Rhienna Renèe Guedry
Oyster River Pages: How is your art or writing informed by current social and/or political issues?
Rhienna Renèe Guedry: A larger piece I have been working on is inspired by true events in social and environmental history. The lens foreshadows climate change and social justice in some ways, while the story is firmly planted in the past. So just as the past is always with us, I’m also aware of the inverse, and how I am actively shaping that; I’m writing a work of fiction, I’m intentionally making choices about what story I tell, and current events inform those choices. Of course, there’s the additional layer of writing during a pandemic, a time full of anxieties and uncertainties. Certainly this awareness (and trauma) is also influencing how I think and write about other kinds of disasters.
ORP: We often think of ourselves as writing or making art, but the process often changes or makes us as well. How do you feel like your writing or art makes you?
RRG: I have to admit, I’ve taken huge chunks of time away from my various creative pursuits. It hasn’t always been my choice: when I was younger, I was working multiple jobs and trying to climb the proverbial ladder. Other times, I felt creatively blocked. When I’ve come back to [writing and making art], there’s always a “settling in” phase, which is very uncomfortable. Have I forgotten how to do it all? Am I the same person I was who had this in the proverbial bag? The truth is there’s more than one answer: I bring something old and something new when I return. The creative process also changes and makes me. It’s all relative, and it’s specific to those variables: this story or project, at this time, with these tools or these distractions or this method I’m testing out. The creative process feels very organic and evolutionary, like I’m always learning something and I’m also returning to something I know very well.
ORP: How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your relationship to art and writing, either in the creation of it or the consumption of it?
RRG: For me, I’ve found that this time brings up a lot of feelings of control—the lack thereof. The pandemic (which encompasses not just the realities of COVID-19, but also the environment around it) is ever-present and extremely upsetting. I’m immunocompromised, so I’ve been operating with a strict risk tolerance, which means I’ve been indoors ... a lot. My consumption has certainly increased since COVID began: I’m generally reading 2-3 books at a time, so I can go back and forth. Short story and essay collections are a particular favorite, but getting lost in a novel is always the goal. Maybe that’s how I’m channeling all the “lack of control” feelings into something tangible, actionable: another book down. As for my writing, however, I have productive spurts of focus. Since I miss having events on my calendar to look forward to, I (at least at the beginning of the lockdown) was creating “writing retreats” where I scheduled myself like I might if I were working on an assignment. On good days, that made me feel more grounded and less anxious. On other days, I couldn’t write, and could barely concentrate on an article or a poem. Now, I’m starting to understand more about “surge capacity” and trauma during an ongoing disaster, so I am learning how to be patient with myself and let myself grieve old ways of operating. I hope to keep writing and reading, but I also have to let it be true that sometimes I cannot.
ORP: If you could choose one writer or artist, living or dead, as a best friend or mentor, who would it be? Why?
RRG: Probably Andy Warhol. And I’d want him as a best friend and a mentor, to co-exist with and observe the world together. I’ve been obsessed with him for decades, but my reason for admiring him has evolved along with my aging point of view. At this point in my life, I love thinking about how cheeky and subversive his art was. How he played within the parameters of capitalism and marketing, but was an outsider. How he lifted people up by finding beauty in them, and how incredibly diverse and complex his world was.
ORP: Years from now, when historians look back on the art and writing of the early 21st century, how do you think they will articulate the zeitgeist?
RRG: Obviously art and writing—culture by and large—is a way to record history. We’re outlining it and we’re creating those artifacts right now, in real time. The art and writing will also be exemplary of what we’re all going through, and how it’s both universal and unique depending on our particular lens. I keep thinking about how incredible the music of the 21st century is going to be, and how other periods of disruption, of political protest and activism, and of course other eras full of trauma have created gorgeous, complex landscapes. But how will historians see it? Who knows. I hope they do a better job of attribution, and don’t fucking whitewash it. I hope the history books look as diverse as our cities do right now, but I think that presupposes that history dismantles racist gatekeeping. Finger’s crossed.
