Meet Carter Roy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carter Roy.

Carter, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I got my start by constructing the world’s most elaborate procrastination device! Senior year at Amherst College I had to write a thesis. Every night I’d stare at these stacks of books and outlines and pretty much shut down, so I pulled my bed off the platform I’d built, stapled a sheet to it, and started a painting.

What began as an escape tool became my primary focus, so by spring I had this painting done while my thesis barely passed muster. My path as an artist pretty much continued along that trajectory – ie, go one way, but secretly go another, almost behind my own back. After a year backpacking around the world I decided to write a book; while writing the book I became an actor. I moved to NY and performed on Broadway and in movies and as a comic, then accidentally wrote a book one month when I was at the end of my rope with being in the city.

Eventually, I moved to LA (essentially in a fit, I was working on a movie out of town and just kind of kept going) and started doodling. Like mad. I was working on a pen and ink drawing one night and just kept filling in the spaces of the image with more and more elaborate characters. I woke up to a totally black piece of paper. I had just kept filling in spaces until there was no more image. Probably not a sign of psychological wellness, but certainly a sign of obsession with pen and ink! I’ve always spent part of my summers in my home state of Montana, and along the way developed a parallel obsession (it really is the best word for it, as any of my backpacking companions will attest) with taking pictures of light reflecting off of water. A passion that I continued exploring living next to the Hudson river when in NY. But it wasn’t until I got to LA, and Highland Park in particular, that something clicked. I think it’s the space of the place.

The literal space, having room in one’s home or studio, as well as the psychological space. You can disappear into yourself for days or weeks on end here in a way very different than other cities. The dangerous side of it is feeling isolated, the positive side is feeling liberated. With the space of Highland Park I finally dove deep into my ink work and started combining it with my photography. I overlay the ink images onto the water images and create a kind of abstract flow. I still act and have found my way into the podcast world hosting a number of shows, but my story in LA has been the story of my fine art.

Has it been a smooth road?
Ha. Wipes tears of laughter away…then cries. The problem is it’s not really a road at all. Because I never knew what the destination was. I thought I did, so for a while it felt like a road, smooth or not, but then at some point I recognized it more of a ride, like a roller coaster, some continuing saga that would just keep looping around. I think the biggest struggle for me has been second-guessing. Being an artist of any kind requires a faith and courage and wreckless abandon, so when you start wondering if you went the wrong way it can really eat away at those required nutrients. The result is a lot of one step forward, one step back. Which means that certain paths take longer to fulfill. For example, I wrote a book twenty years ago, then didn’t write my second and third book until now. So from the point of view of “I’m an author”, the struggle of focus and productivity is monumental. But if I look at it as some wild artist ride, sometimes it’s acting, sometimes, photography, sometimes ink, but all part of the same ride, then writing books are just two loopy-doo’s purposefully spaced apart on that same ride. So they seem fresh and new when you arrive at them.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
What sets me apart from others is probably range. And I say that as a bad thing! As an artist, I have carved niches in several areas, from a type of dance doodle that accompanies original music to ink flow drawings, to ‘normal’ acting, to writing. So it’s harder to create a banner and brand to identify me. Yet that’s what motivates me deepest, to defy my own need to self-identity, to stay in the place of the unknown. Right now I’m most well known for my podcasts, I host six of them at the moment. From Unsolved Murders to Espionage these non-fiction shows are deep dives into a wide range of true story content. I work with Parcast who is now a part of Spotify and just loves the podcast process. But I can also be seen on shows like Narcos and You, movies on Netflix, etc. But the thing I’d be known for that most separates me, that is most ‘well, only that guy’, it is the dance videos and ink art.

I think the process of these creations, that are some sort of amalgamation of all my movement and improv training into a different form, is pretty unique to the journey I’ve taken and somehow reflects that originality. I’m most proud of finishing my last novel. Writing a book is to perseverance what doing stand-up is to bravery. The number of walls you hit along the way feels infinite, and there’s no one there to guide you through it, you’ve just got to keep muscling along. That book, Reaching Anu, is with the copy editor now and should be out next year. It takes a look at what life after the climate collapse will be like, how the world might discover a humanity saving energy source, and the way intention is woven into vibration…but it’s a novel, so it’s actually just about a few people trying to find love and overcome loss!

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My God yes. Are any of us more than the thumbprints of those that shaped us? I mean, yes, we are, but so much of who I am as an artist was created by my teachers and peers. Whether it was Gary Austin (found of The Groundlings Theater), or Per Brahe (world-renowned mask teacher), David Bridel (clown creator extraordinaire, now head of acting at USC), or any of a number of other teachers who I spend so many weekends and weeknights with, they all encouraged a similar principle of discovering what you are in the moment. Releasing every conception or idea you had and trusting that something totally energetically fulfilled could still achieve nascence. That’s something easy to say, hard to do. It takes a lot of emotional support, challenging, and validating to step down that path fully. Of course, my friends have probably been the biggest credit deservers. Without them as a backstop for all my personal trials and insecurities, a place of refuge and solace and reflecting back, I would have no doubt spun out along the way. So to my family. Somehow my parents managed to keep believing every time I took a new turn, went another direction. That’s invaluable.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.carterroy.com
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credit:
Eric Curtis

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