How We Roll takes the viewer through an historical step-by-step fantastic voyage of how surfing evolved into skateboarding, the kinship with roller-skating, and how “The Roll” created a cultural revolution that has influenced every corner of popular culture over the past four decades. This exciting exhibition is free to the public, and begins its six-month run on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at CAAM (600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, CA 90037).

The How We Roll exhibition opens one week before ESPN X-Games 2010; and, both events are located in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. Viewers and participants will benefit from the close proximity of these two extraordinary affairs, and will experience a high-energy visual and physical extravaganza that is guaranteed to delight and engage.

How We Roll showcases a legendary list of skateboarding pioneers and their accomplishments, from the late ‘60s and ‘70s, including Marty Grimes and Alan Scott (first generation Dogtown), Steve Steadham (participating in X-Games), Chuck Treece (first black skater to appear on the cover of a major skate magazine, Thrasher), Ron Allen, and others who laid the foundation for core achievements in skateboarding with their extreme tricks and artistic expression. They paved the way for the newcomers of successive generations in the ‘80s and ‘90s, like Stephanie Person, Ray Barbee, Kareem Campbell, Karl Watson, Rodney Smith, Chris Pastras (owner of Stereosound and television host for FUEL TV – Fox 24-hour extreme network), and Stevie Williams, who took the sport to a new level of competition and entrepreneurial possibilities. This groundswell of popularity has transformed skateboarding into a respected sport where today’s athletes – Terry Kennedy, Paul Rodriquez, Nyjah Huston, Theotis Beasly, Malcolm Watson and others – have celebrity status and lucrative business ventures.

In the Courtyard:
When entering the museum, viewers experience an eye-gasm of artwork galore in an 11,000 square foot enclosed modern courtyard. The 5,100 cubic feet of wall space allows the skateboarders (who are also the artists, photographers, musicians, and much more) to create beautiful, large-scale installations. These massive installations, by Chris Pastras, Pep Williams, Atiba Jefferson, Brett Cook, Alex “Duce” Rodriguez (owner of Maintain skate shop in Hollywood, and a well-known graph artist), and Keith “K-Dub” Williams (founder and producer of Hood Games), are nicely lit by CAAM’S 34-foot high ceilings with domed skylights, as well as day windows for people to see as they pass by and enter the building.

In the Gallery:
Starting with 17th and 18th century historical documentation of surfing in Polynesia and Africa, photographer, artist, and historian Paula Lauren Gibson has developed an illustrated history of Black Surfing in the United States, and its roots. Organizations like the Black Surfing Association and Blacksurfing.com, provided support, mentoring and camaraderie for black surfers in southern California who often felt isolated in a sport where few Blacks participated. The founders and some members who include both professional and recreational surfers also featured in the exhibition. They are: Tony Corley, Rick Blocker, Andrea Kabwasa, Sharon Schaeffer, Rusty White and others. Surfing influenced skateboarding in its early days, in many ways, including maneuvers, fashion, and attitude, to the point that skating was called “sidewalk surfing.” Surfer, artist and first generation Dogtown skater Alan Scott (also a member of the first Pepsi team) has designed a mural that shows the evolution from surfing to pool skating. Never before seen images of Marty Grimes (surfer and skateboarder) taken by photographer Glen E. Friedman, poignantly illustrate the connection between the first pool skaters and surfers.

Central to the exhibition is a Skater’s Gallery featuring action pictures, personal stories, skater bios, magazine covers, artwork, decks and other signature items from many of the skateboarders on the list. Legends like Steve Steadham (performing in X-Games) and Chuck Treece show their amazing careers as skaters and musicians. Many photographers who have documented the scene contribute images as well. They include Glen E. Friedman, Grant Brittain, Jim Goodrich, Lance Dawes, Atiba Jefferson, Neftalie and more. Also, How We Roll will spotlight, for the first time, how girls have crossed gender and color lines, and rolled their way into a sport dominated by the guys. This section features and tells the amazing journey of Stephanie Person, the first and only professional black female vert-skateboarder, who made a living competing in America and Europe for 15 years. “I was just ‘one of the boys’ skateboarding in the 80′s and 90′s”, says Person. “Now I am a woman, proud to be the very first black pro girl skateboarder, and excited to see a legacy of the many more to come.”

Another area of the exhibition shows the evolution of the roller skating culture in the United States and how the ingenuity of these early “Rollers” created the first plank skateboard — the seedling that has given rise to the dynamic culture we have today. Co-curated by Roll Bounce co-producer Tyrone Dixon, skater and historian Tasha Klusman from Washington, D.C. and the Scooby Brothers this section has historical artifacts that range from Howard University to Hollywood.

Finally, How We Roll shows how skateboarding has cross-pollinated with and influenced other disciplines such as music — punk rock/Afropunk, hip hop, jazz, and reggae; the importance of the skate shop as the core or hub of the culture, featuring FTC (For the City) in San Francisco, ZooYork/Shut Skates in NYC, and four local shops in Los Angeles that service inner city youth; and, the ‘green’ consciousness in today’s skateboarding businesses, i.e. the manufacturing of bamboo boards, to reduce the deforestation of maple trees (the wood commonly used to make skateboards,) using recyclable plastics for wheel production and a new trend of using organic and natural fibers for skater apparel.

Programs, workshops, screenings, appearances, conversations, and other special events, such as our Fourth of July Target Sunday and August Target Sundays, will be dedicated to How We Roll. Visit the website for updated information. Admission to the California African American Museum, and all museum programming, is free to the public.

Plus an online auction of twenty, hand-pained vintage skateboards decorated by artists and curated by howies, of which all profits raised will go the Haiti earthquake appeal.

Artists include, Geoff McFetridge, Andy J Miller, Mr Bingo, Jethro Haynes, Kev Grey, Mr Bowlegs, Chris Bourke, French, Gav Strange, Will Barras, James Joyce, Mr Jago, Nigel Peake, Marcus Oakley, Pete Fowler, China Mike and more.

The party starts at 7pm, there will be free drinks and live DJs. Please RVSP to anna@howies as soon as possible if you want to attend.

The wishthound gave me a new skateboard a month or so ago, much to my wife’s disgust I might add.

Since then i’ve spent an enjoyable number of hours (in upstanding member of the community fashion not like a ne’er do well abusing council property or anything ) rolling around Barnstaple’s new-ish skatepark. I have discovered a few things:

Firstly I’d forgotten how much fun skating is, not having ridden anything other than a big long skateboard for 5 years. I can actually remember how to do some tricks though i’ve forgotten more. Each time I leave for home, I remember something else that I should have tried, a trick that used to languish in the bottom of the trick bag. all those years ago. There is still that same satisfaction from landing something (however simple now) and rolling away clean that never changes.

Secondly, I don’t bounce like I did 10 years ago. I have a fraction of the bottle I used to have – gone are the days of throwing myself down sets of stairs with abandon. The threat of broken limbs & their consequences loom ever larger and well, concrete is hard and it hurts, for a lot longer as well at my advanced age. In the wishthound’s words, the ability curve for surfing is gradual but with an overall upward trend for most of your life, with skating it peaks early and it’s pretty much all downhill from there, but if you’re having fun, who cares right?

Thirdly, like surfing, it never truly leaves. Skateboarding was a big part of my growing up, becoming a man, it shaped my future path in life in a way that I only recently understand. It changes how you look at the physical world we interact with on a daily basis and I don’t think you ever fully forget that or ever lose the desire to skate, it’s just your body that lets you down. Even though there are a couple of long periods when I haven’t rolled around, it’s always in there bubbling away under the surface.

Finally kids today have it easy! The park in the pictures is one of at least five small skate facilities (off the top of my head) within a 30-minute drive, in a relatively rural area, all well built and good to skate. Back in the early nineties, my friend’s mum fought for years for our midland council to build some ramps and when they did it was virtually unusable. Skateboarding is acceptable now in a way that it never was when I started (though there is still a punk ethos like there used to be once you dig beneath the shiny veneer of Tony Hawk & the x games)

Kids today learn tricks in their first year that were beyond the imagination of the pros of the eighties and it’s easy to learn them because the boards are light and you can see things to inspire you in magazines, dvd’s, on youtube and in your local town. Things never used to be like that (please excuse the monty python style “it were hard in my day” monologue but..)

Take learning to ollie for example, essential basic skating building block. That took us ages to learn, we had heard reference to it and seen stills of people in the air but never actually seen a video or much less anyone do it in real life. Our town had no older skaters to copy and it wasn’t until a friend of a friend managed to get a photocopy of a “how to” from an old mag that we managed to see how it was done, before that it might as well have been magic. In fact I can still remember the afternoon my friend and I first managed to properly leave the ground.

Steve Pezman has a great quote in Andrew Kidman’s ‘Glass Love’ where he talks about surfing as you get older being just as challenging and rewarding even though your actual ability level might be decreasing as your body ages. His point is that as even the simpler things become harder, the satisfaction in still achieving them increases and the sum total of joy (or stoke if you like) in that is the same as it ever was. I think he’s right and the same applies to skating, surfing, pretty much any physical activity

So here’s to my fellow old skaters with a peter pan complex! It’s a shame I have a princess-obsessed daughter, because a son might have given me the perfect, spouse-approved, excuse to keep going!

Incidentally I just saw the latest Flip Skateboards movie (Extremely Sorry) The level of skating is fully RIDICULOUS!  I always have a soft spot for Flip, being the phoenix from the ashes of Classic Brit brand Deathbox & sponsors of two of my favorite ever skaters Tom Penny & Geoff Rowley. Their new dvd is well worth a watch if you get the chance, just not with any young impressionable children in attendance!

]]> http://www.driftmagazine.co.uk/index.php/archives/4520/feed 4 http://www.driftmagazine.co.uk/index.php/archives/1555 http://www.driftmagazine.co.uk/index.php/archives/1555#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:39:13 +0000 Stefni http://www.driftsurfing.eu/?p=1555 I recently started au-pairing for a little bit of extra income. During the quiet months in Knysna I make an effort to source an out-of-the-ordinary challenge to couple with endless drawing, writing, photo exploration, skate park inspiration and as much outdoor time as I can possibly fit into one day.

For the time being I will reside in a small little cottage on a farm just a few kilometres outside of Plettenberg Bay. Surrounded by indigenous forest, an ocean view and a secret surf spot just a stone’s throw away, there is little to complain about.
My first day off falls on a Saturday and, not sure what should take priority, I receive a text from Roland, fellow surfer and friend, mentioning that he’ll be skating a competition in George over the weekend. I RSVP and my weekend plans are made.
The first time I met Roland I knew that we’d be friends, and I am rich for knowing him – he’s earthy, a passionate conservationist, open minded and spontaneous. From crazy surf missions to long conservation walks, between loads of laughs and endless discussions of love, life and spirituality, Roland is a friend worth having.
Saturday morning comes and I get lost in research for my next community project, unanswered emails and family reunions. I see a missed call on my phone – it’s Roland. I try to call back a few times but there’s no answer. I check the time and it’s 2.15pm! I drive as fast as the speed limit allows and arrive at Skatelab, the humble yet soulful host of the skate event, at 2.45pm. The first round is already done and dusted, the second round is a few minutes from starting – I hear Roland’s name being called over the sound system.
On entering the contest area the energy of adrenalin-spun skaters moving to the rhythm of the music swallows me: the sound of skateboard wheels on the half pipe, the decks and trucks of the boards connecting with the rails adding to the existing beatbox effect. The skate park comes alive with spectators, fans young and old, graffiti-decorated walls, checkered shirts and bearded men in skinny jeans; sunglasses, hoodies, beanies and high fives all round.
I recognise a familiar pair of Ugg boots at the end of the pavilion. Everything Roland owns has a story to tell and only that pair of boots could belong to this kind of guy. I make my way over to find him and his crew sitting on the wall discussing manoeuvres and gear in a language that to any normal guy on the street would be classified as foreign. I greet Roland, apologise for my late arrival, and quickly become comfortable between skaters and acquaintances as Roland heads off to skate his final run; he made it to the final.
I take time to observe, breathe, and free my soul; I drift away and get lost in the music and the magnificent explosion of inspiration that all the colours bring – luminous sunglasses twinned with tweed hats, black vests. The coupling of the bright and brand new with something dull and quite antique. The skating culture is home to a breed of individuals putting their stamp on life loudly through crazy hairstyles, an out-of-the-ordinary choice of trousers and shirts, the cool they carry not because they try but just because they are. Straight caps, unbuttoned shirts, girls in frills and frays with leather boots and sexy leggings.
With Redbull, Figure It Out, Session Skateboarding Magazine and the National Skateboard Association of South Africa as sponsors, prizes are plentiful. Roland takes a proud second after mentioning that he has not skated in a year. Quality.
The day ended with another round of high fives and the sun setting over the skate park. A few lone shadows fragmented by the half pipe and other skate park fancies. The skate culture is a splash of colour and inspiration, boho mixed with everyday modernity. Skaters are poetry in motion, wearing that which they are on the inside on the outside. They paint with the colours of their souls.

Join me for the next story as I talk to one of the editors and artists of the Session Skateboarding Magazine – from London to Cape Town to joining us here on the Garden Route.

’til next time…

As we get older I think most people start to look back at their life and its path.

It’s natural to start to analyse the journey (and possibly disappear up your own rear end, so stop me if i am!). With time comes perspective and it’s amazing to see how major directions in your life can hinge on small seemingly innocuous events.

In my case, my friends younger brother getting a “Pacer Road Hog” skateboard for his birthday started a path that has led directly to my current situation some twenty years later