Hoorf! Radical Care in a Late-Capitalist Heckscape

entropy is a thing; shifting expectations and painting the void with artist Ryan Barnes

• Elle Billing • Season 3 • Episode 10

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Elle sits down to talk with artist Ryan Barnes, whom she knows from the Spoonie Studio virtual gatherings. They dig into Ryan’s art practice, and he shares the ongoing development of the "void" series, which explores themes of disconnection and change. Ryan also talks about balancing his art with his role as a parent and student, and the impact of his service dog, BlackBerry, on his work. 

Links to connect with Ryan, and all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com

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Elle Billing:

Hi. My name is Elle Billing. I am a chronically ill queer femme, and I'm tired. I'm here this episode and every episode to dig at the roots of our collective fatigue, explore ways to direct our care in compassionate and sustainable ways, and to harness creative expression to heal ourselves and to heal our world. Welcome to Hoorf, radical care in the late capitalist heckscape. My guest for this episode is Ryan Barnes. Ryan Barnes is a visual artist from Washington state who works primarily in digital mediums, paint, pencil and charcoal. A lot of his inspiration comes from stories, comics and manga, animation, anime and the pop art movement, as well as the world around him. Ryan is one of the members of spoonie studio, which I talked about on the previous episode of Hoorf, and I am excited to have him on the podcast today. Hi Ryan. Welcome to Hoorf.

Ryan Barnes:

Hi, thanks for having me here.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, thanks for being here. I'm excited to, well, I'm gonna say I'm excited to talk to you. I talk to you every week, but I'm excited to talk to you on the record

Ryan Barnes:

even earlier today. You talked to me.

Elle Billing:

I did. We talked earlier today. We're recording this on a Friday. We had spoonie studio this morning. You're one of the spoonies, so yeah, and you're, you come every Friday, so we, we talk a lot, and I've had a chance to watch you work on some of your projects. It's been fun. Yeah?

Ryan Barnes:

Thank you. Yeah. I try to go every day, or not every day, but every week.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, it's been nice to get to know you. I didn't even ask, what were you working on today? When we were in the studio,

Ryan Barnes:

I was, I was working on the second part of the koi fish painting that I've been doing

Elle Billing:

the digital one, or are you making an actual paint one now?

Ryan Barnes:

No, it's an actual paint one. Part One and Part Two are both actual paint. But I've been following the instructions and the tutorial from Art Academy Lessons for Everyone, 2012 game for the Nintendo 3DS.

Elle Billing:

Oh, cool.

Ryan Barnes:

Where like the advertising thing on it was, it would teach artists of all skill levels, skills that they can apply to their own works, traditionally and digitally.

Elle Billing:

Oh, cool. That's neat,

Ryan Barnes:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

because I know you would, you had done a Koi. You were telling me about a digital, a digital art program that has like a physics engine in it, and you had done a koi fish in that one too.

Ryan Barnes:

Oh yeah. Rebel seven,

Elle Billing:

yeah,

Ryan Barnes:

yeah.

Elle Billing:

Okay,

Ryan Barnes:

yeah.

Elle Billing:

But these other Koi, these are with traditional art media,

Ryan Barnes:

yes,

Elle Billing:

okay,

Ryan Barnes:

with acrylic paint.

Elle Billing:

I guess I can kind of see it behind you, but it's all blurry, so

Ryan Barnes:

it's because I got that fancy iPhone LIDAR on.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, that's cool.

Ryan Barnes:

There you go.

Elle Billing:

Ooh, yeah, that is nice. I do. How many koi are you doing in total?

Ryan Barnes:

Um, just two, these two, and then, um, I might follow up with other lessons too. But, uh, yeah, in the game, um, the pigments for the paints are actual, like real pigments you can buy in store, So I just matched it as closely as possible. And

Elle Billing:

nice. then, yeah, the first painting I'm doing is as close to the instructions as possible. And then the second painting I'm doing is my own interpretation of where the colors actually need to be closer to you know how it is nice. So that's not usually. That wasn't on the questions we talked about earlier, but I was just interested in what you were painting today, and I never asked when we were in studio.

Ryan Barnes:

No worries.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, so it's so my first official question is, how have you received care this week?

Ryan Barnes:

I've been trying to be nicer to myself. Yeah, is one thing. Some some days it's harder than others. But you know, just overall, just trying to be mindful, trying to include mindfulness into my art practice as well. Just because, like, I don't know, like, these past couple days, I haven't been feeling like the best artist out there, even though I know, like. Logically, I'm pretty good. But you know, feelings don't necessarily reflect reality, and I just have to be mindful and remind myself that art is largely about the journey and learning the skills and applying them, not necessarily about being like the best of the best.

Elle Billing:

Yeah. I mean, there's always something that we're really competent at and other things that we're that are in our growing space. And I think we're always our own worst critics.

Ryan Barnes:

Oh yeah, there's a lot of that too. Yeah,

Elle Billing:

I'm glad you're trying to be nicer to yourself. What is it? What does it look like for you to be nice to yourself.

Ryan Barnes:

It looks like trying to be more compassionate and more understanding, understanding of my own, like current limitations with my disabilities and stuff, and not falling into that pit trap of, oh well. When I was in high school, I was able to, you know, stay up all night, work on things, go to school, do all this. And, yeah, I'm in my mid 30s, not, not, no. Plus, I have sleep apneas, so I'm, you know, it's a good day if I don't take a nap. In the middle of it,

Elle Billing:

I was laying down on the couch right before we started doing this. I'm totally with you there. Yeah. You're like, in high school, I could do all Yeah, our bodies worked then,

Ryan Barnes:

yeah.

Elle Billing:

And even then, I'm like, did my body actually work in high school? Or could I just ignore it more,

Ryan Barnes:

right?

Elle Billing:

Yeah, yeah,

Ryan Barnes:

yeah. There's a lot of that too. And then just, I also can't, I'm not sure if it's the healthiest thing, but I also kind of think of it like, now is probably going to be the easiest time for me to do things. You know what I mean?

Elle Billing:

Like, I'm not getting any better, right? Like, is that what you mean?

Ryan Barnes:

Like, yeah, like, entropy is a thing. I think it's as healthy as I'm ever going to be again. This is as healthy as I'm going to be. This is as young as I'm ever going to be, and this is the most clear my schedule will ever be.

Elle Billing:

Uh huh, yeah,

Ryan Barnes:

even though it's been hectic, because,

Elle Billing:

like, your daughter is just gonna be more active as she gets older, right? Like, the parenting thing isn't going to get easier,

Ryan Barnes:

right? And even when it does, eventually, because, like, ideally, she'll be able to, you know, Afford a House at, you know, from a young adult age. But whatever happens, happens, but even when she's largely out of the picture, you know, living her life, doing her own thing decades away from now, like, my schedule might be filled up with, like, more physical therapy appointments, more like marriage counseling or something. You know,

Elle Billing:

there's always there's always something, yeah?

Ryan Barnes:

So right now is the easiest and best time to do it, because, you know, tomorrow's not guaranteed.

Elle Billing:

Yeah. So for sure, yeah. So what you were talking about being nicer to yourself as far as your artwork? So what can you tell us about your your current creative practice, like, what are, what does that look like?

Ryan Barnes:

So I've, I don't, I don't know if you hear Blackberry, but she's kind of growl a little bit.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Barnes:

She thinks I'm a little crazy. She-- small aside, but she catches on to anxiety, but she can't tell the difference between anxiety and excitement, so she's doing a little bit of alerting right now, because I'm excited to talk about art practice,

Elle Billing:

and she's like, Hey, you're elevated.

Ryan Barnes:

yeah. But so back to the question of what it looks like in practice. So kind of, one of the new ideas I've been having is looking at my art less from a like production standpoint and more from like, a body building standpoint, where it's less about what the final product is and more about, like, just getting your time in the gym.

Elle Billing:

Okay,

Ryan Barnes:

you know,

Elle Billing:

yeah, yeah. Like, the the show up and get the work like, show up and work out, build your muscles, yeah? Like your take your your artistic muscles, yeah,

Ryan Barnes:

right. And like, some days at the gym are going to be great, and you're going to feel great going in and feel great going out. Some days you're not going to want to be there, but then end up, like, loving it halfway through. And some days you're going to hate it from the beginning, you're gonna hate it from the end.

Elle Billing:

And don't skip leg day, right?

Ryan Barnes:

But the important thing is, you show up, and you show up for yourself.

Elle Billing:

What's the art version of leg day? Do you suppose? What's your leg day? Like, don't skip leg day. Like, what's your leg day as far as the in the artistic gym?

Ryan Barnes:

I guess, fundamentals and anatomy,

Elle Billing:

oh so hard. I just tried to draw a hand yesterday, and I wanted to cry,

Ryan Barnes:

yeah, if only they could draw themselves, right? Oh, wait a minute, hands do draw themselves? So meta?

Elle Billing:

Yeah. Anatomy. I think any drawing, actually, for me is, is probably leg day. I mean, you're at least in art school, where you get to take, right, some of these, like fundamental classes, and you'll get to take figure drawing. And I'm, my my art instruction has been very much a Frankenstein's monster of like, what do I want to learn? Now, let me find some sort of resource to try and do this. And so I have huge gaps, and I have other areas where I'm like, No, I'm I got this down. This is my favorite thing. I'm just going to keep doing this. I don't need to know how to draw body parts. I will only draw three quarters of a person. She will have no feet, and she'll have one hand doing one specific pose. And I'm gonna draw it on a separate sheet of paper and then cut it out and paste it on so I don't ruin the whole painting. I'll just make it several times until I get a good one. That's That's what I did yesterday.

Ryan Barnes:

No, that's fair,

Elle Billing:

collaged onto the rest of the painting. I mean, it works, but that's how I do people. They go on the painting later.

Ryan Barnes:

And that's the other thing too. And it kind of goes into the whole like body building, um, idea of comparison too is, if it works, it works, yeah, you know, whether you're doing squats for leg day or you're like, doing those leg weight lifts, it doesn't matter, you're putting in the work. And everyone has their own, like, way of doing that. Yeah?

Elle Billing:

We get to make our own rules, I guess. Yeah, the workout that works for us, that's a good--

Ryan Barnes:

right. And we're very much like 2d artists in that aspect, so we're not even touching 3d stuff, and 3d fundamentals looks completely different than that. So like you doing your collage and mixed media thing, that's completely valid. And there are some things that you just don't need to know for that style of art,

Elle Billing:

right? And I, I tend to pick there's, there tends to be one thing in each collection that is, like, this is a new skill. I need to be able to pull this off, right? Like, I've never put hands in a, like on a I've done faces like, I've never done whole bodies. So now I, oh, shoot, I'm doing a saint. Most, most of the saint, she kind of gets cut off at the just below the knee, like, and I gotta have a hand like, I gotta put an arm and a hand on her. Now, what do I do? But, like last, my last series doing a face was, like, a more realistic shaded face, as opposed to just like, line drawing with weird stuff. I was like, Okay, that was the the new thing, and that was really hard for me, right? Well, now this series has two two people, like, there's two separate paintings that have faces. I was like, I'm really gonna regret putting two portraits in this collection. I was like, Nope, it's the hand. I regret the hand. That's the new thing and it-- but there's always something. It's like every series happens at a certain time for a reason, and it's because that's where my skills are, and that's what I, where I need to be going next, right?

Ryan Barnes:

And that that's exactly what it is, is with art is, you know, you're learning skills, you're applying those skills, and then you show off those skills like, that's, that's the bread and butter. It's, it's not necessarily about liking or hating the thing that we produce like, it's nice to like it, but what's important is that you learn the skill, you applied the skill, and you shared the results.

Elle Billing:

Yeah

Ryan Barnes:

you know. And that's kind of that goes into the whole like, being kind to yourself thing, because, like, you can easily let your perfectionism get in the way and be like, Oh, well, I can't do hands, so I can't do this series. No, you have to give yourself permission to struggle, you know, so that you can learn and overcome from that you know, and be okay with it, that it's gonna suck a little bit at first, but like you just work through it, be kind to yourself. See it to the end, take your notes and then move on to the next thing.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, and really, being an artist has helped me overcome a lot of my perfectionism. Like, I still have that, like, but it doesn't have to be perfect, and that I've really, I think, grown in that area a lot in the last five or six years. So,

Ryan Barnes:

oh for sure,

Elle Billing:

yeah, I have to, or I'd never show anybody anything.

Ryan Barnes:

Right? And like, perfect is such an impossible standard too, because we're not machines. Like, no, if you want perfect representation, that's what cameras are for,

Elle Billing:

exactly that's become a photographer. Yeah, there's Winkie. She saw or heard some-- Well, she didn't hear anything. She saw them. She felt a vibration. There's just there was a disturbance in the Force. So I've been a fly on the wall as you've been working on one of this, not the koi, I mean, yes, the koi series, which we just talked about, but also the series of paintings you've been doing that have, like these voids in them.

Ryan Barnes:

Yes,

Elle Billing:

what can you tell us about those? Those have been kind of fun to watch.

Ryan Barnes:

So those ones, it was kind of idea that came to me during one of the class assignments where we had to paint a realistic landscape and then paint something abstract into it. And so I painted using a photo reference that I took when I was in Norway. I painted the Norwegian Sea, and then added the picture stone style of Viking ship onto the water. And the kind of idea behind that is that they're both matching in themes, but not in style, which is kind of a reflection of how I felt for, like, the first year, and still, like a little bit now, coming home after getting out of the military is, you know, I came back to my hometown, and the hole that I left, I don't quite fit in anymore, and the town has also moved on around that hole.

Elle Billing:

Yeah

Ryan Barnes:

and that's kind of what these void paintings are trying to depict. Is that okay, these two themes match, like it's Norway and then Norse picture, stone drawing, but they don't fit because that's not Norway anymore.

Elle Billing:

The two don't fit together. Yeah, yeah, my experience is similar, but different. I wasn't in the military, but I did sort of exile myself from my home for a long time. I'd come back to visit twice a year, but then when I moved home after half my life, I graduated at 18 and went to college and then went and got my first job and came back at 36 like, half my life, yeah, that whole feeling of like, this feels like home, but also so much has changed. Like, I mean, I've changed a lot, yeah, like when I left, I've said this before on the podcast, but like when I left, I was dating my high school sweetheart, and then married to my high school sweetheart, I was very much in the closet. I was a perfectionist, workaholic, high achieving, high performing, you know, all of those things, high expectations. When I came home, I was divorced. I was very out of the closet. I had quit my job, sold my house, I was barely functional. I sleep 14 hours a day. I can't work more than two or three hours at a time, very much not high performance anymore. I was very burned out, like that's, that's a big change. That's-- and to come home to a place where people have only known the first version of you, yeah, yeah. That void. It's the square peg in a round hole thing, that feeling I get, I get it that, right? Maybe that's why I like your void painting so much when you're, when I've seen you working on them, because, like, that feeling resonates with me.

Ryan Barnes:

I appreciate that because, like for me, that's also a mark of a successful art piece, as if the message, you know, comes through, right

Elle Billing:

and that that's something that I'm teaching a workshop this month on the art of personal narrative. And part of what I think about that, including, you know, personal stuff and artwork, is like, even if like, it's better to get really, really specific, even though you might not think it resonates because like, you're like that the Nor-, the Norwegian coast and a Norse boat, and your experience of coming home from the military that is really, really niche. Like, how many people are going to relate to that specific thing? But like, it works, I got it, right? because the emotion that it evokes is much more universal. I mean, not great universal, but it, but like, people get it, yeah, and being really specific, and there's one of your void paintings is behind you. Other people won't be able to see it when they listen to this podcast, but it's downtown Seattle, right, with a big circle void in the middle of it. Like. Right? That one I've been to Seattle once in my life, sure, so I didn't recognize the skyline, but like I rec-, I get the feeling of that emptiness in the middle of a, of a crowded metropolitan area; like it still resonates with me, and it would resonate with somebody who knew the skyline even more sure, like but, and it's-- but, it's the specificity that does it. It's like the attention to detail and the attention to your specific niche experience that that makes it resonate,

Ryan Barnes:

right. And I'm glad that you mentioned the Seattle one, because between the two, because, like I said the first one was kind of the version 1.0 beta. This one's also a bit of a beta, because I actually consider that one a bit of a failure of a piece. Because when I show it to people without them knowing that's part of the Void series, they just ask, what's the giant egg in the middle? So like the message doesn't come quite across as nicely as it did for the Norwegian one, where you could recognize, okay, realistic landscape, picture, stone, long ship, okay?

Elle Billing:

Because the Void is just blank, as opposed to being a simplified, stylistic thing, right?

Ryan Barnes:

So it's a little too far into the abstract, okay? And that's not a bad thing, like again, being nice to myself. I don't think that that makes me a bad artist. It's just that piece to me anyway, isn't as successful because it doesn't read right without context. So now that I actually start to approach doing an actual series of paintings, I'm more focused. I know, okay, I'm going to keep doing like Norwegian landscapes paired with Old Norse style drawings, and the only super different thing is, because I have a Cricut, I'm going to be cutting out the shapes and vinyl and building my own canvas. So instead of it being the white gesso or gesso that you saw in the original Norse painting, is going to be raw canvas.

Elle Billing:

Ooh, very cool. So you'll just, like, put the vinyl down, do your whole painting over it, and then peel the vinyl off and have just clean, pristine. Ooh, very nice.

Ryan Barnes:

Yeah. And so, like, the canvas isn't even gonna be primed until, like, after I apply that vinyl, so it'll be a literal hole in the painting.

Elle Billing:

Oh, I like that, yeah. But like, and you wouldn't have gotten to that idea if you hadn't done the previous iterations of the of the void,right?

Ryan Barnes:

No, exactly, yeah. And so it's wrangling my brain a little bit to be like, No, you're not a failure because you want to do this again. No, you're not a failure because it didn't come out right the first time. It's Yes, it failed, but that's part of the process, yeah. And so you just take your notes.

Elle Billing:

You got it, got you to where you're going, right? Okay, I see Blackberry, and you mentioned her a little bit ago. Her, right?

Ryan Barnes:

Yes, her

Elle Billing:

okay. So is it okay if we talk about BlackBerry a little bit?

Ryan Barnes:

No, that's totally fine. I was just gonna say she doesn't mind being misgendered, as long as if you give her treats and pets. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.

Elle Billing:

Cool. So how does your disability and having your service dog like integrate into your life, and how does your art practice fit in with all of that?

Ryan Barnes:

As far as art practice, I'm probably never going to work with dry pastels because of having a service animal, which is fine. I can live without doing dry pastels because of the dust, right? And I don't want her breathing in like, cadmium from the floor. Never mind airborne cadmium, you know, from working on things. And that's fine. I'm not, pastels aren't really my focus. Charcoal makes me a little bit nervous, but that's at least better than, you know, snorting straight up lead

Elle Billing:

they actually gave my dog activated charcoal one time because she ate like, a million pieces of chocolate. You know? So charcoal isn't the worst thing your dog could get into, right?

Ryan Barnes:

Like, it's still if you have the option to not snort charcoal.

Elle Billing:

Oh, absolutely, I'm not recommending the charcoal or the chocolate. Terrible idea,

Ryan Barnes:

but so that's one of the ways that it alters my practice just a little bit.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, for sure, it's like, I don't do certain things in the winter because I can't spray in the garage. So like, and I can't spray upstairs because the dog is in the house. And, you know, her respiratory system is smaller and more tender than mine, and I don't have proper ventilation in my studio. Where, like, when I lived in Idaho, it was never super cold, and so I could always at least spray it at stuff on my porch. Where, here it's, like, hasn't got above zero all week. I can't use spray cans in the garage when it's that cold, right? No, I totally get how having a pet in the house can definitely impact the choices of art materials.

Ryan Barnes:

Other than that, like she's been good, she alerts when I'm starting to get anxious. She does, she's a psychiatric service animal, so she'll do, what is it? deep pressure therapy, she'll do grounding techniques, like she'll nibble my ears and lick my face. And I've also noticed it's a weird behavior, but I've noticed that if I'm having a panic attack or anxiety, that's when she starts to really focus on my nose and, like, almost start picking my nose with her lower sharp teeth. That's funny, like, good girl. But also, please stop

Elle Billing:

my dog licks ears too, but I don't think it has anything to do with anxiety. I think she's just gross. My dog is not a trained service animal at all. I brought her to my church one time when we were still in Idaho, and my pastor was like, Oh, is this? Is she your emotional support animal? And I'm like, I'm her emotional support human. Like, this is it's actually very much a two way relationship here, because we're both fairly anxious and neurotic. Like, yeah. Like, my dog could-- can't do crowds. She can't do men unless they're, unless they're neuro divergent men or queer men, like she's, she would not pass any test like, but like, Neither would I. Like, we're meant for each other. We just don't go out together. We just stay home.

Ryan Barnes:

I mean, sometimes I am her emotional support human because, like, my wife will, like, yell at her for doing something wrong, and then she'll jump onto the bed and cuddle next to me and be like, dad mom yelled at me. It's just super funny. But, yeah, no. I mean, we're a good team together. Sometimes it's a little bit annoying because, like, I'll be at the college working on something, or at least trying to, and it takes me a little bit to get set up, because it's not a permanent location for me, so I don't have everything, you know, on my desk already. I'll get all set up. And she's like, Dad, you're too nervous to be here. Cool, thanks.

Elle Billing:

But I'm already here, and I just got set up.

Ryan Barnes:

And then she keeps getting woofy, and she keeps alerting me, and then I'm like, Okay, fine, we'll go home and I'll work from home, and then everything's fine, yep, but yeah.

Elle Billing:

So since you're in school, and you're at home, and I'm gonna-- we talked about this this morning. I told you I was gonna ask this. No one ever asks men this question. So I'm being subversive, and I'm asking you because you're a man. You are my token cis, het white male of the season,

Ryan Barnes:

also purple, because birthmark, so,

Elle Billing:

oh yeah, you are disabled, though, so, like, it's not really the

Ryan Barnes:

one thing I have going for me.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, you're not as tokenized, right? It's still a diversity interview, right? You're still, you're still a dude, though. How do you balance the demands of school and art practice and raising a toddler? Like, how do you do it all?

Ryan Barnes:

Right, so one of the nice things is, I'm still married, so that's great. My wife helps me out a lot with that.

Elle Billing:

Well, yes, but even like married, married mothers are asked that, like, how do you balance it all? It's

Ryan Barnes:

I gotcha and like I have spouse. Like it was a like, struggle at first when Zelda is my daughter's name, but when she wasn't so sure about day cares. But now that she's in like, school, she loves going to school, hanging out with their friends, hanging out with their teachers, so that that was extremely helpful, um, especially when doing acrylic paints, because you can't just stop if you're doing, like, wet on wet, because that's it.

Elle Billing:

Oh, they dry fast. Yeah,

Ryan Barnes:

yeah, they dry so fast. Like, especially if your room's not humid enough, like it's crazy, that's

Elle Billing:

what I run into in the winter here, yep, yeah,

Ryan Barnes:

that's why I'm running into right now. But, um, which is winter here? But yeah, so it was a real hard struggle

Elle Billing:

Yeah, I think that's what most of us are to do anything with paint, because it's like, all right, I dropped my wife and child off. Have daycare, and then all of a sudden, like, I get home and I get a phone call, Hey, Zelda is crying, and she's not being consolable, so you have to come pick her up and, you know, bring her home. It's like, okay, cool. So now I can't paint, plus I have to drive another 15 minutes. So that's like, 30 minutes not doing why I want to, but there's, there's a lot of just trying to do your best and to do better than you did yesterday, is really how I'm balancing it, because I do let the ball drop in certain areas. doing, honestly, adding disability to it makes everything, makes we have to try so much harder than

Ryan Barnes:

right and so, like, I guess really my secret, if you can't even call that, is one again, working being kind to myself into the practice, you know, understanding that not every day is going to be 100% successful, and that's okay, like, as long as if you know the important things are taken care of, like baby is fed, you know, animals are fed and whatnot, and bills are paid. But also, like, dropping the ball in tactical ways, as opposed to having things surprise you, like, okay, yeah, I have some dirty clothes. I need to go through the laundry, but everyone still has clean clothes, so I can drop the ball on that today. Or, you know, something like that,

Elle Billing:

there was, I don't remember where I read it or who said it, which sucks, because I like to give cite, proper citations when I can. But it was a, it was like a professional career woman who was saying, like, you will drop balls, right? You just have to figure out which ones are glass and which ones are plastic.

Ryan Barnes:

Yes, No, exactly,

Elle Billing:

and drop the right, and drop the right ones, right? You know, like, laundry, plastic ball, you know, feeding baby, that's a glass one.

Ryan Barnes:

Yeah, yeah, as long as if there's clean clothes to wear, laundry, and the bane of my existence, folding laundry, never mind putting it away,

Elle Billing:

oh my gosh, right?

Ryan Barnes:

Like, not super important, like, as long as if it's an area where it's not going to get dirty, okay, yeah, not ideal, but let's, let's do the important things, you know. Let's focus on career. Let's focus on family. Let's focus on, you know, bigger picture things. So maybe one day we can afford a maid

Elle Billing:

dad. I dad. My dad was just talking about that again this week. He's like, you know, I keep bringing this up. He said, Because I think it's a really good idea. He said, But what if we got a housekeeper? Yeah, I was like, Oh, I'm totally for it, because, like, I thought I was going to be able to help out a whole lot more than I am.

Ryan Barnes:

Yeah,

Elle Billing:

and my dad can do a lot of house. My dad gets really domestic in the winter and when he's stressed, and he's both right now, and so he's doing a lot of deep cleaning and just regular cleaning. And my mom and I both tire out so fast that we know that as soon as he's in the field, it's gonna fall apart again. And I hate that that happens. I don't like that about myself. I wish I had energy to dedicate to more than just loading and unloading the dishwasher. But like, the reason I was laying down before we recorded this is because I took a shower. I have to recover. I vacuum something. I have to lay down. I am not great at domestic tasks because they all require physical energy, right?

Ryan Barnes:

And or spoons, right?

Elle Billing:

Yeah. And my mom is at the point where she doesn't have the self awareness to stop when she's tired, and so she'll just keep doing something until she can't stand anymore, and then what do you do? Then we're like, Mom, you can't and, like, we'll tell her to stop. And just like, Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. Like, and we can't, like, physically restrain her, obviously, that would also be a bad idea. And so we're like, we just need to get somebody else to do it. And that's okay. Like, there's a there's a creator who does turning Casey something. She wrote the book How to Keep House While Drowning, and one of the things that she has said that stuck with me is like, there is no morality attached, and I'm paraphrasing, but like, there is no morality attached to care tasks like cleaning and dishes and stuff like, it's morally neutral. Cleaning is morally-- Care tasks are morally neutral. Like having a messy house is not a moral failing, not doing the dishes is not a moral failing. And I was like, Oh, that puritanism really got in there, didn't it? And like, being able to let go of that has been helpful for me.

Ryan Barnes:

Right?

Elle Billing:

It's, it's really, it's still really hard to to not feel bad when I can't help, help out, or, like my dad, with the stuff that I thought I was going to be able to help with when I moved in, right?

Ryan Barnes:

Like, because, yeah, once, um, I got out the military, and then when we moved into our own apartment, like, I very I'm fine. Um, I really wanted to do like, the whole like Way of the House Husband. Have you seen that show on Netflix?

Elle Billing:

No. But my my partner, Ricki, we, we say that she is like, our traveling wife. So she lives in Chicago with her spouse most of the year and does wifey stuff there. And then when she stays with me, she does wifey stuff here.

Ryan Barnes:

Oh, nice, yeah.

Elle Billing:

Oh, she's great. She's a really good traveling

Ryan Barnes:

And in Way of the House Husband, a retired Yakuza wife. assassin, is now a domesticated like House Husband. And so there's a lot of, like, crossing of the cultures there with that. And so I was watching that being like, Yeah, I'm good. You know that that's what I kind of want to do once I'm out of the military, is, you know, make my wife a bento box for lunch, like, every day and like, that wasn't as much of a possibility, especially since, like, like, the kitchen is kind of my wife's area, because she loves cooking and stuff, and so I wasn't able to sort of get things set up the way that I wanted to to do that. But then also, like, at the same time, there are a bunch of other stuff that got in the way too, like schooling and having a daughter and like, trying to focus on career and exhibits and all that other fun stuff. And it's like, yeah, man. Like, I really want to be creative in this too, but I, again finding out which balls are plastic and which balls are glass, yeah. And that was just one of the ones that I had to drop because of where we're at right now.

Elle Billing:

Fed is fed. It doesn't have to be a cute bento box,

Ryan Barnes:

right? Fed is fed. We have plenty of food so, like, that's fine. And a lot of the time my wife takes leftovers with her to work, yeah.

Elle Billing:

And there you go, boxed vegan mac and cheese I eat. That's not cute, but

Ryan Barnes:

yeah, like you said, there's no morality in, like, a messy house, like, as long as if everyone's healthy and the house is healthy, like, Good, see, fine, yeah, yeah. Like, just don't let black mold grow. But that's also like that that takes some serious neglect,

Elle Billing:

right? That's a little different, yeah, yeah. All right. So last question, what is one true thing that you have learned from your creative practice?

Ryan Barnes:

I think that's a good point, Berry, um, but no,

Elle Billing:

Winkie is really opinionated, too.

Ryan Barnes:

I think one of the things I learned is that there's a lot of deprogramming that goes into adopting the lifestyle of an artist. There's a lot of things about art that were taught as kids and stuff, and you almost have to relearn everything. Like, I mean, the most common thing is, you know, people say that there's no money in art and that there's no career in art. Meanwhile, you know, five minutes later, they're like, Oh, do you see the new Marvel movie? It's like, that's all artists. Oh, did, did you watch it for free? No, no, I have Disney plus. No, I bought a movie ticket. And, like, I'm wearing this t shirt that has a graphic design on it. And, like, cool. What operating system is your phone? Oh, well, it's iPhone. Oh, it's not MS DOS, yeah? Like, there's a whole graphic user interface there.

Elle Billing:

Like, yeah, art really does touch every area of our lives.

Ryan Barnes:

Yeah, and like I said before where, like I started looking at art less as a production thing and more as like bodybuilding, because art gets taught from a very industrial viewpoint of, Do this, do this to produce that, whereas like bodybuilding is like, Hey, this is how you build up to what you're trying to do. And that's what art really is. Is that, oh, cool. You want to be better at acrylic painting, all right? Well, here's what you do to get there, and you keep building from there. And it's not competitive, the same way that, like industry or sports are, because there can be multiple winners, and it's not about becoming the best, but it's about pushing yourself further to be the better artist than you were prior, you know, and just that personal growth.

Elle Billing:

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Where can. Listeners, find you on social media.

Ryan Barnes:

On social media, I'm currently on threads, Instagram, DeviantArt, blue sky. But most importantly, whatever social media platform I'm on, it's Ryan Barnes Art

Elle Billing:

perfect.

Ryan Barnes:

I also have my own website, which is Ryan Barnes dot art,

Elle Billing:

great. And, yeah, cool. I will put that in the show notes so people can just click on it and find you

Ryan Barnes:

perfect.

Elle Billing:

Thank you so much for being here.

Ryan Barnes:

Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah.

Elle Billing:

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hoorf, to get the complete show notes and all the links mentioned on today's episode, or to get a full transcript of the episode, visit Hoorf podcast dot com. Join the Blessed Herd of St Winkus! By signing up for our newsletter, you can get Hoorf episodes delivered directly to your inbox. What's more, you get invitations to our monthly Coffee and Biscuits Chat, where you get to hang out with Ricki and Elle, talk about the show and connect on the topics that mean the most to you. You can sign up for that at hoorfpodcast dot com. If you become a patron for only $3 a month, you can support the creation of this podcast, help pay my editor and join a community of caregivers out here, just doing our best. Thank you again for joining me Elle Billing, the chronically ill queer femme who is very tired, on this episode of Hoorf. Until next time, be excellent to each other. Hoorf is hosted by Elle Billing @elleandwink, audio editing by Ricki Cummings,@Rickiep00h music composed by Ricki Cummings. Hoorf is a production of Elle & Wink Art Studio, LLC, all rights reserved. Hoorf can be found on all social media platforms,@hoorfpodcast, at H, O, O, R, F, podcast,

Ryan Barnes:

wait a minute, hands do draw themselves?

Contributor

Ricki Cummings

Producer