byrne: Like that's I did it because I love it. But then, you know, there's also this kind of like I guess, um, I don't want to say this it's negative because it's real, but like also just this feeling of like, but this isn't it. Like this isn't, you know, these aren't the other people that I that I want to like have conversations with.

[36:34] Ryan O'Byrne: And I think that's and I think that that might sound like there's still something valuable. There's definitely value in what they're doing, but you want to do this at a higher level.

[36:45] Leah Walsh: And I think it but see, but I think it's important to say things like that too a higher level? A different level of dedication to it or something like that.

[36:51] Ryan O'Byrne: I don't know. Like when I first got to Juilliard, it was the first time where I was like, Oh my god, I'm in a room with people who take this as seriously as I do for the first time in my entire life.

[37:00] Ryan O'Byrne: And that in of itself meant more than I think a lot of things, you know.

[37:06] Leah Walsh: Can I ask, um, because Ryan is more on the academic, your husband Ryan is more on the academic side, but he doesn't he teach he teaches like dramatic literature and writing, right?

[37:19] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, yeah.

[37:20] Ryan O'Byrne: So he teaches dramatic literature in the English department at Cal Pali.

[37:24] Leah Walsh: So I know you guys have been together forever, but yeah, what is that like for you both being artists and but like having a like-minded person to like I I assume even though you don't have a big community out there, uh having a partner who understands and pushes you and supports you probably pretty great.

[37:43] Ryan O'Byrne: I feel like you're able to use that kind of language because you understand that and you have that with Frankie, and Frankie has that with you.

[37:49] Ryan O'Byrne: And I think you're exactly right. Like he's someone who has dedicated his life to having that um taking it as seriously as you do, like you said.

[37:58] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, yeah, no, he to he takes it way more seriously than I think any of us do it. And it's so inspiring to watch, I think, and and be a part of.

[38:07] Ryan O'Byrne: And I was so so grateful for his willingness to support me and my insanity and in my, you know, and when things are so difficult and when things are like or when they things are good, and him reminding me, you know, having to remind me that things are good or whatever, but I can't even explain it.

[38:27] Ryan O'Byrne: It's like and he's also been like um an MFA education for me in a way. Like I went to come some pretty, you know, crappy public schools growing up. I didn't have a great education, and at Juilliard, like the liberal arts is like it might as well be a pat like a drive through McDonald's.

[38:46] Ryan O'Byrne: I mean as far as but I mean it's f and I know you know and I think it's it's a side a side note. Well it's hard because we we're so tired by the time we get into liberal arts we're just like falling asleep or whatever and it's just like di really difficult to even take in any of that kind of education and I think it's a it they model it off of some really great other programs but I think for me anyways, I guess I can only speak for myself, I wasn't able to like fully invest in that part of the training.

[39:14] Leah Walsh: Right.

[39:14] Ryan O'Byrne: And so for for me he's been able to introduce me to so many things like I can talk about something and he'll be like yeah you should read this, this, this, this and this you know and that's so great.

[39:24] Ryan O'Byrne: I mean I actually applied to a couple MFA programs like a year and a half ago and I got into a few of them and I just it's just I can't afford it. I don't know if I after the debt from Juilliard it's like how could I possibly take on this other thing and the thing that's so crazy is that it's it's more it's visual art MFAs.

[39:45] Ryan O'Byrne: So it's like it's like even more unlikely that I'll be able to like you know maintain a career that lets me like not be like you even pay the student loans back.

[39:58] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah it's like I'm putting on even more student loans it's like I can't so I think I'm just gonna I mean I'm actually still thinking about it because I think what one thing Ryan has done is really introduced me to like critical ways of thinking that I never really did.

[40:11] Ryan O'Byrne: I mean I never really thought critically the way that I do now.

[40:21] Ryan O'Byrne: I took two years out of high school and I was drunk and stoned most of the time. And then I went to a school called Niagara University in Niagara Falls for two years, where I, you know, skated by, got leads in View from the Bridge without working at all, and did like environmental studies. And it was so interesting how Juilliard happened. I was helped I was doing a play by Sarah Kane called Cleansed. So I mean it was that I mean it was there was a with a company that I loved working for called Torn Space in Buffalo. And if you haven't heard of them, you should check them out. Because they're actually amazing. They just did um a play by one of my favorite playwrights, young Jean Lee, called The Shipment.

Anyways, I was working for them, and a girl that was in the play with me was like, Oh, can you come and help me help a friend of mine move? And so I was like, Oh yeah, sure. So I went and I was helping her move, and we were sitting down having some wine afterwards, and she was like, If you're not happy at Niagara University, you should apply at Juilliard. I didn't I literally didn't know what Juilliard was. I was just like, uh I mean this is gonna sound so annoying. How random that she mentioned it. I know, and I mean I didn't so she didn't have any like connection to it or anything. She was just like if she hadn't said anything, I would have never. I would have never. And so she was just like, you should do it.

And so I was like, okay, letting me. I saw her out again about a couple months later, and she was like, Did you do it? Did you do it? I was like, No, I'm not gonna do it. She's like, just do it. So I did it, and I thought I it sounds so annoying. But also like I think it's like because I didn't know about it, I didn't have any preconceptions of it, I didn't have any assumptions, like that really helped me. And I think that's so true for any experience. Like, if you can just let the if you can just like be the cloud and let's but also you know, I'm not saying like I'll just sit back and like let them. I always write her like a little email, like at least once a year, and I'm like, oh my god, thank you so much. I would have never had that experience if it weren't for you. So weird.

[42:24] Ryan O'Byrne: No, but what you were saying before about like critical thinking, that was I because I went to undergrad before a Juilliard and was in the theater department, but it was still a liberal arts school, so I got to take like all the classes that I was just curious about, and like you know, literature and religion and languages and all that stuff, and I'm always impressed with the people who came to Juilliard out of high school or without coming to college beforehand because I was like, oh, I needed to grow up, I needed to spend those four years like growing up. Yeah, which I guess we had you had too, you had those four years. Yeah, exactly. I kind of yeah, had a weird undergrad experience, but mostly was me yeah, being reckless and drinking a lot, but I don't do that anymore.

[43:12] Leah Walsh: Well, here you are.

[43:14] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah. So we talked a little bit about your husband, but what is like what is your mom make of your your career as an artist or the rest of your family? Um yeah, it's weird, you know, because they are supportive, you know. My mom is definitely really supportive, but I will say it wasn't until I found out that I got into Juilliard that I remember telling her and hearing a sort of joy or excitement in her voice that I'd literally never heard before about my aspects as a person or have of of whatever career I was gonna have. And so there was something really interesting to me about like, oh, so you like you recognize that this was this big thing, but also when I first found out I was I was like, Mom, I'm gonna be set, I got in a Juilliard, I'm gonna be fine.

Little did I know. I am fine, I shouldn't say that. I know what you mean though, yeah. And so yeah, it's uh I don't know, but they also like I I also like got a phone call from my sister the other day, and she was just like, because I actually just tried to move to LA recently, so um, and not necessarily for acting. I was I you know, I I really I really want to show my work in galleries, or I wanna, you know, be a performance at certain places that I really fall in love with and have those resources of a city again, yeah. And I think the only way, and I've talked to a lot of people who run these spaces in particular, not really the gallery world, because I I it's that seems really difficult to get involved with, but for a lot of the like the performance spaces, anyways, people are just like you just have to be here, like come to classes, come see shows constantly, and so geographically I just didn't have the opportunity, and I was gonna stay with a classmate, and as I was staying with another classmate for a few days before I moved into with my other classmate, the housing situation fell through.

So I was gonna stay with her while I like looked for a job and whatever, and at first I was like, Oh man, the universe is really like conspiring against me, and one of my classmates, another one of my classmates, Audin Thornton, who's always so so great to talk with. Um, she was like, Well, well maybe the you know the universe was actually conspiring for you, and I think she was right, and so it was like I got back here and I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna get this job and stay here. But so, anyways, my sister called me and was like we just don't want you to give up on your dream and all this stuff and I don't know it might sound I might sound crazy in saying that like I don't really know what it what I was saying but it was just like it's almost like I'm this like kind of boy boy wonder Peter Pan who just like wants to like yeah you just want to like do this thing.

[46:06] Ryan O'Byrne: Is this your older sister or a younger sister? Yeah she's older than me and I think you know she's always like yeah you just need to be on SNL because you're so funny. You know these ideas I think and I guess what I'm saying is that these ideas of what they think is success as an artist or an actor and what they want for you which is because they care. Right but they only have one they only have a certain narrow set of experiences as to what an actor does. Yeah and I remember listening when Alejandro was on there and he was kind of talking about that and his dad kept saying his dad keeps saying like oh aren't you gonna be on Law and Order or something I don't remember exactly what but I think it's kind of like that and I think you know it would take I think to hear that kind of you know um sense of approval in my mother's voice again would wouldn't happen again until I said I was gonna be a regular on a TV show you know and I think so while they're really supportive and understanding it's uh it's difficult but it goes back to what I was saying about like with slow little theater you know it's like there's a it's a group of people who are in one who are in one situation and and see and are seeing things through a very specific perspective and you know, it makes it hard to have a conversation about something very specific. And and I don't mean to sound like a you know, an asshole or some like, you know, snob, but I think that's the truth and it makes it hard for with family 'cause they don't really get it.

[47:36] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[47:38] Ryan O'Byrne: But I know like my dad is kind of similar and I feel like he would only understand like if I were in a Broadway show or like in a movie would exactly. And I've said this before on the podcast, but he his reference is always he's like you I want you to be the next Nicole Kidman. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay that you know there's always that part of you that like wants them wants to be able to get them to give you that approval even if that's not what you're trying to do anyway. I mean I'd love to be in a Broadway show but yeah I don't I don't want to be the next Nicole Kidman but I part of me would love to have that conversation with my dad where he finally understands and is like excited about something I'm doing.

[48:17] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[48:18] Ryan O'Byrne: You know.

[48:20] Leah Walsh: Well and I think that I mean I think it's something we learn so young. We learn as literally we want to please people please people and get approval from someone and I think I've suffered you know I guess in quote suffered from that since I was so fucking young and it's like trying to realize that like you don't have to live like that is not easy. It's not easy. Um yeah and I think it com and I think certain and I think and I'm not saying that everyone who feels that way because I don't think this is true, but I think sometimes it comes from um a little bit of a like maybe warned a worn down or frayed like it like as if it was a wire or something like a frayed ability to like okay, if our if we're all like functioning with like little wires and like our wires are a little frayed, I would say like the frayed wires are the ones that are like keeping us in um you know allowing us us to love ourselves, you know what I mean?

And I think the parts that like don't love ourselves are the po parts that like outsource that love to someone else and require someone else to give it to us. And I think I for the first time have been realizing that lately, like, oh like I'm demanding all this love from someone because I can't give it to myself in a way, or at least I think that what how I I how I was thinking about it anyways was my obsession of what other people are gonna think about me, especi or think of my work. Right took took it took shape because of this inability for me to say, Well, I don't give a fuck what they think. I'm gonna make my thing, I'm gonna put it out there, and if they don't like it, fuck them. And I I want so badly to get there, and like maybe I maybe I'll get there and maybe I won't. And I think it's important, like I think there's a lot of people who we think are there, and then you'll hear them, you know, in an interview or something say, Oh no, that never goes away. Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's like it's this weird thing. It's like, how do you strike a balance with all of that? Yeah, but yeah, my family's great.

[50:18] Leah Walsh: No, I was just curious.

[50:20] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, no, I a lot of it's like fear for you, you know, they all want us to be financially stable and safe. Yeah, which you know, we are we're safe. Yeah, doesn't mean we're rolling in money, but we're doing okay. Can we talk a little bit about day job stuff? I worked at Fiat while I was in New York. I worked at the Randolph, which is a great beer and um coffee place in New York on the Lower East Side. Um they were really great. They were really understanding of you know, my being an artist, and I was really lucky to have that job. And while I've been out here, I worked at a really crappy coffee shop, and recently I just got a job at a really wonderful coffee shop. Um, which is so nice because they take it so seriously, and it's like they measure every possible thing you could think would could be measured, and it's so so it's like scientific artistry, so it's so nice to be in a place like that where you know you can you know you feel like something really matters to them and you're part of that.

So that feels really good. And and I know you I f I feel like I've heard you talk about the bakery you worked at in a similar way or still work at in a similar way. I don't know, you still work there.

[51:34] Leah Walsh: I do.

[51:35] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah. Um yeah, and it's just that it's a pretty it's a pretty positive environment and flexible and like yeah, good people. Yeah, and that was actually I think when I came back from LA, I was like, okay, you know what? I actually haven't really in earnest tried to live in San Luis Obispo as an artist because I kept I I was I was also doing jobs in Cleveland and Voice and uh with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival or Great Lakes Theater Festival and then the uh Idaho Shakespeare Festival and So I haven't fully been here for two years. I was like out and in.

[52:10] Leah Walsh: Right.

[52:12] Ryan O'Byrne: And I think and I think it I really want to see what it's like to try to do it and to to commit to living here and not necessarily being a slave to being in New York or being in LA. I mean, it could be interesting in that that community might be more hungry for the arts, you know. I mean, I don't know anything about it or how large it is, but I mean it's a pretty substantial-sized town, but there's a but the arts consists of kind of like an arts and craftsy vibe. Do you know what I mean? And that like there's a time and a place for that, and there's a and there's a validity to it, but it just happened isn't happen to be in my wheel hor wheel horse I was gonna say wheelhouse wheelhouse I'm just trying to sound smart and like I'm like I want to know about the wheel horse the wheel this is my next project I don't have coming up because I'm at war horse in September so um but yeah that's just not my that's not my interest you know it's great like but I'm not I'm not necessarily looking to present to someone a beautiful picture that can make them feel good. I'm looking to create an experience that's gonna either validate their experience or or or cause them to have questions about what it is or you know not just sit down a little more confrontational.

[53:27] Leah Walsh: Exactly a little bit some provocation.

[53:30] Ryan O'Byrne: What was uh I saw on Instagram that you had something last weekend in Berkeley what was that?

[53:36] Ryan O'Byrne: I did I did so there's this amazing group of artists called Aunts and they are a dance kind of performance whatever community and they uh I worked with them a couple times when I was in New York and they were doing a collaboration with another wonderful kind of similarly um uh similar group called Salta which is based in Berkeley outside of San Francisco and Aunt's like A-U-N-T-S A-U-N-T-S okay yeah and so they um were doing a collaboration at the Berkeley art museum and aunts asked if I wanted to present something there and um usually it would be performance based, but I'm honestly like I I've been really like dealing with like some insane like stage fright the past couple times that I've performed and also like I just hate performing right now.

[54:29] Ryan O'Byrne: Like I don't want to I do not like my body on stage. I do not want my body near people or whatever it creates I get so nervous, it creates so much stress and anxiety. So one thing that was so lovely is I got to present this, you know. I made these huge drawings and I made this video and this little light thing, and I got to present this thing, and I got to step back, and like for it was the first time it's ever happened. I realized like I was stepping back and like looking at people what look at this thing, and I was like, oh my god, this is so amazing. There must be something really nice about that. Oh, it was oh it was so nice. Uh yeah, so it was really great, and I got to meet some really great people, and I'm hoping to stay in touch with pe you know, some of those people, and maybe go up to San Francisco and visit, but yeah, it was really nice. It was really a great opportunity.

[55:16] Leah Walsh: Was that the um like the video and stuff? Was that something you'd made recently or old old material that you had?

[55:22] Ryan O'Byrne: Uh it was all new. I made it for the um I made it for the installation at Berkeley Art Museum. Um, yeah, so it was really exciting, and also it was so nice to be like, oh yeah, I'm making this thing, I made it. It's like okay, it's not really that great. I don't really love it, but you know what? I can keep going and I can do something else. And to not be too precious with it. Yeah, and I think it's so it's so easy to like get stuck in the in the like preemptive like build up to it. And I get so much I'm just like I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go, I'm not gonna go. And I you know, one thing about like going on all these hikes, and I've been running recently too, because I quit smoking in January. Thank you very much.

Yes. Um, and so I was to quit smoking, I started running because it just helped for some reason, and so I've been running a lot, and I realized that like every time I start running, I'm like, oh I can't do this. I'm gonna have to stop. I can't do this, I can't go on. And then like five minutes later, I'm like, oh yeah, I could run a marathon right now. And it's just so it's so it just makes me it's just like that's exactly what it is. If you just start going and you don't think about where you're going or like how you're gonna get there, like you just have to start, yeah, and you'll be okay. And it's it's the truth, and it's so horrible. Be the truth.

[56:42] Leah Walsh: Pearls of wisdom.

[56:43] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, because you know I'm gonna have this I'm gonna crawl on my floor and cry in my studio because I don't know how to make art, but as long as it's just like you just got no, you just have to keep telling yourself again and again. It's okay if like you forget and then you have to tell yourself again. I feel like that's it. It's the cycle, you have to talk yourself, talk yourself in circles.

[57:01] Leah Walsh: Yeah. What did you write down that we haven't talked about?

[57:05] Ryan O'Byrne: Oh my gosh. Do you want me to peek through?

[57:07] Leah Walsh: Yes.

[57:08] Ryan O'Byrne: Okay. I wanted to ask you if you've done any teaching since school.

[57:13] Leah Walsh: Oh, okay. Because I know that you were big into that at Juilliard.

[57:17] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, I that's actually one thing I really miss about um Juilliard is all the outreach stuff that we got to do. And so I've been trying to do as much of it as I can. Like when I was working at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, one thing that was great is they did these like mentorships. Um, and uh I signed up for that and I got to be a mentor, and then they also did um some teaching, so I got to do that and like go do some master classes, and one time I've worked with them actually several times, and one of the summers that I was working there, I like stayed an extra two weeks at the end of it and got to teach these kids, and it was so great. And um, one thing that I actually was thinking about uh was when I when I was coming out of Juilliard, and actually when I was in my third year, I was looking for a mentor, and I remember actually I probably just shouldn't say who it was, but it wasn't anyone who teaches at Juilliard, but it was an older person whose career I was like, that is what I want, and I love that about this person, and so we got to the point where we you know we were literally in tears saying, like, I want to be I want you to be my mentor, and this person was like, Yes, I would love that.

I'm so I'm so appreciative of that, blah blah blah, and it never happened, and I think you know this struggle because this person also was an artist, and I think because of their, you know, the economic demands of being an artist, like time is everything, and so I think it was very difficult for them to actually commit to being, and so there's been several times where I'm like trying to form these relationships, and actually one of the pieces, one of the like second or third pieces that I made was called the mentor project, which basically I create these falls and it's ongoing, um, and I'm still doing them with other artists, but I create these like false or not false, but like fictitious relationships with mentors, specifically with men or artists who have died from AIDS, and I create these like I either like write conversations with you know them and have um have conversations with them and imagine what a relationship with this person would be because there's like all these artists that we lost because of AIDS, and so it's like what would those people have to say to this younger generation of artists who so deeply need other people, like other older generations of artists to speak with, and so um I just love doing it, and I think, and you would understand this, and anybody who else who went to Juilliard, you know, the Alexander technique and the energy work that we do at Juilliard, I for one, like totally bought into it and loved it.

And so a lot of it was I created the energy of the artist by like reading as many interviews as I could and just like voraciously, yeah, going through like their work and any texts about them, and then like sitting with them and like creating this energy, and then I would like use that and I would put the energy in my body, and it was so interesting because there were times when I was in rehearsals and I would be like talking to myself as this artist or whatever, and I would be for the first time like able to say something with conviction or something. So it was this really interesting, like you know, being my own kind of mentor, yeah, through this, which uh through this, you know, work or whatever, but yes.

[1:00:35] Leah Walsh: So I see there's so much I want to say it too. So we'll have to do part two at some point. So, are there any any concrete things that you turn to again and again when you feel yourself going to the dark side, like a book? I know I know you said like physical, like hiking and running.

[1:00:53] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah, I think um, yes, always I think a lot of books too. And I remember listening to one of yours saying that you were reading a lot, Elena Ferrante, my brilliant friend, and I was like, Yes, this bitch knows what she's talking about. I'm still on the third one, I haven't finished the gosh.

[1:01:11] Leah Walsh: I can't wait to I haven't started them yet.

[1:01:13] Ryan O'Byrne: I can't wait to start them. But definitely books I um love I love reading. I never used to read, but I think it was because I thought I was dumb, and so meeting Ryan and my husband who's an academic, and just being like, you're that's that's dumb to think like that. And there's do you like reading like fiction or nonfiction?

[1:01:33] Leah Walsh: I actually really love nonfiction.

[1:01:35] Ryan O'Byrne: Yeah. Um I really love I just um a couple books, especially like books about artists or um artist biographies. Like I just read a little while ago this book called Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. It's about Robert Irwin, who's quickly becoming one of my favorite artists. He's in his 80s and he's actually from California. And um, I'll say the name again because it's pretty confusing, but seeing is believing the n or seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees. And it's basically 30 years of conversations between Robert Irwin and this young student who he who was a young student when he met him and like all about his work and his time uh in the 60s, working with like tons of like all the like famous like dude artists who came out of California, and um it's really amazing. And then the other book that I've fallen in love with and gotten obsessed with recently is Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl.

[1:02:39] Leah Walsh: Oh I've heard so many interviews with her right when it was coming out on podcasts, but I haven't read it yet.

[1:02:44] Ryan O'Byrne: You need to read it.

[1:02:45] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[1:02:45] Ryan O'Byrne: I'll go get it. She is like my dream girl. Yeah, I'm in love with her. Yeah, and her book is so amazing, and it was so wonderful reading it. See, you can't just ask me a question and like get a two second answer. I'm so sorry.

[1:02:58] Leah Walsh: No.

[1:02:59] Ryan O'Byrne: But her like reading her book, it was the first time that I like allowed myself to be a huge fan of someone because I never for some reason I never I never experienced that when I was younger growing up. I don't know why. But also like she talked about the like riot girl scene in the in Seattle and in Washington and like this the this like punk aesthetic that like I was in a punk band when I was 16 like I had a mohawk and like changed the color of my hair every day but because the like the scene was so intensely and hyper masculine I was terrified by it so I never could really fully engage with it in the way that I actually really wanted to and I and for some reason like I didn't know about you know um some of these the the girl riot movement I riot girl movement I did I just didn't know and so reading this book I was like oh my god and it just like ripped something open in me in like such a beautiful way and I hope you read it soon because it's so good.

[1:03:56] Leah Walsh: Okay I will so good so good. Um and then the other question is if is there anything you've seen recently that you want to recommend I we actually drove excuse me we drove to Los Angeles to see um young Jean Lee's play straight white men which was amazing and I loved it so much she's so amazing and so anything that you ever come across with written by young Jean Lee you should go see because it's amazing.

[1:04:29] Ryan O'Byrne: Okay great Ryan that's totally totally made my day thank you thank you oh can I just say one more thing yes so first of all I just want to say thank you for you know giving opportunity for the you know artists and actors, and have all of us, well, artists are actors are artists, so I'll just say that. To have a platform to like talk about things. And I remember when I was growing up, and I thought the only way the and it and this is true. The only reason when I was younger that I wanted to be famous was so that I could have a platform to talk about important issues. And you know, we might not have I might not have talked about like some some of the really important issues that are going through my head, but I think it's so wonderful that you're you're giving up artists the opportunity to just talk about something that's difficult for a lot of people, and because it's real, and it's you know eh, like it's hard to do this, even though you know it's totally like when I'm an artist, like I have troubles.

Like I get that, and I'm totally you know sympathetic to that, but also it's like it's real. So well, it's real, and I'm learning from everybody how they deal with it, but also I sneakily got to hear about all the things you're creating, yeah. Which I'm such a fan of. So that's also that's also my excuse for this podcast is I get to talk about the things that I love, like the people I love, the things they're creating, which I find so impressive.

[1:05:59] Ryan O'Byrne: Well, you can check out more of my work at Ryan David O'Byrne 2014.weebly.com.

[1:06:06] Leah Walsh: Okay, good. Yeah, thank you, Ryan.

[1:06:20] Leah Walsh: Thank you for listening to the Compass Podcast. I'm Leah Walsh. More episodes are coming soon. Please look for us on Facebook in iTunes. I'd like to thank the following people for their generosity. The Compass Cover Art is by Kim Miller, music by Brendan Spieth, audio assistance from Nick Choxie, and a special thanks to Frankie J. Alvarez. See you next time.