What do you do?
We exist to support, encourage, and promote all forms of art and artists in Columbus, Ohio. We focus on four main tenets: hospitality, community, education, and creativity. We do this by giving artists a forum to develop and showcase their art. In short, we hope to become a nexus: we hope we can connect artists with other artists and help them create projects. We hope our future space becomes a regular hang-out. Some current events we host include a monthly series called Third Thursdays, in which we showcase a work-in-progress from a different artist. So far we’ve had comic book artists, children’s novels, bluegrass music, a poetry slam, and a one-woman play. We also offer a monthly culinary arts series on the first Sunday of every month called Too Many Cooks where we feature a talented foodie to lead us in a workshop, tasting, or a demonstration. We also hosted the first annual Wild Goose Creative New Year’s Festival in 2007-08 that featured live music, workshops, culinary tastings, an improv performance, an art gallery, and more.
Are you a non-profit organization?
Not currently, but we will be soon. We are in the process of incorporating ourselves within the State of Ohio, and applying for our federal 501(c)3 status. We hope to have that by the end of 2008.
How do you make money?
Right now we make money through individual donations and contributions. While applying for our non-profit status, we are exploring various local and state grants, in addition to finding sponsors or donors, and developing fundraisers for the company. Eventually we will offer memberships for a small fee, which gives you access to resources like performance venues, recording studios, event spaces, and much more. We will also be available for consulting, planning, and executing various artistic projects. We will also offer performances, classes, and workshops that are fee-based. These things will feature our skills and the talents of other artists in Columbus.
How did you all meet?
The six people in the core leadership met while studying at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. While there, we all participated in the Calvin Theatre Company in different capacities. We graduated at different times, between 2001 and 2005.
When did you start?
We first had the idea for an arts company while in college. We valued the company model that the Calvin Theatre Company used, wherein every member participated in the theatre process in some way. So the whole group, no matter what they did, had ownership of the production. That way, everyone who graduated with a theatre degree had a wide range of experience, including acting, directing, writing, stage managing, designing, serving on run crews, hanging lights, building or painting scenery, and much more.
If we had to pick a specific date, we would say during the 2002 Super Bowl. A group of us started a conversation about creating an arts company that could embrace the full spectrum of the arts. We even looked at a map, and pinpointed some larger-sized cities in the Midwest, including Grand Rapids, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Madison, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and yes, Columbus.
Two of us, Nick and Beth Dekker, moved down to Columbus in September 2002 for graduate school at Ohio State University. Karl and Jessie Boettcher moved down from Minneapolis in July 2006, and Jacqui and Ryan Hoke moved September 2006.
Why Columbus?
A number of reasons... Columbus is close to many of our families and friends. We also felt that Columbus is the perfect-sized city for an initiative like Wild Goose Creative. It has a vibrant arts community that has a lot of potential, that hasn’t yet received the widespread recognition that cities like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles have. It’s also large enough to offer diverse resources, while remaining accessible. There seem to be a lot of artists gathering, planning, and creating in Columbus, and we felt we could be an integral part of it.
How do you decide who does what?
Rather than using the traditional jobs such as Artistic Director, CEO, director, stage manager, etc., we developed specific jobs based on our own personal skill sets and interests. We’ve found that the abilities and tendencies amongst the six of us complement each other very well. For info on our specific job titles, visit our profile pages.
What does your name mean?
We found that the wild goose is an image from the ancient Celtic church. They used the wild goose, as opposed to the traditional dove, to represent the Holy Spirit. They felt that a life in pursuit of the Spirit was a messy, noisy, exciting process, sometimes successful, sometimes not. This re-imagining of such a traditional image also reflects our identity and commitment to re imagining what life in the arts looks like. This has a number of different meanings to us, but we believe that it generally indicates a pursuit after something that you’re passionate about. We see so many artists that don’t receive recognition for their work, or aren’t paid adequately, and thus have to treat their art – their true passion – as a hobby. We hope that by using our resources, connections, space, and individual creativity, we can help them find rewarding and profitable ways of pursuing their passion.
“Creative” is a great collective noun. It signifies the together-ness of what we do: we hope to work in community with a lot of different artists, influencing them and being influenced by them. It also points to the creative focus of the group.
We also found that geese model a number of things we hold dear: they mate for life, they live in community, male and female share responsibilities, and they share leadership, most notably in the shape of the flying V, where a different goose takes the lead after one tires.
How do I contact you?
Visit our Contact page for that info!
