Woodlead: Scott Minton

this is your brain on urethane

I’ve worked in different creative jobs for years and everywhere I’ve been, I found skateboarders. Some are still pushing wood daily, others have semi-retired. There is a link between skateboarding and creativity and Woodlead attempts to examine that link by talking with skateboarders who do creative work.

Scott Minton is one of the best examples of a pure skateboarder that I know of. He has given back to skateboarding in so many ways I’ve lost track. His creative output is impressive and on top of all that–he’s super nice.

When did you start skating?

I like to think that the first day I stepped onto a skateboard was the day I was truly born. In all seriousness, the boring truth is that I probably started sometime around 1985 after I saw Back to the Future. I might as well count the first few years since road rash doesn’t care if you’re good or not. It’s still skating even when you’re learning the basics. If you belly board and smash your face on the sidewalk or if you bail a grind in a backyard pool, it hurts either way. According to my sketchy math, I’ve been voluntarily throwing myself to the ground for almost 28 years. Maybe I’m not as smart as I think.

What was your first skateboard?

I found a magical, yellow plastic banana board under the steps in my Nana and Pop Pop’s basement in Woodbury, New Jersey. My cousin Janet and I started knee boarding and bailing into the grass next to the sidewalk out front. I still remember my Uncle John Carter coming out one day and setting us straight. He said something to the effect of, “You guys need to try it like this” as he went out to the middle of the street and standing almost like a skier with both feet together in the middle of this little loose-bearing deathtrap. He proceeded to bomb the hill all the way to the end. What a mind changing experience for a 12 year old before the internet was around. This was before cellphones, even before pagers! I had no idea what was going on. I was like, “Whaaat…? You can play in the middle of the street? I’m in!”

After that it was on. I started buying old Thrasher Magazines from this kid at school for a quarter an issue. I built a quarterpipe out of fake wood paneling and sawhorses and eventually graduated to “building” a series of sketchy backyard halfpipes. My mom took us to Cheapskates a few times and I got to skate with Barker Barrett, the Sigafoos Brothers, Dan Tag, Tom Boyle and mini Bam. Those dudes blew my mind over and over. Thanks Mom! I’ve definitely had a few boards roll through my life. Some of my favorites were: a pink Jim Gray, of course the Gator and Gonz late 80’s models, the Ed Templeton Cat,  pretty much every Scum board and these Thriftstore Vampire boards I did in the early 2000’s through PennsWood.

However, the board I always really wanted, but never got was the J.R. Neves’ Unbelievers board. If anybody has one they want to sell, you can pretty much name your price because I really miss that guy. I want to say rest in peace J.R. but I know you, and I know you’re not resting at all. You’re raising hell wherever you are, making them laugh and ripping it up on the metaphysical plane. Hell, this interview should be about that guy, not me.

Some other dudes who should have had pro models but didn’t were Mike Harper, Will & Sean Evans, Billy Keating, Dave Turtzo, Derek Lukenbach, Adam Young, Jeff Intong, Rich Peppe, Sean Croce, Pat Connor, Bud Baum, Jamie Weller, Matt Hummul, John Freeborn, Adam Crawford, Joey P, Clyde Crossan, Ed Jankowski, Steve Beach and Jerry Hafner… I know I’m forgetting people. There’s too many. Can all the dudes at FDR Park please have a pro model? Channel Street in San Pedro, Salamander Ranch, Washington Street… true skateboarders. I’d ride all of their boards. Anyone who puts dirt and mud and Bondo together to make improbable things for us to roll over, I hereby declare to be “pro”. Everybody else can go home. There are so many unknown, under-rated people that did so many gnarly or worthwhile things and got no credit. Forget about recording everything. In the end, the only thing that matters is that moment that can only be attained through skateboarding, where everything else falls away and there’s only you and your good friends and this energy holding you up supporting you as you seek that indescribable, fleeting moment. If you don’t skate you can never truly know. That’s part of the magic of skateboarding. You get to stand shoulder to shoulder with your heroes and even if you just carve over the light, most of them will holler like you just did a 6 foot air. It’s definitely the best club to be a member of.

When did you stop or slow down significantly?

I’m proud to say I never really stopped. I don’t think it’s in my nature since skating is as much a part of me as breathing or sleeping. Every time I get hurt (which is pretty much every time I skate) I tend to slow down a little. It’s always harder to get up. Something that kind of sucks about skating is that I feel like after all this time, I understand what’s going on with my board more completely, but I don’t have the strength, flexibility and energy to get as crazy as I think I can. I have to do more contact tricks, where some part of my board is touching the lip or I put a hand down. I try to make it look intentional but in the end, I’m just a scarecrow and I’m afraid to fly. If I could bail like I used to I might still throw myself down some big rails and gaps rather than skating Fullerton Park all the time.

What do you do for a living?

I am currently unemployed. Ha ha. Just kidding. I’m actually comfortably busy at the moment. I have a company called Scott Minton Design which integrates several different design disciplines. To simplify, I specialize in the process of manifesting creative spaces, objects and images. I make fun stuff or I make fun stuff possible. At any given moment I’m engaged in retail, interior and environmental design, illustration, graphic design, photography, cad drafting, woodworking, occasional skate spot design buffoonery, nerd-ology and more.

Most of my income is derived from working on retail design projects for some awesome clients and agencies. Some recent endeavors include a few projects I worked on with Chad White’s Sauce Creative Group in Venice. I designed a lounge for Skull Candy at the Berrics and brand environments for Nike’s Skateboarding’s 6th and Mill facility. That was an amazing project that enabled me to work with Chad and Matt Comer (then Creative Director) who became a great friend and one of my favorite collaborators and creative minds. Chad subsequently connected me with DC Shoes and I worked directly with their incredible in-house team to design Rob Dyrdek’s new office and design studio for the Fantasy Factory. They were happy enough with the results to lock me into an on-going project at the Berrics. I’ve created branding and packaging design for Froovie Organics, graphics for Humanity Snowboards, illustrations for a children’s book and a merchandise display for Last American Buffalo. I’m working with the S.P.S.A and California Skateparks to co-design the upcoming Peck Park Skatepark in San Pedro. I also occasionally help lead private expeditions into wild places for the BFRO in search of evidence of the elusive North American Wood Ape. Go ahead and laugh it up, but I’ve traveled with them to some rad places.

Over the last six years or so, I’ve worked as a designer for Sauce, Graphite LA, Nest Environments, Forever 21, and Studio Concepts for a vast array of their clients including Volcom, Stussy, Monster Energy Drink, Peace Tea, Mophie, Billabong, Matix, Peanuts (Snoopy), DC, Bugaboo, DVS, O’Neill, Sole Tech and others. I’ve also worked as a design engineer, cabinet builder, CAD drafter, and CNC operator.

At one point, I took a sabbatical from design and I managed the factory building snowboards for Dave Lee’s company Signal. I worked with an amazing mad professor named Daniel Malmrose who is another all-too-underrated guy. I don’t think I know anyone with a stronger work ethic.

When I break it down to very beginning, I think I made the leap to design from skateboarding some time in 1995. I worked for my friend Adam Hawley as a manager for Failure, his skate shop in beautiful South Jersey. We branched out a little and started building ramps for some spoiled rich kids, and I kind of learned how to hammer a little truer and use a chop saw. Eventually I realized it was time to make a change, so I migrated over to Philadelphia and stumbled into working for Otto Design Group, a.k.a. ODG. For almost six years I was fortunate enough to work closely on some really amazing projects with Phil and Sue Otto. I learned so much from them! They gave a dumb, inexperienced kid so many great opportunities to learn on the fly with real world experience. Come to think about it, they gave a ton of people an abundance of stepping stones to their careers. Through their work with Urban Outfitters they were a creative conduit for an incredibly dynamic group of people. It really was something organic and amazing, happening without the benefit of the instant, electronic culture we have today. I should probably write a book about those times. I got to travel all over the world with a crew of some of my best friends, mostly skateboarders, working on the fixtures and interior design elements for over 30 Urban Outfitter’s stores. We did projects with Anthropologie, Betsy Johnson, MTV, Delia’s, TG-170 in New York and much more. ODG also hosted 222 Gallery in the front of the office, which curated the likes of Mike Leon, Green Lady, Rich Jacobs, Kevin Lyons, Tokion Magazine, the first American show for Os Gemeos & Herbert Baglione and the groundbreaking skate art show Separations. John Freeborn may not remember, but when his original premise for the show was not possible due to time constraints, I threw him an idea, which he took and curated into a great success. It was one of the first skater art shows that I’m aware of and its format soon became ubiquitous in the art world.

When you are not skating, how often do you think about skateboarding?

I don’t really think about skating like I used to growing up. I still consider it all the time, but maybe not so much as something I want to go and do specifically. It’s more like I just know when my body tells me it’s time to roll. I need to feel pool coping under my feet right now. I need to do slappy on a red curb. Or maybe, I want to contort my body into an impossible shape on a vertical plane while moving at a high rate of speed on an unstable object. When you try to describe the urges that come up surrounding skating it kind of sounds like Asperger’s, O.C.D. or Tourette’s syndrome. Maybe we’re all just slightly jacked and that’s why we do this thing. Like moths to a flame we’re drawn to the thing that is the most attractive to us, but it also happens to be the thing that will destroy us if not handled with care.

How did skateboarding affect the direction of your life?

It’s literally informed every aspect of my life. I can’t imagine what I’d be like if I didn’t ever step on a board. I’d be a zombie walking through life with a giant hole in my heart. Without skating I’d probably be a total pile. It’s seriously the dumbest little thing but it is everything, for better or for worse. The true friends that have come into my life through skateboarding never really leave. From dudes I meet at a crappy park in LA or on an epic road trip to the Northwest in a rickety old van–the commonality is there. From random kids I met in Delaware, Ireland, Seattle or in the middle of the New Jersey countryside–a door to real friendship was always opened by skating. From my first skate friends in Jersey, to my early 90’s Philly friends to the S.P.S.A. out here in Pedro or my neighbors down the street in Fullerton–I know that they’ll understand what no one else can and that is because of their roles skateboarding.

What is the connection between skateboarding and creativity?

I feel bad for the new generations coming up. Granted, there are some great parks getting built and they have access to all the information in the world at their fingertips. You can get skateboards at the mall, at Wal-Mart and at swap meets. You can buy Vans at Marshall’s. But there was something great about the lean times, when everything wasn’t so easy. You had to buy skateboards at skate shops. Some people had to order them in the mail. There was no “I think I need a different board with a bigger wheelbase”. You got out a drill and made new holes. When your tail wore out you rode your board backwards. I think a lot of the creative things that skateboarders did out of necessity have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Kids just see a video game in real life. There’s no great mythology to figure out and it’s almost just another thing to do. Get the right look and fit into a niche in the corner of the park. Most of them will quit within a few years.

On the other hand, one of the most creative things to ever happen in skateboarding is going on right now. The D.I.Y. guerilla skate spot revolution is in its golden age. People everywhere are saying fuck it, and not waiting for the city to get on board and going ahead and making their own renegade spots. Some last and some don’t, but that right there is a perfect example of how creativity, honesty and real life skateboarding are so closely linked.

In closing, (if you made it this far) I want to say thank you to anyone rolls on urethane that does this for the right reasons. Believe in yourself. Skateboarders can do anything. Screw what the guidance counselor or your peers on the football team say. You know in your heart what the right thing to do is. Skateboarding will give you that confidence and courage. If you treat her right she will take you everywhere. Just make something honest and put it out there in the world. It will be a better place. I’ll be over in your cheering section. Whether you kickflip or kickturn, I’ll be stoked for you.

If you grew up skateboarding and work in any creative field, I’d love to add your story to the collection. Reach out we’ll set up an interview. – John Freeborn