Alicia Gorecki shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Alicia, 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. Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
I just returned home from the first”Reid’s Art and Youth Mental Health” corner we funded at CsArts-SGV student wellness room. I was there to deliver another donation, see the updated space and meet with an amazing young person who reached out to me to share how much the art space and the work we are doing with @whereisreid and the Reid Gorecki Foundation mean to her.
She wrote “I absolutely love Reid’s art, it’s amazing and it’s not just his art but his message that he sends through it. I’ve struggled with my mental health since the age of 10 so to know someone was going through mental struggles as well and he didn’t let it stop him, that means more then I can express. I can’t thank him, but I truly think he’s still living on through you as long as you keep spreading his message even when it feels like no one is listening. I truly believe you deserve the biggest thank you out of everyone, so thank you for helping me despite not being aware that you were.” This young person created a tribute art work and gifted it to me today. I cried, I laughed and got to give her a big hug. Every moment in this experience fuels me to keep going, in this impossible unnatural world without Reid in it.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Alicia Gorecki, I am an artist, a teacher, and I am Reid’s mom. Reid died at age 18 of an accidental fentanyl toxicity 3 weeks before his high school graduation. He left us tons of art and a mission I am trying my best to follow.
I turned to Reid’s work to find a way to live with this indescribable grief. I made a promise to myself and to Reid inspired by words found all over his sketchbooks and repeated in how he lived his life. He wanted his work out there, to connect, he had plans. He said “Art makes me feel not alone and that is important for everyone.” I think somehow he managed to squeeze 80 years of work into the 18 years he was here with us. Part of his plan was an idea to support youth mental health through art. I didn’t know where all this was headed or if I could manage it, honestly I still don’t. I just keep going. It is so very hard, but sharing his work and my journey living with profound grief is the art that makes me feel not alone,
l started with adding the store he was ready to launch on his portfolio website and an instagram following his art as it travels the world, all benefiting youth mental health through art initiatives. We have grown from offering his “1 for you 1 for the world” sticker packs and a few t-shirts to now include his fine art prints, custom one of a kind and upcycled clothing as he had done for years leading up to his passing and so much more including an Art and Youth Mental Health 501c3 nonprofit in his name. He had his hands in every possible mode of creation This is an act of collaboration with him, as we often did, before my world changed. I print and produce all of his work and the clothing by hand, trying with my everything to hold tight to the vision he had for himself, as best I can through my hands. I think the world was supposed to know him and know his work and I know our youth resonate with it.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
The obvious moment to speak to is the horrific moment I found him. Of course that is absolutely the moment. My whole life now feels defined by before that moment and after. In fact, the way I speak to things is to use the phrases, “before Reid” and “after Reid”. This is not referring to when he was born as it does for most parents but when he died. That moment holds every time reference for me. However, I am not here in this moment because he died, I am here because he lived.
I want to speak to a powerful turning point for him, that lead to the mission I am on. He wrote about it eloquently in his artist statement as he was preparing to apply to colleges. He said “Art is expression of life and what you have been through, everything that has ever happened to you, negative or positive, art shapes what you create. Art is relaying the human experience through creativity. That experience is multiple things, funny, sad, angry, happy, and the most compelling art is something that holds these feelings. If it makes you feel something, anything, I believe it’s an effective and beautiful piece of art. My art making is a reflection of myself. I think I put on a goofy character and make art to cope with things in my life. These are human experiences shared by many and art is my way to process this and show people they are not alone. Through my sketchbooks, my writing, my music, my sculpture, my film and animations I am coping, growing, and getting the never ending flood of ideas out of my head as best I can so they don’t overflow. ”
He truly believed his art pulled him through the darkest points and I was witness to it. I see the world so very differently now, it almost feels as if through his eyes.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
Honestly, with pain this deep, I am not sure I was ever capable of hiding it. It did take me some time to find ways to channel it and I am still working on that. It surges in incomprehensible ways and moments, but I believe with every ounce of me that allowing the pain to surface when it does empowers not only me but others. Art is it. Connection is it. Like with Reid, it has always been my way to find strength, answer questions, learn about myself and how to carry myself through this world. Looking back at this journey, just a few short months after his passing, I stood in front of his work at my first @whereisreid booth and I told his story over and over. I shared his art and his mission. I cried through most of it and somehow didn’t through some of it too. I was in front of hundreds of strangers and the power of his work was undeniable. His work lifts them, his mission lifts them and it lifts me. We all want to connect. I want to add an extra thank you here to Maddie (Reid’s former girlfriend and friend) for standing with me that day. She said “do it and I will be right there with you” and she was.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
Art has the potential to support the mental wellness of an entire community and every single person within it. Even if they don’t believe themselves to be an artist. I can talk about this belief from two perspectives. Mine as an artist and teacher for nearly 20 years, where I have regularly heard the words “I am not creative or I am not an artist”. In response to this, I work to expand their thinking on what it means to create or to make art. For the second perspective, I would like to tell you a story about Reid holding this same belief. He knew it was true for himself and he believed in it wholly for everyone he encountered. One of his favorite ways to demonstrate this with someone was to carry a blank sketchbook with him. If someone was upset, angry or dealing with something and they were struggling with conversation around the issue, he would open the book, hand them a pencil, say close your eyes and scribble. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, it is the act of changing where your mind is focused and the movement that shifts something inside us. If no paper was around he’d say stack some rocks, vocalize a scream, write random words, braid some string, bang on something to make noises.. You get the idea. Just make something that wasn’t there before and see how your thinking changes.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
I understand that this work I am currently doing is dramatically different than the artwork I was doing before Reid passed, but that also it isn’t. I also understand that some people, even those close to me, think I should be doing “my own work”. But what I understand that they may not is that I AM doing my work. This IS my work and the passion I have to bring it to the world is irrepressible. I feel this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing with every ounce of my being. In a world where my entire potential future shifted in one traumatic moment, I know this is my now and what gives me a future I can find meaning within.
Contact Info:
- Website: reidgore.com and reidgoreckifoundation.org
- Instagram: @whereisreid and @reidgoreckifoundation
- Facebook: @whereisreid and @reidgoreckifoundation
