Ashley is a Fargo, North Dakota based artist and event specialist whose story of pride serves as a reminder that it is never too late to embrace one's true self. Follow along as Ashley walks us through her three-decade journey towards self-acceptance, as well as her transformative 'yes year' in 2022 and the myriad opportunities it birthed.
Tune in as we unravel not just Ashley's own life-changing moments, but also the magnitude of sharing our journeys and how profoundly it can influence others. Join us for a conversation that encapsulates the essence of living and loving with pride.
Ashley is a Fargo, North Dakota based artist and event specialist whose story of pride serves as a reminder that it is never too late to embrace one's true self. Follow along as Ashley walks us through her three-decade journey towards self-acceptance, as well as her transformative 'yes year' in 2022 and the myriad opportunities it birthed.
Tune in as we unravel not just Ashley's own life-changing moments, but also the magnitude of sharing our journeys and how profoundly it can influence others. Join us for a conversation that encapsulates the essence of living and loving with pride.
It takes so much strength to say those words, to feel like you're going to lose everything, and I am so proud of 33 year old Ashley being able to do that, and so thankful and I don't think I can have one without the other, like they don't exist mutually, they're not mutually exclusive. So, yeah, I'm really proud of the life that I have built and I am proud that I have survived everything and that she survived everything to get me here.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Pride Stories, the podcast where we celebrate the entire spectrum of experiences that make up the LGBTQ plus community. I'm your host, katie Beatty, from Tell Well Story Co and Studio On this podcast. We are committed to creating a safe, supportive and inspiring space for our guests and listeners alike, so join us as we explore the heartwarming, sometimes painful and always inspired stories that make us who we are. Welcome back to Pride Stories, the podcast where we celebrate the beautiful spectrum of experiences that make up the LGBTQ plus community. I'm your host, katie Beatty, and today I am joined by Ashley Rick, an incredible, multi-talented artist and overall stellar human, who was actually part of the original Pride Stories film series with her partner Sarah. Hi, ashley, thank you so much for coming back in and joining me on the podcast. Thank you, thanks for having me. Yeah, how does it feel to be back here, to be going into a conversation all about pride and the beautiful and scary and wonderful and awful things that come along with it.
Speaker 1:So we're still in the same room right now recording that we were in when we did that. I just love this room. I love sharing in it. It's such a great space, so it's very comfortable.
Speaker 2:Good yeah. What made you want to come back and be part of this new form of Pride Stories? A second year.
Speaker 1:You're always so good at questions, we're like two seconds in. The big thing for me is, I think, is telling your story as much as you can is so important. It's not only important in June or for us in Fargo, august, but to just share it as openly and freely as you can and as you feel comfortable doing. For me it took a long time to feel comfortable with fully sharing my story and all that is me. I have done it. I'm like let's just keep going, just because you don't know who it's going to resonate with. And you hope it resonates with somebody, right, and if it does, wonderful, and if it's not for you, great. That's fine too. But we also live in a time where it is very easy for people to feel silenced or feel like they should be silenced, and I think it's even more important to share who you are in those times.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I can already tell this is going to be such a good conversation and I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:I'm like focused on something. I'm like, oh, something even happened today and I'm just like, oh crazy, what happened today? So I call her my daughter. We don't have kids, but we have a lot of adopted children. She's turned 21 and she's amazing. But she gave me a bag and I actually have it here. It's a bag for books, to carry your books in, but I just use it to throw my keys in and go out the door and it's a rainbow one, but it's like different people in faded rainbow colors and just even carrying that around town.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I'm like, oh, is this a target?
Speaker 1:And like today I went to the grocery store and I went to the one that's in the less nice part of town and some guy followed me in the parking lot in his truck, very close to me, and like I turned and he turned and my wife is out of town right now and so it's just like hypersensitive and I got in my car and I like hesitated and thought maybe I go back in the store for a minute and then go.
Speaker 1:But I got in my car and then he left and as he like drove around and drove back again, he like stared out his window as he drove next to me or by me and just like glared and like had his head turned and I was like this seems creepier than it needed to be. He was in front of me, so that was great when we were driving and I just kind of like drove around randomly, I mean meandered, but I like watched him park and then I went a different way and it's fine now. But it was just one of those things where I was like, oh, and you just don't know, and maybe he would just thought I looked like somebody, right, or maybe I am hypersensitive to it, but it's just, it just gave me a really creepy feeling, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just that kind of like icky skin and tingly feeling he just was like yeah, there was something about his eyes that was like I don't know if you're a nice person. Yeah, I just wanted to find out.
Speaker 2:Right, Well, and it is so complicated because you're a part of your brain is like am I just like projecting on this person? Is this just a dude trying to go about his day. But also we have to be very aware and protective. Whether it's just like as women or as queer people, you have to be overly cautious.
Speaker 1:Yes, it doesn't help that. You know, there's a news story every other day where you're like it feels like somebody who was just living authentically and being themselves, wasn't cautious, and that's when something happens and I hate to feel like I have to live that way and at the same time I feel like as a queer person, you're kind of used to it. Unfortunately, it's interesting because when Sarah and I were dating, I didn't care at all, it didn't matter where all the rainbows and all the sparkles and glitter and like held her hand and even when we were doing recording the video and like over the last year it's just I've just noticed that like I still keep the blonde hair and I still wear crazy earrings and I do dress more boldly, but I don't hold her hand as much anymore. I don't like she will walk behind me to make sure I'm safe. Our body language, just even within our partnership, has changed out in public.
Speaker 2:Do you have any idea what prompted that chain Is?
Speaker 1:that what it is. It's really been the more media we see in here. She's always been super protective. Let's be honest If we get in a fight, she's the one that's going to have to take care of the fight, because I can't. She's the stronger one. She has always kind of worked a little behind me and, like I have always felt like I would be protected, and Now it just seems a little more like hyper, aware of that, just even with, like some of the shooting that happened in town, like those things you can't live your life trying to Avoid them, but they're still there, all right, they're still like okay, if I go into this drag show that's in the basement of this place, I know where all the exits are.
Speaker 1:I hate that. That has to be a thing. We haven't been to a drag show in years because it just messes with you. So it is double-fold, I think. You have the female and Queer person and then so, as a female, or already hypersensitive to that, and then you add the fact that, like it's my wife and I walking together, we, we are not getting mistaken as straight women.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you mean. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:One of our friends the other day. She's like wow, you guys, it's not really a question there. I was like I know, great, that's who we are and who we want to be. And with that comes that question.
Speaker 2:Well, we just dove right in the deep end. No, that's my day today.
Speaker 1:That was crazy. I called Sarah and I was like I just need you to talk to me for a minute, like yeah. So my adrenaline spike crashed and I was like okay, she's like, are you okay? Like I'm good. So yeah, it was a crazy day, yeah, crazy day.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully this can be more of a soothing environment, or?
Speaker 1:a pleasant environment.
Speaker 2:And you're a adrenaline doesn't spike too much. But I want to back up a little bit and just have you introduce yourself, tell our listeners who you are and whatever that means to you. Who is Ashley?
Speaker 1:I am. Who am I? I like to call myself a tinkerbell. I am an event specialist in my career, life artist, just all around, happy human. I just think life is too short if you spend all of your time being angry, and life is Just long enough if you know how to live it and take advantage of it. The last few years I have been really focused on living life to have as many human experiences as possible. So Every now and then we'll laugh and we'll just be like this is a really great human experience.
Speaker 2:What does that mean to you, like what makes something a human experience?
Speaker 1:for me, it's the emotion mixed with all of the senses, right like it's. Just it smells Exactly how it should. It feels that way, like the temperature there. It's that's why I do events in the first place, because I want them all to have a Soul. I have this embodiment of something. So, for me, a human experience is the taste, it's the smell, it's the sound, it's all of them mix in one experience and you're like it's. I guess another way of saying it would be like this is the perfect experience. Yeah, but for me, I'm like this is I feel like, as a human being, we are fortunate to have the knowledge and the know-how and all these, these senses and these Experiences, and we can put them all together and create what we want. And yeah, so I want to have all the human experiences. We laugh because I, I will get. So I'll be at the studio working on something you know not eat for like a whole day, and Sarah's like you need eat and I'm like, oh, this human body is so needy.
Speaker 2:Right, right. Why do I have to maintain this silly little flesh?
Speaker 1:Right, I just. And then so do you eat, and I'm just like all right, you're right, I do feel better, but you just get. So I feel like For me as an artist, if I am in flow, I am in flow and it is head down. It's not even like head down power through, it's just head down. It's like the movie soul Everything just goes away and I just get to be and yeah, that's, that's who I am. I just I'm here to create.
Speaker 2:On that note, can you talk a little bit about your art, the things that you create, and then also how that plays a role in your pride story?
Speaker 1:So it's been cool. I grew up my mom is Still, to this day, a very creative individual, but she used to, like we grew up, my dad was in the military and so he traveled around a lot, and my parents got divorced when I was really young three and a half, four years old and so my mom kind of moved around a different in a small town, but we always have farmhouses, or it was the 80s, so it was it's like no cell phones, none of that stuff I'm so we're always outside making something, and my brother is a year and a half older than me and he is always so good at he would like take things apart Just to see how they work, but then I really put them back together all the time. So then I would like, okay, let's put them back together. So I like the using things for different purposes, you know, and some things taken apart, can I use it for something else? And Like my mom was great at this, like if we wanted stuff painted on the wall, like she was one of those people that was like great, paint your walls, like we can paint over them, doesn't matter, and so that was really cool. It kind of taught me that it's just paint, it's just marker, it's just whatever. It's okay.
Speaker 1:So in my art my brother is an amazing drawer. Like you can draw anything anytime you name it, and he's amazing at pottery. So, him being slightly older than me and me being wanting more than anything in the whole world to be an artist, and I would watch him and I'd just think that's amazing. I wish I could do that and so I would practice like I would draw the things he drew and all this stuff. And it was just I felt like I the imposter syndrome is real.
Speaker 1:We were just talking about this earlier, right that from an early age, I mean even preteen years to well out of college, had imposter syndrome even until a couple years ago. But with that came well, drawing wasn't my thing. I can do it, I can sketch, but I'll try this and then I'll try that. And so I have. I like to say I've tried almost every medium under the sun. I have not done welding. I would like to try welding. I can solder, but like glass blowing, I want to try that. So bad, it looks so satisfying, I know, and I like I watch all the videos and they're so comforting to me.
Speaker 1:And I'm like I want to do that so bad. Those are really the two that I haven't dove down that rabbit hole, and mainly because they take equipment that's not, you know, from my goals or from the craft store.
Speaker 2:It's an expensive hobby to just try out.
Speaker 1:And also I'm not exactly graceful, so like burning myself is a pretty, it's probably going to happen, let's be honest. So, with trying every medium under the sun, it actually was really helpful because then I got into teaching and doing classes and instructing, which was fun because that led into the next. You know, like it kind of snowballs from there. So I would practice something that I wanted to make and then we would teach it as a class and then I would go into the next. And every time you learn a new skill, I am a firm believer that you can transfer that skill in some way or another into the next. And so I just spent a solid five, six years just teaching adults. Kids doesn't matter, adults are just big kids, I mean, kids are just little adults, it's, we're all the same. And so I got him with include and Ashley had include and that has been wonderful. But through that came more confidence, right. And then you get regulars who keep coming back to your classes. So I got stuck. I felt I projected this big time, but I felt stuck in the crafting world and not in the artist world and I was like, how do I get out of this spot and be in this other spot and I was like you literally just put yourself in the spot Nobody has put you in it but you and so Sarah and I talked about that and I was like this is so dumb, you're the one saying that you're this thing or that thing or whatever. So I had this is going to feel like a drastic shift.
Speaker 1:But during quarantine, like millions of American or millions of people, I found myself on TikTok and I should preface this with my mom. I grew up in. My mom was a cosmetologist, so she was always dying people's hair and cutting it and doing all the stuff at our house and I grew up learning a lot of those skills so I could help her do her hair, and with my siblings and all that. So I was on TikTok and I grew up in a hunting family I do not hunt, but they all do and I found I was following this taxidermist and she was doing a TikTok, alive and drinking, like a lot of us were doing during quarantine and somebody said I dare you to die, one of your mounts black and she was like okay, and so the next day she did and it was gorgeous. It looked beautiful and I just remember thinking I want to try that, and so it was probably three to six months.
Speaker 1:It just kind of kept in my brain popping up every now and then. So I call my mom and I said, hey, do you have any mounts, that dear mounts that you're not going to use and or you don't use? And she said, well, I have your brothers talk to him. If you want him, you can have them. So I call my sister in law and she was like they're at your mom's because we don't want them. Great.
Speaker 1:So a couple of weeks later I drove three hours to my mom's house to get them, had dinner and drove home and I grabbed two of them, and one of them I died black. And then the antlers I did gold leaf and then the other one I bleached it white and then I did rose gold and I added crystals and made them very ethereal and they sold immediately and I was like, oh my gosh, I absolutely love the idea of making this. I say I call myself Tinkerbell for a reason, right, like I love the ethereal stuff, I love the crystals and the moss and the mushrooms and the gnomes and fairies, blah, blah, blah. So it just felt so natural. And then that turned into skulls and that turned into creating something that was going to decay and just turn into nothing, and taking it and turning into something beautiful and full of life again or not life, but a new purpose and that has been kind of a staple for a couple of years now.
Speaker 1:That one has that one stuck and since you know, everybody started opening back up with events and everything like that in the last couple years or year, I should say, getting back into the love of creating spaces and experiences again. So those are really the two that I have fully immersed myself in. But with my art, the biggest thing I noticed is the more confident I got in my art, the more confident I got in who I was. And then that, you know, the imposter syndrome would kick in and I would just say, oh God, I'm not an artist because I don't have one focus, and I think that's really actually very prevalent in the queer community, not just in the art community, right, like well, I don't know if I'm pan, I don't know if I'm XYZ, whatever, it is right, I was married to a man, now I'm married to a woman, so I feel like my art has very much been fluid as well. Sorry, that was a lot of talking.
Speaker 2:Never apologize for talking. It's like my favorite thing and also I will say your art is beautiful.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:All of our listeners should go look at it at Tinker Creates Yep. Yes on the socials and the socials Cool. So I want to get to the big question that this entire podcast is centered around, which is just what is your pride story, and you can take that however you want it.
Speaker 1:So for me, my growing up, I never felt from my mom like I couldn't be who I wanted to be. Even my dad, for being in the military. He was still really pretty flexible and understanding on a lot of things, especially for having children who were artists. But my grandma was the one that you always heard derogatory statements from all that stuff and I thought she was like my best friend in the whole world and so that I didn't realize at a young age how much that was doing to me until I got really into like teenage years. Even college was the first aha moment.
Speaker 1:I went to school for theater and art and design and we were all driving. It was a car full of people, we were driving to a drag show and one of my friends from like fourth grade was in the car and he his brother, had said, well, you're gay. And before I could even answer my friend had said, no, she's not. And I just remember thinking, oh well, I guess I'm not. Then If I could go back to any moment like I don't know if I would change it, but it's just one of those moments that you're like it still just like punches me in the gut and I know he didn't. It's not like he did that on purpose, right. Like he genuinely thought, like why would you say that to her?
Speaker 1:In college I had, you know, talked to a couple of women and like I wouldn't necessarily even call it dating, we would go out and stuff, but never fully like truly dated anyone out loud. And then I had I met my ex-husband after college. He was a musician and he lived a lifestyle that was very fluid and open and not gender fluid type, but not not that actually, cause he would go on to, he was a musician and he would go on tour and he would like come home wearing a sarong and he would like like, if there was no question, but whenever he would get mad at me he would say, if you left me a beef or a woman, wouldn't it? And that just would always also that punch, the gut punching feeling would come back and I'd just be like, whatever, you're drunk, whatever. And then what was that? I would have been 34. Nope, 33. And I went to a women's march. He was, he was gone. He was at a festival and I went to a women's march and we had been married for six ish years together, for almost 10.
Speaker 1:And the woman who was speaking came out when she was 55. And she said her biggest regrets, that she wishes she wouldn't have waited so long to feel so good, to feel so free. And I just went home and started bawling and bawling, and bawling and I just remember like you have to tell him, it's not fair to you, it's not fair to him. And he came home the next day and we had this beautiful house that was on the edge of town and there was a hammock outside and I just went outside because I couldn't be around him. But it wasn't him. It was just like I felt nauseous with myself and I just wanted to say it, but I didn't know how to say it. And so I just kind of kept walking around and like I was walking by this hammock and finally I just sat in it and he was like just tell me what's wrong.
Speaker 1:And in his mind he's like have you cheated on me? Have you done this? Have you done X or whatever it is? And I said I'm gay. He just paused and I said it's not fair to you, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to waste quote, unquote waste time. I don't want to waste your time and we had always had a relationship that was very like he owned his own business and it was.
Speaker 1:We were great friends. And the first thing he said was did I do anything wrong? And I was like no, no, and I didn't mean it in a bad way. But I was like this isn't about you at all. And so I explained what had happened the day before and I was like I don't think it's, I don't want to get to 55. I think I'm at 33, I don't want to get another 22 years and wish I would have done something different". And I was like it's not fair. You could have this whole other existence and this whole other human experience, and so could I. And it just like from there it turned into. So I don't think he fully understood right away that that meant divorce Because we were such good friends. It was like, okay, well, we'll just still live in the house together and it'll be fine.
Speaker 1:So the closer it got to, him realized like the more we went through the process and the more he understood that what it fully meant, the more influence from his friends came in, and then the more angry he got with me and then it kind of took its own path the way it did. But I just remember and I've said it to this day and I say it all the time but if I could be this happy under this much stress, imagine how happy you can be once you have gotten through whatever stressful situation you're in. And I wouldn't change a thing. I used to sit in the shower and the bathroom is my safe space, so I would sit in the shower and just ball and just feel so disgusted with myself and not disgusted in I like women but disgusted in this like lie that I felt like I was living and this longing for wanting something else, wanting more.
Speaker 1:I just felt so bad and I remember thinking, like when I was in the shower, how cool would it be someday if you could have a wife. Like how cool would that be. And so now, when things get stressful and you know, like we went through COVID, we went through all this stuff I just think about like all these things you used to wish for you have. How cool is that? And like, sure, you know your hopes and your dreams change and they evolve and you want more and you wish to hope and create more, all these things. But like, at one point you wanted this.
Speaker 2:That's so cool, that's the cool, that's so great. With that. That kind of leads into the next thing I wanted to ask you, and that's just what have you gained and how has life changed since you came out and came into yourself?
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, everything. I have a friend who's going through a breakup right now and he said can we just go for a walk? And I said yeah, and he's like life is crazy for you and I was like it is in all the most amazing ways. And he goes how? And he said it feels like it's happened really fast in the last year and I was like it has and I had decided in 2022 that I was going to have a yes, year of just like if it wasn't going to physically hurt me, just say yes, see what happens. And it led to so many cool things. And then 2023 was all about the human experiences and I just wanted to try and experience as many things as possible. And it's been what? Seven months? And I mean I have been to the Sundance Film Festival, I've been to the Cannes Film Festival, I've been to Tribeca, I've done events around the world, created events and like got to see my niece get married in Colorado and like, do all these crazy things. And it's been seven months six if you really count that it started in February.
Speaker 1:But I fully and wholeheartedly believe that the more authentic and genuine I am with who I am and what I want in life and what lights me up will light up what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:So if I'm in alignment, if I am in integrity and truly being who I'm meant to be and who I feel at my core I meant to be and what I'm meant to do, it will reflect. I fully, fully believe that the universe wants us all to succeed. We're not here just to. I don't believe that any one of us is here to just stumble and fail.
Speaker 1:I fully believe that if you are coming up against Roblox, if you are sick, if you are this, whatever's happening, you're not where you're supposed to be. You're doing what you're supposed to be doing. I should preface that I also understand the privilege that I am coming from while saying this. Right, I understand that I am very privileged to have a wife that fully supports my artist side of me and my changing career and all that, and I trust my gut in everything I do and it has never steered me wrong and it's the only time it steers me wrong is when I don't listen to it and I'm just like, but I need to do this thing instead, and then I just head butt my way through it.
Speaker 2:Trusting your gut and, like you said, like saying yes to things is really scary and it is often not our natural instinct. We are like no, defend ourselves from this. Where do you draw the courage from to do that and actually live out these things that you talk about?
Speaker 1:Honestly so. I keep a picture of myself as a child. Sarah and I both do. We have pictures of ourselves younger than seven years old. So from zero to seven is when you learn everything. That is, I'm not everything, but like that is what you learn. You have absorbed everything. Your fears, your insecurities, all those things really come from zero to seven years old and then they're just reinforced. The older you get right, the longer things go on, and so I.
Speaker 1:We keep pictures of ourselves and everything I do is to make her proud, or if it scares the crap out of me as an adult, I will honestly just sit there and just like think about her, think about the little me, and the more I do this, the easier it gets. It doesn't happen right away, but if it's something she would think is cool and or want to try and I have the ability to do it now, I just say yes. And if it doesn't work, to like look at a picture of yourself, think about your niece or your nephew or somebody in your life, some little person in your life that if they said I want to do this, would you crush that in them? Would you say no, that's what gives me the courage is. I want her to get to do these things. She got me to this point. I can take over from here.
Speaker 2:I love that. That is so powerful, and I was just going to make a Barbie comparison but I know you haven't seen the movie yet. It's okay, but this is all the more reason that you need to see Barbie, because the whole inner child healing thing is very present. But speaking of that, if you could talk to little you whether it's like six year old you or 33 year old you, still married to a man what would you want to say to her?
Speaker 1:I mean the cliche like it gets better always comes to mind, but I would just tell her she gets to be a badass and not in a like, arrogant way, but you get to do really cool stuff and like things you can't even imagine. And the people that you're going to meet are going to be incredible human beings. And then they're going to be equally not incredible human beings, and that's okay, because the not incredible ones are going to make the incredible ones feel magical and the more she, as a little me, surrounds herself with magical beings, the more she will become one. I fully believe that you either rise or lower your vibration to who you spend time with and as a little kid, I just remember like, I just feel like there's more, I just want more, and I used to think that was selfish.
Speaker 1:Why do you deserve more? And then I realized that this isn't pie, it's not ice cream, it's not anything, it's energy and like. Just because I want more doesn't mean you don't deserve more, it doesn't mean everybody doesn't. I want all of us to live the best life possible and you're damn right.
Speaker 2:I want it for me.
Speaker 1:Why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:You are so wise and just like so well spoken. I want to sit here and listen to you talk forever. We've been talking about this idea of pride. This word we throw around a lot. It's literally the name of the podcast. What does pride mean to you?
Speaker 1:Pride to me is something that is yes, it's a word that we throw around and we use it once a month or whatever. Pride to me is, it's a feeling. It's got its own soul, it's got its own heartbeat, it is a living thing, and it is a living thing that you choose to take into yourself or you choose to let it sit there. And I feel like you can see that in people. You can walk around and you see people who just feel like they're going through life and just checking box after box after box, and then you see people who are glowing and who are just living authentically and that to me, whether it's in the LGBTQ community or not, I feel like we're all humans and we all feel pride.
Speaker 1:And that is, to me, one of the biggest misconceptions with the world right now is, just because people are fighting for rights and all this stuff doesn't mean that it's negating your pride either. We can all have pride and we can all feel love and we all deserve to feel love and pride. And when you take the soul out of something is when it starts to go dark and south, and that is when things start to crumble. And so, if you take the soul and the pride out of something there's nothing left. So for me pride is very much a feeling and an embodiment.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. What are you proud of?
Speaker 1:I'm proud of my life. I'm proud of every person who lived authentically and put themselves out there for me to see it or others to see it, and feel courage to understand that it takes so much strength to say those words, to feel like you're going to lose everything, and I am so proud of 33 year old Ashley being able to do that and so thankful, and I don't think I can have one without the other, like they don't exist mutually. They're not mutually exclusive. So, yeah, I'm really proud of the life that I have built and I am proud that I have survived everything and that she survived everything to get me here. And don't take it for granted.
Speaker 2:That's a lot to be proud of, thank you. So what else do you want to say? What else do you want to share with our listeners that I haven't asked you about?
Speaker 1:I know that I'm very fortunate that my pride story is I mean, even in the little clip that the video that we showed last year, both of my parents were very accepting and I know that that's not everybody's story and I hope that if you hear this and if you do need somebody to talk to you like I will give you all my social medias you please reach out. Sometimes all you need is somebody to listen to you, and I have had that. I have been fortunate to have that, and it can get better. I don't think it does get better unless you help. You have to have courage and you have to. If you don't have the courage, find somebody, reach out. There's always somebody who wants to help, because it will get better if you just extend your hand, your voice, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:So where can folks find you?
Speaker 1:and your art. Instagram, facebook, are probably the two easiest. Instagram is at Ashley underscore, rick R-I-E-C-K. Also at Tinkercreates is my art. Either one you can get a hold of me, but those are the easiest ones, and TikTok is Tinkercreates.
Speaker 2:So you're on TikTok.
Speaker 1:I don't do as much I should. I just like to watch you can send me TikToks. They're probably all dog related. That is so exciting.
Speaker 2:Immediate follow.
Speaker 1:All art and dogs.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thank you so much, ashley, for joining us on Pride Stories, the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's been great, it has.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Pride Stories, the podcast. I'm your host, Katie Beatty, and it's been an honor to bring this story to your ears. Pride Stories is proudly presented by Tellwell StoryCo and Studio. We have an incredible team that makes this podcast possible, including executive producer Max Kringen, contributing producers Andrew Parsons, Duncan Williamson and Annie Wood, With additional support by Emma Maddock, Matt Priggy, Rosie Mortensen and the entire team at Tellwell. If you've been inspired, moved or entertained by anything you've heard in this episode, please consider supporting our mission, Subscribe to the podcast, leave a five star review or simply share it with a friend or family member. Your support keeps the stories alive and resonating, and if you feel compelled to share your own Pride Story, we'd be honored to listen. Please visit the link in the description of this episode to get in touch. No matter where you are in your journey, whether you're out and proud or just finding your voice, remember you have a story to tell and it deserves to be heard.