An Inspired Chat with Geoffrey Dicker of West Hollywood

Geoffrey Dicker shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Geoffrey, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is a normal day like for you right now?
A normal day typically starts off by going for a walk to wake up, clear my head and think of what I need to accomplish during the day. In no particular order, I spend a good portion of the day responding to emails / social media and then on the creative side, I either start or finish some abstract paintings and then I focus on whatever book project I am working on. I have just launched a clothing brand featuring my art so now I add that into the mix as well. Not much down time, I’m afraid, but I am grateful and blessed to be working on so many exciting projects simultaneously.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Geoffrey Dicker and I am an independent artist. I’ve released 15 books in varying genres and subject matter (from poetry to novels to screenplays) and I am an abstract painter. I just launched a clothing and accessories brand that features my art on each item. Creative control to say and do whatever I want to do has always been my primary focus. Unfortuntately that comes at the cost of mainstream recognition, so while I might not be a household name yet, the people that connect with my art become fans for life. It’s a tradeoff that not a lot of people would choose, but I think it makes my work stand out from the rest as every project I release is an example of what complete freedom looks like.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
I have lived in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. In my New York years, I wrote an art and music website that featured events, reviews and a lot of celebrity encounters. After years of putting a lot of my personal art projects on the side in order to write a daily news site, a friend of mine simply told me, “why don’t you stop writing about celebrities and become one yourself?” It was a life changing conversation.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
There have been many times where I feel like I don’t want to trade in my nervous system for minor success because as an independent artist, writing a book, for example, is not just coming up with the idea and putting it down on paper. It can be 6 months to a year (or longer) of obsessing over an idea and trying to make it come to life. But it’s not just that! It’s also editing and revising the work, procuring the cover art, promoting it and sometimes for little or no financial reward. It can be very frustrating, but after nearly 20 years of doing this, I have 15 books and countless works of art that I’ve created. When I look at the full body of the work I’ve created so far, I am so glad I never gave up.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
For better or for worse, the public version I present is the real me. In my younger years, I hid my sexuality from my parents because I thought they would disown me for being gay. Once I finally got the courage to come out, it was like a huge albatross was released. I decided from that day forward that there was not going to be several versions of myself in hopes of appeasing people. I am who I am. I try my best to always lead with love, positivity and encouragement. If that is not enough, then so be it, but I refuse to try and be someone I am not. That is one of my favorite things about being an independent artist – complete freedom to say and do as I want. It’s not always commercially lucrative to change genres in my writing, for example, but I find it necessary to follow my heart, wherever it may take me.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Have you ever gotten what you wanted, and found it did not satisfy you?
From my writing and other experiences, I have been around a lot of famous people and I have seen all ends of the fame spectrum. I’ve witnessed first hand many extremely famous people being absolutely miserable despite having massive amounts of money and fame. For me personally, I have not reached those heights (or lows), but having been around it, I made a decision that what is more important to me than money/power/fame is creative freedom. Instead of feeling empty that a project might not have reached a particular benchmark, for me, once the project is out in the world, I consider it a success because the alternative would be for the project to be stuck either inside my head or rotting on a computer hard drive somewhere. A lot of people are afraid to put their creative projects out into the world because they are attached to an outcome. If you have no expectations, you also have no disappointments.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.geoffreydicker.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/according2g
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/geoffreydicker
• Other: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Geoffrey-Dicker/author/B00J6TL4YM?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1753377345&sr=8-1&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=7a8146c2-cccf-4ca7-9963-e2c2c04b80db

  Clothing and Apparel: https://according2gwear.printify.me/