Today we’d like to introduce you to Andy Dicker.
Hi Andy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My aim is to do what I love with those that I love. My life has allowed me the vast opportunity to find myself at every fricken point in time. I got into skateboarding around the same time I began to watch Dragon Ball Z and I kept it going, hahaha.
The cartoons and picture books of my younger days inspired me to create things in my own way; humorous perspectives on life if you will. Skateboarding challenged me to battle through the difficulties that can come along with literally any path we choose to take. I wanted to be a professional skateboarder when I was in college, and I wanted to finish my studies in respect to my loving parents. An opportunity to work at the YMCA Skatecamp came up for the summer just after my sophomore year. It is not accurate for me to say that I worked there. Truly, I pushed myself forward on the journey of my life. My time at camp opened a new perspective on reality; camp was like a gateway to a network of incredible souls who all used their passion for skateboarding to thrive in life.
Over the years, I meandered my way through skateboarding as an athletic career. Then after I had ankle surgery, my influences in camp inspired the desire for me to be a skateboarding professional, a twist on definition. After finishing my studies at the university, I began to work with a number of different skateboard companies. My desire was to allow that same level of stoke that camp had brought me to flourish beyond the summer paradise. In time my wonderful friend, mentor, and brother from another mother Todd Larson created Skate Wild: Connecting people to nature through skateboarding. Here is where we find myself at this point in time. Along with orchestrating dream like camping/skating trips, I tattoo as well as design mixed media assets for people that I care about. I have arrived at my aim in life. Yet, I’m still pushing forward. My purpose in life is to genuinely embrace the opportunities to adapt with synergy. This brings about a flexible state of mind so I am still living and flowing with that aim in mind.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Hell no, it hasn’t. Smooth roads are lame though. Rugged crunched up hectic roads are alluring! I’d much rather continue to turn obstacles into opportunities. When things are too nice, such as when the road is so smooth, it can be so easy to lose track of gratuity.
Physical injuries have been a major blessing for my psyche. They sincerely are the worst and the best things we may endure. From the ankle surgery to the craniotomy I endured (skateboarding insisted) my life has gone through a rocky road. Each day, moment, and breath gives me the utmost of gratitude for being alive. What a gift this is to simply be. There are plenty of hardships to go through that I have not touched upon. Even so, the events of the past are not present at the moment. There may be scars that remain. Regardless, they are simply markers of what was. They are not impending difficulties for what currently is. Life is such a gift that we may as well strive to find gratitude in each moment. You know, turn that frown upside down… or slightly adjust the disdain to a reasonable place of acceptance hahahaha.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I love dogs. Puppy love is real. I love excellent stories. Live, laugh, love… that overproduced slogan found on so many stupid objects in our capitalist society is ironically how I roll. Ohhhh, how it got me good.
Beyond my time with Skate Wild, I continue to find ways to creatively express this sentiment. Tattooing offers me an incredible means of connecting with people, as well as sharing a piece of myself with them forever. A beautiful scar. It will always be there, on the skin, as a momento to that uniting experience we went through together. It’s an overly philosophic way of thinking about tattoos. Yet, it’s genuinely how I feel about it. So suck on that for a bit in your brain xoxo.
Besides tattooing and embarking on glorious Skate Wild trips, I find opportunities to create. Recently I have been painting portraits of puppies and building frames recycled from beat of skateboards. I love every step of the process. Working to recreate a beautiful object, the frame which matters to me and the portrait of a loving fluffy fluff of my client, is magical.
What sets me apart from others is my undying optimism dashed with my sketchy drive to shift obstacles into opportunities. It is quite shocking that I am still alive after my traumatic brain injury, so that’s neat! I would say that assists with my ability to stand out.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
Todd Larson, Jordan Wilk, Mike Manidis, Dylan Christopher and Michael Kershnar are champions in regards to influencing me. They are all of those things that the question asks for. With that, literally everyone who has been a part of Skate Camp in some way over the years is like family to me.
Besides my fraternal family, much of my willingness to maintain this pursuit in life comes thanks to each of them. I am not about to write a novel which would accurately describe each moment in my life in which these beacons of excellence influenced my purpose in life. So I’ll say this, I love them oh so many much. The drive they each have, in their own way, is gratifying. If you’d like to know what it feels like to be around incredible souls, find any one of them and enjoy.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.skatewild.org
- Instagram: @Yawnsnarl0s
- YouTube: https://youtu.be/FAdlMbo2zRQ
Image Credits:
Garrett Remy, Tom Mull, Sebastian Reetz, Elliot Easom, and Linnea Bullion.
