Artist Susan Byrnes

SPEAKERS

Rodney Veal, Promo, Susan Byrnes

Susan Byrnes  00:00

Everything now is just expected to have this immediate impact, this sort like either you get it or or it’s irrelevant. It’s it you. It’s not part of our culture because you can’t grab it immediately. But our attention is ours, and attention like you’re sort of rewarded. Sometimes, if you take your time, art is like this. I mean, our intelligence and our understanding of what we’re looking at takes time sometimes. I mean, you can make your art so that’s immediate, but you can also make it so that things build or things wash over you, and you don’t quite understand them, but there’s a catch in there, and who knows what It is for you.

Rodney Veal  01:01

Well, hello everyone. This is Rodney Veal. The host of Rodney Veal’s inspired by and I am super, super excited today I get to talk to a long time collaborator, which is kind of a fun thing to do, but just an amazing artist and educator, podcast journalist in her own right, has her own stuff that’s going on. I mean, I look at Susan burns as when you see the definition of Renaissance, she really fits the bill. And so that’s I think of her as a renaissance woman in every shape and form. I love her work. I love her. I love working with her without further ado. Welcome Susan to the podcast. Thank you.

Susan Byrnes  01:43

I’m what a lovely introduction. That’s so nice. Thank you. I’m really happy to be talking to you. I’ve been thinking about you quite a lot, because I’ve seen you a lot lately, and I’ve been doing dance things lately, so that’s been really fun. Oh,

Rodney Veal  02:01

that’s always the best part. I, you know we and when I, when I tell people that, you know, we know each other. In this podcast, we in collaborating. We have worked on a work of art together, but we’ve also worked in other scenarios of bringing art into spaces and things like that, and just, it’s just been such a cool, cool time to hang out with Susan, and she has an exhibit that’s currently up at the contemporary in Dayton, and it’s just, and that’s what sparked this idea. Like, wait a minute, I haven’t talked to Susan on a podcast, silly man, let’s talk absolutely and, you know, well, I’m, I’m curious about because this is because the title of the podcast. It’s like, how did this journey start for you? I mean, we’re going into the eye machine, yeah, this notion of as a child, this, when I, when I described you as a renaissance woman. I mean, you have, you have multiple streams and pathways you could have gone. So as a child, what, what, what were you like? Okay,

Susan Byrnes  03:11

well, it’s, it’s kind of funny. I can tell you two things about me as a kid. One was, I have this picture, I think it’s my favorite picture of me as a kid with my sister and our best friend, and we’re probably four or five years old, and we’re sitting on this porch, and they have normal like Kid clothes on, and so do I, but I have this weird knit thing on my head that looks sort of like a hat, but it’s not quite a hat, and I’m holding a plant in my hand and and it it doesn’t fit into anything else with that photo, so I don’t know what that says about me, but it says I which one of these is not like the other one. And so there’s that. And then when I was in second grade, I read my poem on the radio. So I had this experience, I guess, already, of writing a poem in school, you know, and then I got to read it on the radio. And I have had a fascination with radio ever since then. And whenever I had a chance to be a part of it and even make it like that, was exciting for me, and and, you know, I I just, I’m curious about a lot of things that I want to try things. And so I guess, you know, that’s always been my MO and sometimes a little frustrating, because there’s just so much to do.

Rodney Veal  04:49

I know absolutely I’m, I’m in the same sort of,

Susan Byrnes  04:52

I know you are, yes, absolutely it’s like,

Rodney Veal  04:54

it’s like, but what if I did this? What if I use it printer? What if I did, you know, yeah. If you see these shiny objects and these like techniques and ideas and you just want to kind of play with them. I mean,

Susan Byrnes  05:08

it’s, it’s true, and I’ve been lucky to be in situations where I’ve been able to access certain things, you know, like dance for for example, wasn’t anything I studied as a kid, but when I was in photography school and undergraduate, I looked at the photographs of now I can’t think of her name, but she’s very famous for photographing Martha Graham. And you know or I know, yeah, in the

Rodney Veal  05:43

middle of night, I’m like, Yeah,

Susan Byrnes  05:45

sure. So, so these photographs of dancers really struck me, and so I love dance after that, and at some point, because I could write, I got this job as an executive director of a dance company. Okay, how was that?

Rodney Veal  06:00

Wait a minute, like, how do you go from photography to executive director of a dance? Well,

Susan Byrnes  06:05

it was years between those things, but i i They were looking for someone, and I applied and and, you know, I had enough. Like, transfer. I always tell this to artists, you have transferable skills so many So I transferred my skills of being able to write a little bit, you know, and into this job working in the arts with dancers. And that opened up worlds to me. Because not only did I meet I met Bill T Jones, I met Liz Lerman, I met Trisha. Oh, I met Oh, because these just, I mean, I didn’t have, like, long, deep conversation with them, but just being in their presence was so inspiring. Talk about inspiring. And then, and then I went to graduate school for sculpture. So it was all these possibilities at the time.

Rodney Veal  07:06

And the thing is, we shared this. We share. Yes, we did. We both went to Eastern Michigan. Go, Go Eagles. We went to Eastern Michigan University. I just, I was like, Oh my God, these connective threads. Because if you’re like, connected, connection to dance, and my love of dance and art making. We just, we just, I just felt like, Oh, I found someone who understands, you know, this, that’s,

Susan Byrnes  07:29

we’ve sort of been on parallel journeys in a weird way. And, and, yes, I yeah, I understand that about you, knowing all that you do. And it’s just incredible. And, and cool, you know,

Rodney Veal  07:42

yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of the things about this sort of, like being in this kind of realm, and like the available tools in the tool belt, so you have transferable skills. They really do exist, is that you just kind of have to just, you know, I just, I just believe that the golden retriever methodology of life, like, Okay, well, let’s try it. Okay, let’s see what happens. What’s

Susan Byrnes  08:10

the worst? That’s the one thing you learn as an artist, and I’ve practiced this many times to fail and fail again, like, Okay, what’s the worst that could happen? You know,

Rodney Veal  08:23

the paint runs off the campus, or, or the dancers, you look at you like, this is the worst piece of, I believe you choreographed this. Or are

Susan Byrnes  08:32

you down and you get up and you’re like, okay, that

Rodney Veal  08:36

happened. Well, that happened. And so, yeah, I mean, I love how you talk about failure, because I think a lot of times when we think about artists, we always think about the success. We see the success of the object or the presentation or the performance, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s in the closet.

Susan Byrnes  08:54

Yeah, that’s why do you think you’re looking at? Like, not that much here. I’m like, it’s so cluttered with, like, experiments and stuff in progress, and maybe not, and

Rodney Veal  09:07

it might be a possibility later. Do you do a lot of that where you, like, you start something and it just kind of sits for a while and then all of a sudden, oh, I know how to solve that problem, because it is problems. Yeah,

Susan Byrnes  09:21

it is, I think, in a way, like I get these ideas and often, like, in the shower, and I’ll dream, I’ll have like, lifetimes in there, and it’ll, it’ll go into all these things. And I’m like, Okay, if that sticks, if that idea sticks to me, next month or whatever, like, maybe I’ll pursue it, because I get some pretty out there ideas, and I’m like, do I really want to do that? I’m not sure, you know, like the time, but I don’t know. So if I can’t let it go like this. Is this piece, the dance piece that you just saw? Right?

Rodney Veal  10:03

Yes, I saw, which was that phenomenal, people, I can’t

Susan Byrnes  10:08

Well, the we have the film now. I’m the film. Oh, beautiful. Just got the final version today. I’ll share it with you. But, but that, that piece started out for me as I’m I made one of these cast iron bones along like I had it for a while before I even finished it. It’s this big cow pelvis. It’s really

Rodney Veal  10:35

big. And, yeah, we’re going to talk more detail. People don’t worry. Don’t worry. And I had

Susan Byrnes  10:39

these petty I had these petticoats I got in the thrift store at the place where I cast that bone in New Mexico. And for some reason, I wanted to put them together. And I I played with it, and I put it in a show. And like nobody, you know, just one hanging above this thing, and it had to be, and nobody said anything about it. And it was just kind of like, nobody was like, what is that? Why is you know, but I had to keep going with it. I could not let it go. And then it grew into something I couldn’t have predicted.

Rodney Veal  11:15

It was like a field of tool skirts, kind of clouds, in many ways. I felt this, this a weighted as a lightness and a weightedness to this material hanging above these cast iron cow bones that I found fascinating, the dichotomy of the two things. And I just thought, that’s how it works. That’s it’s not necessary, and that’s like, I guess it’s a question about this, how it works, but it’s the question of, as an audience, sit with it for a while, don’t just stare it and walk away. There is use your imagination and kind of pause from it, because it makes you pause. And then what made it really stick kind of solidify in my own, my heart and brain, and I think about it a lot. I really do think about that performance with with the dancer in that space, was the relationship, and there’s just the sense of motion and movement and but the connectivity to these two separate ideas at the same time. Yeah. So I So folks, I do geek out on art. I mean, this is this what I love. I was like, Oh, we talked about it at dinner quite a bit. And

Susan Byrnes  12:29

what, what Nikki says? Nikki the choreographer, Nicola resto, who was with me a long time ago when I was executive director of the dance company. That’s a whole other story. So I’ve done it forever, 25 years. Wow, yeah, I know. But anyway, she said when, when she saw that piece, she thought of it as a sandwich, so the bottom and the top and and I really designed it. So the only thing that was in that center space was the shadow, the long shadows of the petticoats on the wall. Yeah. And she saw it as a sandwich, so she filled in the middle part of the sandwich.

Rodney Veal  13:18

What a great visual. And that’s and that’s what I love. That’s what I love about being in a space with other artists interpreting your work and working and collaborating, because you go I never saw it that way. I would never saw it as food, although never, ever. But I know, but sandwiching makes sense, yeah, oh yeah, as a framing Tool, and I’m like, Oh, you are, and you’re off to the races. Because once you start to once it starts as that sort of basic imagery, or not basic, but a simple imagery. It leads to other stories. It led to so many things about life and weightedness and wanting to break free, and there’s a freedom that was being sought by the dancer in the space. And I’m like, Oh, absolutely, I love that. That’s the thing I love about collaboration. And so, I mean, did you think collaboration was going to be a part of your practice when you went to get your MFA in sculpture, because, I mean, yeah, did you really, yeah,

Susan Byrnes  14:25

yeah? Well, I didn’t. I didn’t have that experience, except when I was doing my MFA. I was already in this community of dancers, and I saw how that all worked for really the first time in my experience as an artist, because as Executive Director, we worked with the costume designers and the composers, and I mean, it was a small company, but we had a lot of networks. Because. Because we were near the University of Michigan, and the artistic director was connected. He taught there, so we had all these resources of very talented people, and I got to see that interactivity, and I got to see how the dancers worked together. And then my friends were dancers, and we started, I had a friend, and we started collaborating on putting together these little shows and weird spaces, and then pretty soon we had dance going on with those weird shows and and that that really infused my practice as a graduate student, and I started doing performance oriented work, and that involved other people, and that’s where I started to see this negative space in the work as really important. And I started making works that had space for people in it. And that’s why I made this piece in the contemporary Dayton gallery that had no essentially like middle space, because I envisioned the people coming into that space being the the the middle space being part of the installation, it doesn’t really get activated until somebody walks into it. And even there is a motion detector that starts this record player that has crows calling, and the crows the sound occupies the space, and the sound says something about the space, but when people are in there, they become part of the installation. And when Nikki wanted to put Katie in there, and I mean, Katie was the ultimate participant in that space, because Nikki really fleshed out those themes in the work already in this way that I couldn’t have even imagined, right?

Rodney Veal  17:08

Well, I think that has somebody like and I, as a core, I understood her immediately. This kind of, as a choreographer like you, you’re this, this sort of world that you’re entering in, allows for this bridging the gap. And so when you, when you, when you presented it as a gap and a space and this distance, it’s like, it’s space. And so this, like, this, oh, it just spoke to like, what that meant. And then you start to get into things like, what does it mean to have a dancer who’s not in their 20s, but in their 40s? Yeah. And so it became so much richer because of that. It’s not just the it wasn’t just the virtuosity of her movement, which is, which, I think is a tendency. Sometimes that people have a tendency, like a dance, and they go, it’s the virtuosity. I’m like, no, no, no. There’s a humanity, and I saw it as this really great collaboration of about femininity. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Susan Byrnes  18:16

Wait, wait till you see the how the movie ends. Oh, I

Rodney Veal  18:20

can’t wait to see this. Can we share that link with our audience? That’s kind of, yeah, I think

Susan Byrnes  18:27

there’s way I’ve got to upload it yet, but and and fill out the information. But it’s on YouTube, and I will send it to you so you

Rodney Veal  18:36

can absolutely, yeah, we wouldn’t. I want people to see this. And so I remember when we I think we, if I remember correctly, we met when you were at art at the art space.

Susan Byrnes  18:49

Yeah, nobody, it’s not there anymore. Not

Rodney Veal  18:52

there anymore. We’re just, we’re just telling everyone in the audience, like, how long ago this was, yeah, 2000 and I

Susan Byrnes  19:00

think I got there in 2005 2005 2006 Yeah, and I probably met you pretty soon after that, like soon after that, blue sky, the summer of like, 2007

Rodney Veal  19:21

or seven or eight? Yeah, I think it was 2008 2008 because, because I had just started grad school,

Susan Byrnes  19:30

I remember hearing and

Rodney Veal  19:32

it was like, I said, she Oh, she is so gets my world. I understand I was well, because

Susan Byrnes  19:39

I had even seen bebe Miller dance. Oh, I had. I knew about her because she was a part of that whole dance world that, oh yeah, my company wasn’t like, as big as her, but you know

Rodney Veal  19:53

when you put you, but you knew of and yeah, so I knew what you were doing. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, I wish I knew what I was doing when I was there. It

Susan Byrnes  20:03

sounded so interesting. It was

Rodney Veal  20:05

so it was such a challenge. Because one of the things that they were challenging me on was this notion of, to your point about transferable skills, why is your work not reflectable? Reflecting of the transferable skills? And that’s where I really that’s and, and here, this opportunity presented itself to be an artist in residence unencumbered by any sort of restrictions. Yeah, and I just ran with it. And I was, I would say, You did no, did I ever? I think I was like, who, who transports sod to the third floor of a warehouse and

Susan Byrnes  20:45

Rose paint down on dancers. Yeah, it was beautiful. And that was such a time like I have to say, for people in Dayton, there was an era when these buildings were available, let you in them. And do I mean, what? It was so cool.

Rodney Veal  21:08

It was, it was amazing. And it was like in, you know, and I was, it was, I was belittling, you know, it had things happen at the right time and certain, and that was the right time.

Susan Byrnes  21:18

Yes, it felt like it. It really, really

Rodney Veal  21:21

did. And it just kind of, I just think, I think we’re, we’re starting to see that the trees from that, the what was planted during that time frame. Because I think now people are come to accept that, Oh, someone will go into non traditional spaces. Someone will collaborate outside their genre of art making, and we get to benefit from it. It’s like, come on, folks, this is cool for a Midwestern city of our size.

Susan Byrnes  21:50

Oh, I had so much fun. I don’t live there anymore.

Rodney Veal  21:57

It’s not this is not a not a distance. It’s a natty because I don’t even want to write in a letter. But a letter.

Susan Byrnes  22:02

But the thing about the thing about Dayton, that I always love, from the moment I set foot there, I think I need new headphones, usually from the moment I set foot there, people wanted to involve you in things, in a way, because if you wanted to make something happen in Dayton, you had to do it. Nobody was gonna do it. And so when somebody came in and they were like a doer, you know, and my job was pretty much as a doer of what I don’t know, we made it up as we went, right, but if you were like that you got, you found your people right away, because they all were at the, you know, we, we had a critical mass in Dayton of, like, people who would do things, and they showed up at stuff, and, yeah, them right away. And so Dayton always felt to me, like a place of do it yourself, and a place of you can do it yourself, because people will step up and help you. They want to see that stuff that always, I always felt that there.

Promo  23:12

I’m Bonnie miles, membership coordinator of CET. Thank you for listening to Rodney veils, inspired by this podcast is a production of cet and think TV to local PBS stations as PBS stations, the work we do online, on air and in the community is supported by listeners like you. If you’re enjoying the show and would like to support our work, please consider becoming a member at CET, connect.org or think tv.org Plus, when you sign up to donate at least $5 a month, you’ll get access to special members only streaming videos on the PBS app through passport. Learn more at CET connect.org or think tv.org If you’re

Rodney Veal  23:54

enjoying this conversation, the art show, also hosted by Rodney veal, is available to stream anytime from anywhere on YouTube or the PBS app. And I always blew my mind, because I always get kept thinking, this city can’t possibly be that into what we’re doing. I mean, but then they would go, okay. I mean, it was like, wow, yeah, let’s just get that thought up there and make it happen. Let’s just throw the paint into the empty building and see what occurs. I mean, yeah, I think back on that, it’s just kind of the foundations of this kind of I think that, I think the city understood that creative process required, like people to step back and step away and not like, oh, you can’t do that. Or this is no, You never

Susan Byrnes  24:41

heard that,

Rodney Veal  24:43

ever someone should have told me to wear goggles when someone’s throwing paint at you. But other than that, other than that, I was like, wow, you should have worn goggles. I thought about it at the minute, the first drop of paint hit me,

Susan Byrnes  24:56

yeah, but it looked really cool. It was fun.

Rodney Veal  24:59

It was. Is, I mean, I think back, I’m like, Oh, these are the these are the golden days and, and I think about, does do those? Do you think that that kind of environment, once you know you’ve moved to Cincinnati, do you think that that environment just kind of helped make this sort of transition into just full time art making because you were dirty. I didn’t, I mean, oh, my god, so well,

Susan Byrnes  25:26

because, because I’m not making enough money to survive on all the gigs that I do, so I try and I do that. But, you know, no, I mean, the truth is, of course, that helps, right? I can do a lot of things, and I get paid a little here and paid a little there, but the full time art making is more about number one, having a partner who pays the rent, you know, like, Thank you, thank you. That’s great. But the other part of it is, when you’re doing this stuff full time. I think you have to also understand how to spend your time, like how to structure your time, how to keep going because it’s pretty lonely, how to reach out to people, how to maintain your contacts, how to continue to take advantage of opportunities that come your way, how to schedule projects, how to how to do things that push you further, because it’s hard when you’re on your own, without a without a like home base of A of a university like I had before, you know, right, right. So, so, so, yes, I guess it’s true, like what you said, collaborating with people and seeing all those things happen did help me feel like I can do this, or I can do this, and people are willing to do these things, and there are resources out there to do them. And so sure, I mean and that, but that fluctuates all the time. And to be honest, like I’m you, you do see it change. You see it change with administrations, local governments, funding sources, the attitudes of the people around you, the the tendencies, you know, all that stuff, like when institutions go away, like art Street, for example, you know, it was it, and the people who supported that at the University of Dayton, I don’t think any of those people are there anymore. And so that interest and that openness to like, see what happened that had a tie to a big institution. You know, that’s not that doesn’t exist in that way there anymore. I don’t know what’s going on there now, but in that way, that openness, that like, Yeah, let’s check it out. Let’s try it. That doesn’t happen there anymore. So people who were connected there have gone their own directions now, you know, in different ways. Yeah,

Rodney Veal  28:12

but yeah, and that going in a different directions. I mean, I think that it’s, it’s not that I don’t look at it through a very I don’t look at it as a nostalgic. It was a very interesting I’m very pragmatic about the past. You know, it’s like, it serves. It was like, kind of my reflections of it, which I’m I’m always fascinated by memory, and it’s residuals and materials. That’s my thing. I don’t know what I picked up in grad school. I must have picked up from BB Miller. It’s this notion of our histories aren’t necessarily the fluid. Then I to me the memories of shifting sands. A lot of times I remember one thing one way. And then I realized that’s not really how that went down. Oh. It’s because, if you didn’t

Susan Byrnes  29:07

even identify how it really went down, yeah,

Rodney Veal  29:10

yeah. And, and it just kind of, and it just and informs the work. And so it’s really because I love, what I love about the contemporary and the art space is that you incorporated bits of history and storytelling, yeah. And I was like, oh. And then Susan, when you she had to use this wonderful artist talk. And I just sat there and went, she’s on another level of thought. I mean, could you even remember what you said the because it was, it was so fascinating to me, because I was like, that’s why I call you a renaissance artist.

Susan Byrnes  29:51

Well, I, I, I want to do everything, so I try a little bit of a lot of things. But we. This with this particular show. I, you know, I sometimes I get caught in these real like, concepts and things I read and stories and all this stuff. And then with this show, I really thought about, what does this have to do with me? Like, how does my own personal history integrate with what these objects are. So, so it’s not nostalgia, it’s like what? Like objects have memories. Objects encapsulate our memories in some ways. But What? What? What is it about mining those memories that we learn that we didn’t realize? That’s exactly what happened to me with the show, as I tried to dig a little bit deeper into that idea, like, Why do I have this petticoat? And it looks like a very nostalgic thing, right? Like, old fashioned, feminine, pretty, whatever, or this, you know, the the, the little bone with the there’s like a collar that floats like rests on this bone, and it has this cowboy poem with it. I don’t know if you remember that. Do you remember? Yeah, so, so like that was a person in my life who was very meaningful to me, who could recite that poem from memory and and why is that important? Well, it’s important in the context of the other pieces, because, like I said, in the in the talk, like many of those other pieces, had to do with the oppression of women, patriarchal culture in in subtle ways, in ways that weave in stories that we tell about things, memories that we have and and this piece with the cowboy poem, was also about patriarchal culture. Here was a woman quite old reciting a poem that her brother had written about their daddy, as she says, it’s so beautiful. Her, yeah, I remember that, yeah, accent, you know, from where she grew up, and all this. And it was so loving, it was so respectful, it was so honoring. And I wanted really to have both of those things represented there, because it’s because that is, in reality, how it is, and like when you see the film of this dance performance, it also incorporates, like, both of those sentiments, because it’s not one or the other, and it’s complex Because of that, you know, we, we are trying to toss off things that don’t serve us, but the other things that do serve us, you can’t really separate that out very easily

Rodney Veal  33:12

and or you can do it too hastily. You could, you could toss out something that really was upon like, oh, I should have held on to that. And I think it’s really interesting, because I’ve been this thing that I do, which is, I, I’m sharing in this, in the story of like, I wake up at 530 every morning, and I just literally sit there and watch videos of artists and art makers talk about their art and in their studio spaces. And so what I’ve noticed is it like you talked about the failed projects, the things that are like, Wow, no one needs to see that. It’s also it’s but it’s also filled with so many other things that are not what would one would think would be in an art studio, books and movies and newspapers and objects and everything. Yeah, am I describing your space? Susan,

Susan Byrnes  34:09

over there, you would see my entire collection of ugly ceramics. Oh, my God, isn’t

Rodney Veal  34:16

the Fauci like I have, yeah? Oh, I totally have, like,

Susan Byrnes  34:19

you want to see one? I’ll show you one here.

Rodney Veal  34:21

I love it because, because I have a whole tie, I have, like, a shelf of Life magazines. Oh, my goodness, is it the funniest thing we keep everything. I mean, I have some really failed art project test. It’s a test. That’s the word I always like, I have to find the words. This was a test of what I’m going to do later. Because I because, and it was really interesting because I was because I was talking to when I watched these videos, and I was talking to Sean you, I just. Have a classical is he, you know, he’s the executive director of our high school music radio station. And he said, I’m he says, I can’t wait for you to get back into that world of bringing technology and dance together. And I was like, whoa. Kind of threw me for a loop. I was like, so you is that sense of you never realize that you are making an i