We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ry Malena. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ry below.
Ry, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
Oh, the grass can sometimes look greener, but I’m confident this is what I was born to do. As an artist, living your life should be your greatest and grandest project – the rest are details. It’s not about how much content you can export or how many numbers you can scrape out of the almighty algorithm; it’s about building yourself into a colorful person that can understand, feel, and communicate with the diversity of existence, and sharing that perspective with those around you. I’ve worked for others in the past and most certainly will work under others in the future, but these are good exercises for people who are independent in nature. We must never stop investing in the depth of our existence, regardless of where or with whom we’re doing it.
Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m not… but that’s par for the course in evolution, eh? I can’t see myself doing anything else than making and chasing art, even if it demands a frequent fluctuation between joy and chaos as I try to grow into the person I want to be. I believe embracing the roller coaster is the best way to create a thoroughly-lived artistic experience and find happiness as a developing creative.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
Sure! I’m an artist that’s currently focused on animated filmmaking; I write, direct, and animate all my own films with the help of a tight-knit team at my indie studio MALENA INDUSTRIES. We are dedicated to creating immersive stories, characters and worlds, in an effort to better understand who we are as creators and how we are all connected. We just finished PEOPLE PERSON, a 15-minute sci-fi animated short film about a girl trying to escape her reality. It’s had a very successful festival run (27 selections, 12 awards) over the last two years, and I couldn’t be more proud of the team that helped me build it. Excited to release it publicly soon!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I spent three years animating our characters at 12 frames per second to complete a 15-minute film. It takes thousands of unique paintings to create a sequence and it’s a brutal labor of love, but as soon as you stack those frames together and see your characters come to life, it’s instantly worth it. That’s when the art becomes much, much bigger than you – when it starts talking back to you. Animation is a medium that requires a specific combination of patience and stamina, and I’m constantly trying to find ways to instill more of these virtues in myself in service of the art. The flowers need diligent tending if you’re trying to grow a garden – and there are so very many gardens need growin’.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
As we’re passing through the thick of the AI Art Singularity, society must make a lot of big decisions when it comes to the types of art that we consume and support. I believe that if we are collectively celebrating artistic truth and innovation over trends and prestige, the melting pot of human creativity will continue to stir in meaningful and evolutionary ways.
Contact Info:
- Website: rymalena.com
- Instagram: @rdanger