our history

Throughout our history, we’ve worked toward a single purpose: Building a creative community at the intersection of art, risk, and meaning. For more than ten years, our organization has been supporting the local arts community and acting as a gathering place for local artists, audiences, and creative people. Since our founding, the unwavering dedication of our board members and supporters helped our mission come to life.

Married couples Beth and Nick Dekker, Jessie and Karl Boettcher, and Jacqui and Ryan Hoke, all graduates of the undergrad theater program at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, launched Wild Goose Creative in late 2006. Its philosophies coalesced following those four years of undergrad, graduate school and a little bit of growing up. Wild Goose held its first events in early 2007.

Our goal was to start a place that would connect artists with audiences, to create a space where all types of art would be showcased. We chose the name Wild Goose for a few reasons. Art is a messy process, like a wild goose chase, they wanted to invite audiences into artists’ process. And geese do a lot of things we value: they mate for life, male and female share duties, they share leadership as groups (think of the flying V)

Since our founding in 2006, we moved quickly from a series of “works in progress” events that featured food, art, and Q&A sessions to a multipurpose creative space at 2491 Summit Street that is sometimes a gallery, sometimes a school, a kitchen table, a living room, a concert hall, or a dance floor, Wild Goose Creative cultivates the creation of excellent and surprising art. We are proud to host over 320 events a year.

In 2019, we began a capital campaign to expand to a 2nd location in Franklinton, 188 McDowell. We were turning artists away due to the demand, so we needed a 2nd space. However, due to the effects of COVID-19, two spaces did not financially or strategically make sense for us. We made the difficult decision to close our Clintoville location and permanently move to Franklinton.