Art

Wow!

Ooohhhh yeaahhhh!  Finished my first hand shaped foam board yesterday.  A whole lot of sweat, fiberglass dust in the eye, and toxic fumes…but well worth it.  It was so much fun to make and I learned a lot through the process.  I wanted to go pretty simple on my first one…used a fish blank and put together a template and got to work.

Well I watched a ton of videos to try and get some ideas and see what people were doing.  First I went through my personal collection checking out Litmus, Glass Love, Musica Surfica, Single Fin Yellow, and others that had little shaping parts.  Then depending on where I was in the process I’d look up in YouTube or Google glassing a board, installing Futures, etc etc.  There is a ton of good stuff online.

Picking up the blank with tools in hand I reflected on all I had learned from the internet, like how to mow foam from Abe Toke and  how to laminate the board from Kimo Greene so yeah, you can say I had some good help.

I wanted to make a super wide squash like the Topper board I had been riding, but then half way through I figured I’d try something a bit different and throw a little mini bat in there.  Figure it might act similarly to a swallow or allow it to go rail to rail a bit easier…I don’t know.  Just wanted to do something different.

First time to make a board from start to finish and so it’s inevitable that you are going to have some funky blunders.  I wanted to put in five skegs so I could switch it up from a thruster to a quad to a twinnie to a thruster with small center fin….you know, make it as versatile as possible so I can learn what works and doesn’t etc.  As you can see I messed up the right inside skeg on the quad set-up.  It turned out ok…I filled it with resin and it ended up sinking a bit so it may not be a perfect 4 degree cant, but I actually think it gives it a bit more drive.

Putting my own logos on the board was one of my favorite parts.  I always liked really clean boards, all white, the kind Curren, Lynch, or Hynd would ride.  Actually Lynch had a sick all yellow one in the sequence I’m thinking of, but still, same concept.  Logo free.  I also love photography and imagery and so I landed somewhere in the middle.  I had some images that I had been thinking about over the past years and felt my first real board would be the perfect canvas for them.  One of them is the Aloha Brahdda from Ando and Friends.  He just makes me happy every time I see him.  The others go way back.  The one I placed on the bottom near the skegs is a drawing my mother did of me when I was in her belly.  Riding a dragon and as she says ‘achieving willing submission, obedience, and all that power’.  I thought it to be very fitting for our act of taming the wild beast that is the ocean, and namely Ocean Beach.

The main logo on the deck is a family logo.  When I was growing up my parents had big medallions with that logo and all the kids had little ones.  We would only wear them on special occasions.  The dove is from an old Russian Orthodox book that my grandfather gave to my mother.  He passed away when I was 6 or so.  It is the symbol of the holy spirit, which she has explained is the same in theology as the principle within our world of divine Grace which translates to…are you ready…enlightenment, freedom, truth, goodness, beauty and redemption.  How amazing is that!!  I actually wasn’t aware of all of that until I showed my finished creation to her and she gave me the back story, which made me appreciate it even more.  I’m certainly not religious, per se, well I guess I am about some things, but being that my grandfather was an Episcopalian priest and I was baptized Russian Orthodox and my mother was his youngest and most rebellious daughter I’ve got the concepts of ritual and connectedness in there somewhere while also being exposed to all kinds of belief systems.

Speaking in religious terms, I took it to my own brand of church and christened it down south yesterday at a spot that was protected from the south winds and was sunny with a cool fog bank just sitting on the surrounding mountains and about a mile offshore.  It was only about chest high on sets, but I got one of my best lefts on my new board at this particular spot.  I got a really fun right and nearly bust the fins out on a lay back which I didn’t make, but it still felt good.  I rode it as a quad and it was super fast and really responsive.  I surfed for nearly three hours and still feeling it out, of course, but it was so exciting to not only wax a new board, that I made, but to escape the fog and wind and get some nice little shapely fun ones to test it out on.  I’ve already got a bunch of ideas for my next few.  I’m going to take a break though and enjoy this one.  Can’t wait to ride it at big Nori Rolls out front.  I’m hooked!  See you in Church!

Well as you guys know, I’ve tried my hand at shaping over the past few months.  Made about four or five alaia’s and one solid wood single fin.  This past holiday weekend I took the solid wood single fin out and christened it in some of the best surf I’ve had in a long time.  I don’t have any photos to share just yet, but I will say it was reef, clear water, and I got there by boat.  Nothing short of epic as we timed the journey perfectly to coincide with Independence day and a big south swell.

Yeah the curves aren’t perfect and the glass job is a bit wonky to say the least, hell the skeg may even be a bit crooked, but when I took off on that first wave it sure was magic.

Being that it was solid wood, it took a bit of effort to get up the speed to catch a wave, but once you get it moving it moves.  I was even able to throw in a couple carves here and there.  When we pulled up at the spot and I tossed it in the water the fact that it didn’t sink was pretty encouraging.  The fact that I was able to paddle it, catch waves and turn it and even carve was amazing.  I’m hooked and can’t wait to make my next one.  I think I’ll study up on a few glassing techniques first though.

Watched this, or most of it last night on Netflix before the stream crapped out on me.  Beautifully shot and a really inspiring film by the boys at Woodshed Films.  The thought of simplifying your life so completely and going for it…whatever ‘IT’ is for you is such a romantic idea.  This film has some great storytelling and is an attempt by Jeff Johnson to recreate a similar voyage to Patagonia as the one Yvonne Chouinard took back in 1968 in his Ford van.  Similar in spirit that is.  Some nice footage of surfing in Chile and some pretty killer climbing too.  Learn more about the journey here.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9639494&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

180º South Trailer from Flicka Mag on Vimeo.

This is not me, but very well could have been as I was making my own connection with the sea and elements this day.

Friday after work I went and checked the surf as I usually do after getting off or on the N.  I wasn’t really feeling like a paddle so I decided to go on down and try to capture the sunset.  I brought my tripod, something I never do, and set it up to see what I could see and just starting playing around.

Just panning along to try and catch the Pelicans in flight.  Almost like painting on a canvas with the way the colors blend.

A fascination with lines of all sizes and colors.

As I shot away I couldn’t believe all the beauty I was seeing and how much you begin to appreciate the little things when you are peering through a view finder.

I obviously wasn’t the only one either.

After a long week…

It was the perfect way to bring it all back into focus.