We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eileen Ryan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Eileen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The first project that comes to mind is “19 Days” a study in identity. For nineteen days during a depressive episode triggered by isolation and loss I recorded my physical and emotional state three times a day with a DNA extraction and corresponding mood log. After taking the DNA samples I would draw what would float up. The DNA will always remain the same, but our emotional state is changing moment to moment every day. Through this small effort in recording my DNA and mood I was able to spend time with myself in a different form and look in as an outsider, even if just for the duration of making the drawing.

After finishing this project I was extremely unhappy with how it turned out and viewed it as a failure. As time moved on, I looked at this “failure” as an opportunity for growth and ultimately resilience. Some of our most important work can come from attempts we view as failures, because if we never try something in the first place, where are we going? I look back on this project with more kindness now as it was a helpful step in my development as an artist and as a person.

Eileen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The elevator speech is, I am an interdisciplinary artist from northeastern Massachusetts who incorporates my background in microbiology, art and hospitality to create investigative works about interspecies communication, spiritual microbiomes, and empathy as it relates to human and non-human experiences.

The extended version is…

I’m somebody who is in their head the majority of the time, and creating helps me get outside for a moment. I ask a lot of questions, and making art helps me be ok with not knowing the answers to a lot of the bigger ones. I find enjoyment in the process, and the more I create, the more imaginative the results often are. This can be an incredibly successful exercise in letting go of the things you can’t control!

There are strong connections between scientific inquiry and spirituality as we are all looking for answers to similar questions of the why and how of the universe. There is also a strong bond between scientific discovery, capitalism, and religion each feeding one another, blurring the lines between language and profit. I wish to focus on the miracles of science like those that we were so enamored with as children; things that glow, and bubble over and move around in their own little worlds. Scientific miracles that turn our imagination on so we can travel to those distant places and feel what it would feel like to be anything else. I want us to remember and appreciate those moments so we may thoughtfully engage with the life around us rather than mindlessly consume. A writer by the name of Meenakshi wrote recently, ” If the mind isn’t scientific enough, it cannot be spiritual. If the mind does not know the world, it cannot move to something beyond the world.” And I think that statement holds truth.

One of the most important aspects of making work is connection. It is something I am continually striving for and trying to improve. If the work feels inaccessible to anyone, I want to figure out a way to make it better. The concepts I work with are ones that I think a lot of people can relate to, the challenge is trying to communicate that visually. So far I have tried to achieve this through artist talks, writing about my work on social media, and being present during the openings by making myself available for questions. I think a background in hospitality has made this part easier over time because it is extremely vulnerable! A lot of artists often look at working in restaurants as a failure on their part to succeed. I have found it to be a valuable tool in conversing with lots of different people and climbing out of my comfort zone during large social engagements in order to connect on deeper levels with as many people as possible.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve needed to unlearn that failure turns into shame. Looking back on past failures and feeling shame really inhibits growth, and has been and continues to be a hard lesson to unlearn. The classic saying goes, “Failure is not falling down; failure is staying down and not getting up”. So if I can truly accept that, it means I have not failed yet and should feel proud that I keep getting up. I had a professor tell me that artists are “professional failures” and I really loved that. If we aren’t experimenting we aren’t discovering, and art is all about creating more questions. That’s what makes it interesting!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being creative?

The freedom to be an amateur everything! I love that art has given me an outlet to deeply explore topics and theories that other fields may not fully support, combine, or even approve of. I am able to blend microbiology and spirituality, storytelling and forest pathology, and entomology and etymology. The more connections that I can make the more connected I feel to everything around me, and my goal is to be able to share that feeling with as many people as I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eileenryan.com
• Instagram: @sci_witch