Taking a step forward…
Welcome to Grounded in Fluidity! My name is Rick and you’ve happened upon my blog. This is a space for me to share some information about myself and reflect on things I’ve learned as I take a step into a more formal creative consultation journey. If you are interested in booking an appointment with me, I encourage you to read on to see if we might be a good fit. You may have read my About page, so you already know about some of my credentials, but I want to share more about why I started Grounded in Fluidity and the vision I have for it.
It is absolutely wild out there right now and, while it might seem contradictory, it feels like the right time for me to invest in myself by creating my own business. I’ve hosted several workshops around creative entrepreneurship and have supported some folks on their small business journeys over the last few years (feel free to check out the Testimonials page) and I’ve loved those experiences! I’ve been interested in going into business for myself in this space, but didn’t take the leap until I felt like my other employment was getting unstable (shoutout to the unfortunate state of the job market rn). So here I am—I’ve received my Masters degree and am excited to share my knowledge and experience with small makers and business owners who feel like they don’t have a clear path towards realizing their creative visions.
I also want to share more about the name “Grounded in Fluidity.” First, there are SO many creative consulting businesses out there, so finding a unique name was challenging—I searched for many potential options and found them taken (sometimes multiple times over). I wanted something unique that reflected my approach and then I remembered a title of a paper I wrote in a class called “Reimagining Cultural Leadership” taught by Dr. Gwendolyn Freed and Kiyoko Sims at the University of Minnesota. I’ll share some excerpts from my writing, “Grounded in Fluidity: A Reflection on Missions, Intention, and Aspiration in Leadership,” back in December 2023:
“In my artistic and educational practices, I have had to write about my personal mission and values many times. Each iteration of this exercise shows me how necessary fluidity is in approaching almost anything. I recall writing one of my first personal statements and feeling pressure to live out everything I had typed, much of which was either unsustainable or inauthentic to how I’ve grown as a professional artist and leader. The people teaching me were, for the most part, really excellent at their jobs, but, looking back as an educator, I wish they had spoken more plainly about the nature of the [performing arts] industry and how essential it is to question.”
“If I had to boil my personal mission down to a sentence, I suppose I would say, ‘My mission is to foster artistic spaces that prioritize balance, holistic wellness, and uplifting the visions of those being oppressed by current socio-political climates around the country.’”
“We do not need to disconnect from what makes us human to be successful–quite the opposite, when we restrict ourselves from the fundamental function of feeling and responding to those feelings, we will find ourselves burnt out and unable to fulfill our organizational missions and personal aspirations.”
“I used to feel shy about my focus on bringing queer perspectives to a wider audience, probably because I have been actively discouraged from taking such a ‘narrow lens’ by teachers in the past. I feel more grounded in my perspective now, so I can push past the pressure to assimilate to cis- and heteronormative standards of professionalism. A queer lens is anything but narrow–queerness is expansive, sensitive, affirming, and based in freedom to connect in ways that feel mutually beneficial. So, I will give voice to my community’s experience and continue to challenge what is found to be harmful–that’s the best I can do to develop as a leader.”
So there’s a lot to unpack from these four excerpts, especially as my perspectives have continued to shift over the last year and a half, but the core of my writing remains the same for me: We are taught to assimilate to oppressive structures in many (if not every) aspect of our lives, but we have the power to break these cycles in our own lives, especially if we have help. I bring an unabashed queer perspective to everything I do—rigid, binary thinking is not in my code. As a performing artist, I have been told what I can and can’t do, look like, say, and feel more times than I can count. As an educator, I even perpetuated some of the teachings I found harmful before I was able to reflect and process what I actually believe. Now that I have a solid foundation of queered practice, I have been able to identify, challenge, and reframe many rigid ideals—something my students often tell me they appreciate.
I do balance this fluid approach with a grounded awareness of reality: we are expected and required to move certain ways in certain spaces. For example, official business paperwork, tax reporting, and other federal or state requirements do not have the same “wiggle room” that I like to prioritize in my personal practices. Governing bodies were not built with queer folks in mind, in fact, they have often been built with queer/trans antagonism and white supremacy in mind, so operating from a queered perspective is certainly complicated. Luckily for small makers and business owners, we have a lot more agency in how we choose to operate our creative endeavors. That’s the space I love to help develop, to find balance and discover areas where we can challenge “best practices” that feel at odds with our values.
Well… that’s all I have for now. I hope you enjoyed reading my stream-of-consciousness writing. I’ll be sharing more about some reflections from workshops and appointments that I host as they come up, so be sure to check back in. I’d love to support you bringing your unique vision to life, so also consider booking a FREE 15-minute Consultation to see if my style suits your needs.
Warmly,
Rick
