NYC Fish Fry 2011

Details here

High Fry

I could have spent a couple of days playing with the light and dark but still I wouldn't have done these boards or the wonderful 2011 Alley Fish Fry justice.

Beautiful craft and friendly folk - big thanks to the guy behind it all, Grant Newby. And yes he knocks out some exquisite shapes like these Simmons style sticks (below).

To be continued.

Inspiration

I got a beautiful calendar last weekend at the ubiquitous "sale" featuring hand coloured woodblock prints by American artist William Rice (1873 - 1963). It's on the wall at work and inspires me to keep carving lino blocks like the one above which I printed on wood for a mate's birthday. Rice himself was inspired by an exhibition of woodcuts by Japanese masters. In a similar way board design evolves as surfers check out the works of their peers. If you want to be inspired to ride or make something different, check out the 2011 Alley Fish Fry at Currumbin on the Gold Coast.

Analogue Dreaming

Dreamed last night that my yellow car got stolen. The night before, I dreamt that my boss did an oil change on it. 

This is the same car that came with nothing more entertaining than an AM radio, so we installed a stereo cassette player hooked up to the electric clock circuit so you could play music even when the keys were out of the ignition. You would store maybe a dozen cassettes in a plastic box under the seat, otherwise their plastic cases would melt in the furnace like heat of the Aussie summer. There was no air con, so surfaris were mostly with the windows down and the 2 speaker stereo up loud. You had to make sure every track on those cassettes was killer as the player only had fast forward and reverse, so finding individual tracks was hit and miss. Often, you'd see 20 or 30 meters of cassette tape wrapped around highway signs and waving in the breeze like gossamer spider webs encrypted with a party beat.

This is the same car I rolled on a dirt road and chalked up 235000 kilometers before I traded it in more than 15 years ago. A yellow Holden Gemini with 4 speed manual gearbox and rusty roof racks.

The dreams were in colour.

Square Fission

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