"My creative process is an exercise in pitting messy creative urges
against on-the-fly physical experimentation."
RYAN MACLEOD MORRIS
Sweet Nightmares: What are you currently working on?
Ryan: I have a few different projects going on - I have a series of short films that I’ve written and directed, illustrations for a childrens’ book, and I’m always itching for more time to paint - yet I’d say the piece I’m most excited about is the song and music video I’ve just completed with my band, The Swamp Lights. It’s the story about a guy who lost his mind in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I heard the freaky tale back when I used to live there. As time has passed, I can’t say for sure if the story was a true account or just something I made up and now mistake for a memory. Its a bouncy shuffle with a lot of lyrics. I loved collaborating with James Hyatt of Ninth and James Productions on the music video.
Ryan: I have a few different projects going on - I have a series of short films that I’ve written and directed, illustrations for a childrens’ book, and I’m always itching for more time to paint - yet I’d say the piece I’m most excited about is the song and music video I’ve just completed with my band, The Swamp Lights. It’s the story about a guy who lost his mind in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I heard the freaky tale back when I used to live there. As time has passed, I can’t say for sure if the story was a true account or just something I made up and now mistake for a memory. Its a bouncy shuffle with a lot of lyrics. I loved collaborating with James Hyatt of Ninth and James Productions on the music video.
SN: What possessed you to get into animation and film?
R: Animation and film are a relatively recent thing for me, but they were a long time coming. I’ve been storytelling forever - generating 2D art like cartoons and painting have been part of my medium since childhood - however I’d say that my focus on film and animation started to really come together when I owned a cafe in Santa Monica. There were stretches of time right in the beginning where it didn’t have a clientele yet and it was so bloody slow so I’d just sit there in the morning waiting for customers. A lot of creative writing came out of that period including a script for a Star Wars parody commercial for the cafe. I pulled off a pretty complex production with friends and
customers acting in it - it was my first foray into live action and I was totally hooked.
R: Animation and film are a relatively recent thing for me, but they were a long time coming. I’ve been storytelling forever - generating 2D art like cartoons and painting have been part of my medium since childhood - however I’d say that my focus on film and animation started to really come together when I owned a cafe in Santa Monica. There were stretches of time right in the beginning where it didn’t have a clientele yet and it was so bloody slow so I’d just sit there in the morning waiting for customers. A lot of creative writing came out of that period including a script for a Star Wars parody commercial for the cafe. I pulled off a pretty complex production with friends and
customers acting in it - it was my first foray into live action and I was totally hooked.
SN: What is the typical process of creating a piece? Physically and psychologically?
R: Across all mediums I’d say my creative process is an exercise in pitting messy creative urges against on-the-fly physical experimentation. It results in a feeling of authentic adventure, as opposed to careful planning. I like to take this nagging existential feeling of wanting to make something, struggling to find time to do it then just jumping in and getting my hands dirty. I tend to find meaning in my art later, when its complete.
In my cartoons for example, I rarely think of a clever ‘gotcha’ joke then just draw it. I usually start by drawing something random and on-the-fly then ridicule my own drawing as the caption. It works great for political cartooning, simply mocking your own improvisation. Its humbling and more fun that way. Above all, one valuable piece of advice I once read from an old John Lennon interview that I try hard to adhere to; Always finish your pieces in one sitting. It is worth putting in the extra couple of hours capturing the mood you’re in that night because I’ve found that you set it aside to finish later you never really recapture the mood.
R: Across all mediums I’d say my creative process is an exercise in pitting messy creative urges against on-the-fly physical experimentation. It results in a feeling of authentic adventure, as opposed to careful planning. I like to take this nagging existential feeling of wanting to make something, struggling to find time to do it then just jumping in and getting my hands dirty. I tend to find meaning in my art later, when its complete.
In my cartoons for example, I rarely think of a clever ‘gotcha’ joke then just draw it. I usually start by drawing something random and on-the-fly then ridicule my own drawing as the caption. It works great for political cartooning, simply mocking your own improvisation. Its humbling and more fun that way. Above all, one valuable piece of advice I once read from an old John Lennon interview that I try hard to adhere to; Always finish your pieces in one sitting. It is worth putting in the extra couple of hours capturing the mood you’re in that night because I’ve found that you set it aside to finish later you never really recapture the mood.
SN: Are you often satisfied, disappointed or surprised by the outcome of a finished piece?
R: If I start with my personal ethic of not overly planning the meaning in a given narrative upfront, I have to admit that feeling satisfied is elusive. But mostly I think I cultivate an acceptance of each piece and enjoy and appreciate the surprises that pop up along the way during the creative process.
R: If I start with my personal ethic of not overly planning the meaning in a given narrative upfront, I have to admit that feeling satisfied is elusive. But mostly I think I cultivate an acceptance of each piece and enjoy and appreciate the surprises that pop up along the way during the creative process.
SN: What is it that attracts you to portrait painting?
R: Portrait painting is brutal! I’m classically trained and have done a lot of portraits, but wow the amount of frustration, trial & error and self-doubt that goes into a portraiture is ridiculous. Because of its difficulty to master, it does pay well and much of my early work was portrait work to help launch my career.
The exception: I have found it really fun however to paint people’s pets over the years as animals can have so much character and without the emotional expectation of the subject, the self-doubt flies out the window.
R: Portrait painting is brutal! I’m classically trained and have done a lot of portraits, but wow the amount of frustration, trial & error and self-doubt that goes into a portraiture is ridiculous. Because of its difficulty to master, it does pay well and much of my early work was portrait work to help launch my career.
The exception: I have found it really fun however to paint people’s pets over the years as animals can have so much character and without the emotional expectation of the subject, the self-doubt flies out the window.
SN: What is it about life beyond our Earth that fascinates you?
R: This is the subject for an entirely separate interview! “Are we alone and are we being visited?” is the single greatest question we ask ourselves as humans. And yes, I definitely believe that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings from the stars. Trust me, I can lay a good case for it; especially when it comes to the Roswell crash. I do bring the subject into my work in the form of accepting ET as a given in our experience but more so invest my fascination into exploring how humans wrestle with their own existentialism.
In a recent short film I wrote and directed, a fungi gatherer roams the forest and comes across an extraterrestrial entity who presents him with an ancient puzzle that will decide his fate. Even though the ET is a supporting character, it is the man’s own ambivalence and struggle with indecision that is the paranormal phenomenon.
R: This is the subject for an entirely separate interview! “Are we alone and are we being visited?” is the single greatest question we ask ourselves as humans. And yes, I definitely believe that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings from the stars. Trust me, I can lay a good case for it; especially when it comes to the Roswell crash. I do bring the subject into my work in the form of accepting ET as a given in our experience but more so invest my fascination into exploring how humans wrestle with their own existentialism.
In a recent short film I wrote and directed, a fungi gatherer roams the forest and comes across an extraterrestrial entity who presents him with an ancient puzzle that will decide his fate. Even though the ET is a supporting character, it is the man’s own ambivalence and struggle with indecision that is the paranormal phenomenon.
SN: How did you get into sculpting three dimensional art?
R: I majored in sculpture in art school and it was like boot camp. Capturing true form in clay is very difficult, especially for portraits, so I figured if you can achieve some degree of mastery over that, all other forms of visual art would be easier. Sculpture appealed to me because it felt masculine, mysterious. You create an actual physical object; not a false illusion of an object on a flat surface. I haven’t sculpted much since I graduated, but it fast forwarded my visual language big time for future pursuits. Plus we got to weld, play with clay and hang out with nude models all day. Not too shabby for a collegiate experience. You can still see that formal sculpture training in my work in other mediums - whether it is the way I handle the paint brush, the layering of instrumentation in my music or the shaping of my film's storyboards.
R: I majored in sculpture in art school and it was like boot camp. Capturing true form in clay is very difficult, especially for portraits, so I figured if you can achieve some degree of mastery over that, all other forms of visual art would be easier. Sculpture appealed to me because it felt masculine, mysterious. You create an actual physical object; not a false illusion of an object on a flat surface. I haven’t sculpted much since I graduated, but it fast forwarded my visual language big time for future pursuits. Plus we got to weld, play with clay and hang out with nude models all day. Not too shabby for a collegiate experience. You can still see that formal sculpture training in my work in other mediums - whether it is the way I handle the paint brush, the layering of instrumentation in my music or the shaping of my film's storyboards.
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SN: Would you say music is your main artistic drive, above visual art?
R: Aha - a trick question. Music and visual art are definitely both part of the same artistic drive and maybe to a fault, I have a hard time putting one above the other. I’ve been playing music for 25 years and just love writing and performing music with my friends.
The feeling of working guitar strings in your hands is incredibly satisfying and the way I approach my visual pieces is very similar to how I approach working with my bandmates as well - we start as a gang of brothers that are simply happy to be playing together with no lofty goals whatsoever.
Whether it is lofty goals with instruments or clever ideas with paper and pen, the most enjoyable art we have generated has had much more humble beginnings. The two art forms definitely inform each other in my work - the narratives have similar themes, the songwriting is cinematic and the beat sheets of each film to date - the internal rhythm of how a story unfolds for the characters - has a musical choreography to it.
What's something that your art has brought you that you never expected?
R: My cinema and music work has brought me a speaking and singing voice that I can tolerate. Growing up I had a speech impediment, and it felt like having a giant tattoo of Florida on my forehead. Everyone could see it, even if they were too nice to bring it up. It did a number to my self confidence. I’d always been in bands, but was extremely scared to sing because of it and as I began art school my speech impediment became an adversary that I wanted to completely destroy on principle in order to master my own self expression.
I went to specialists and spent hours working on exercises on my own but with sculpture and painting, I could avoid hearing my own imperfections. In time though, I made significant headway and so once I’d largely tackled the speech issue I faced one of my deepest insecurities and forced myself to sing and act. Turns out I can do it, and can tell my stories as I see fit; I don't need to write words for some other guy to sing for me. Very freeing.
R: Aha - a trick question. Music and visual art are definitely both part of the same artistic drive and maybe to a fault, I have a hard time putting one above the other. I’ve been playing music for 25 years and just love writing and performing music with my friends.
The feeling of working guitar strings in your hands is incredibly satisfying and the way I approach my visual pieces is very similar to how I approach working with my bandmates as well - we start as a gang of brothers that are simply happy to be playing together with no lofty goals whatsoever.
Whether it is lofty goals with instruments or clever ideas with paper and pen, the most enjoyable art we have generated has had much more humble beginnings. The two art forms definitely inform each other in my work - the narratives have similar themes, the songwriting is cinematic and the beat sheets of each film to date - the internal rhythm of how a story unfolds for the characters - has a musical choreography to it.
What's something that your art has brought you that you never expected?
R: My cinema and music work has brought me a speaking and singing voice that I can tolerate. Growing up I had a speech impediment, and it felt like having a giant tattoo of Florida on my forehead. Everyone could see it, even if they were too nice to bring it up. It did a number to my self confidence. I’d always been in bands, but was extremely scared to sing because of it and as I began art school my speech impediment became an adversary that I wanted to completely destroy on principle in order to master my own self expression.
I went to specialists and spent hours working on exercises on my own but with sculpture and painting, I could avoid hearing my own imperfections. In time though, I made significant headway and so once I’d largely tackled the speech issue I faced one of my deepest insecurities and forced myself to sing and act. Turns out I can do it, and can tell my stories as I see fit; I don't need to write words for some other guy to sing for me. Very freeing.
Favourite colour?
Naples yellow. Its so subtle and you can secretly hide it everywhere, especially
contrasted against in lavender. It never gets old.
Music to create to?
Sometimes I’ll do Miles Davis, but usually it is Latin Jazz.
It hits the spot and I associate it with painting time.
Drawing or painting?
Ugh, that’s a hard one. Painting. Its so gooey and layered and smells like chemicals and
the colors are so rich. I draw a ton too, but if forced to pick I’d go painting.
You have to struggle to control it unlike a pencil or pen.
What would you do without art?
I’d probably be a baseball coach for a high school or community college team.
I’d love that. Baseball is a beautiful thing. But knowing me, I’d paint the plays on the walls of the
dugout, draw cartoons of the team characters, and sing ballads in locker room.
Naples yellow. Its so subtle and you can secretly hide it everywhere, especially
contrasted against in lavender. It never gets old.
Music to create to?
Sometimes I’ll do Miles Davis, but usually it is Latin Jazz.
It hits the spot and I associate it with painting time.
Drawing or painting?
Ugh, that’s a hard one. Painting. Its so gooey and layered and smells like chemicals and
the colors are so rich. I draw a ton too, but if forced to pick I’d go painting.
You have to struggle to control it unlike a pencil or pen.
What would you do without art?
I’d probably be a baseball coach for a high school or community college team.
I’d love that. Baseball is a beautiful thing. But knowing me, I’d paint the plays on the walls of the
dugout, draw cartoons of the team characters, and sing ballads in locker room.
Thanks for reading.
♥
Check out more of Ryan's work.
Website
Conducted by Polaris Castillo
December 30th, 2016
December 30th, 2016
