Skateboards are amazing visual objects. The colors, the shapes and the personalities involved bring life into laminated wood. Everyone has a board they loved–and most remember their first skateboard with a dreamy vibe. For me, it was a glossy black graphic on matte black full dip, Neil Blender faces deck by G&S. I was blown away by it but I couldn’t afford it. It’s probably better off–I would have completely destroyed that piece of art. – John Freeborn
Mark Foster ‘Fos’
I just picked up a Brand-X, Riot Stick because my mate used to have one when we were kids and I was always really blown away by that graphic. He was one of the first people that told us about ollies and he seemed to know loads more about skating than we did. We had crap completes and that was the first ‘real’ board that most of our crew had seen. I couldn’t believe the detail in the graphic, the tongue, the faces, the slime, it didn’t seem like a board graphic could be any more perfect than that. It was everything that we were looking for.
Ben Woodward
The Mark Gonzales, Blind, ‘Colored People’ graphic. It’s just a doodle. So simple, elevating the doodle to an art form. That shit informed a lot of my screen printing.
John Rattray
Natas, Crack Pipe. I didn’t consider the significance of it at the time, but later looking at art history and learning about the transition from the subjects of art being only wealth and religion to using art to comment and shine a light more on societal issues, I was reminded of that graphic. I have no idea if that was the intent of the Crack Pipe graphic, to highlight that social issue and bring it to people’s attention, but it did that for me.
Justin Santora
The graphic that really sticks with me to this day is the Real, Hanging Klansman, Thiebaud graphic. I saw this graphic in a magazine in the 90’s and it’s never really left my mind entirely. I’ve always regarded it as one of the best graphics in skateboard art history because of how blunt and powerful it is. Plain and simple, racism has no place in skateboarding and this graphic tells us so. Natas Kaupas illustrated it which only makes it more awesome.
I was in Austin for a poster convention and news broke of another mass shooting. A white supremacist murdered 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand for praying differently than him. My reaction was to quickly sketch a little tribute to what I consider to be one of the best skate graphics of all time.
Fuck white supremacy.
Lee Eschilman
To name one, it would have to be the Caballero Street. I had two of those in a row. First a street mini then the big 10×30! All the graphics from Powell Peralta and Santa Cruz from the mid to late eighties blew my young mind and drew me into the world of skateboarding. I know now that it was the artwork of VC Johnson and Jim Phillips. I was way into anything sci-fi, comic book, cartoons, dungeons and dragons, skulls and fire… then I see these. They were like all of that in one. I would try to draw them over and over. I remember these better than things I need to remember. Without a doubt they have all shaped me.
Tim Kerr
The hand drawn Dogtown boards by Wes Humpston were really great. Stecyk’s articles and lore about the crew added to the power.
Andy Jenkins
Santa Cruz’s first Rob Roskopp ‘Monster’ that Jim Phillips created. Amazing art and his hand work was really inspiring. I spent a lot of time looking at the line work. It seemed perfect to me. I could never reach that level of control with a pen or brush. The deck was blue dipped with really smooth rails and that now classic, instantly identifiable, Roskopp shape. I had my first real bail on that thing, tearing up my hands after a high speed (in reality, probably going slow as hell) pebble screeek. I don’t recall the trucks or wheels, but I did use sext bolts (T-bolts) to attach my rails. I skated a few of that model with custom grip jobs, then started experimenting. I eventually found Swank’s Skull Skates ‘Teacup.’ To this day, I still cherish that graphic and shape. I saved a couple un-skated ones. So a big thanks to Jim Phillips and
Tod Swank for starting the breadcrumb trail to a career in skateboarding. And thanks, Rob Roskopp!
Brian Ralph & Alex Aranovich
Adam Wallacavge
Definitely Wes Humpston’s ‘Big Foot’ Dogtown graphic. It was the summer of 1981 in Wildwood Crest, NJ and I was riding a Rocket skateboard that was around 6” wide with multi colored Kryptonics and Tracker trucks that I bought in the classified ads in the local paper. It was expensive, even back then and used. I believe it was maybe $75 which is crazy considering inflation. I never saw anything but skinny skateboards. I never saw skate magazines and I rarely saw other skaters. On night at the local arcade, I saw some kids with skateboards and followed them outside. In a summer shore town, different groups of kids from all over would come for vacation. This particular group of kids were a little older than me which is a big deal when you are 11 years old. I remember being intimidated but super stoked to see other skaters but the biggest memory was seeing a kid there with a wide board. It was so confusing. I clearly remember the graphics of that deck but as soon as I saw the kids, they took off. It was decades until I saw that deck again in the real world. I think the first image of that board I saw later was in an old issue of Skateboarder Magazine in a photo by Glen E. Friedman with a guy wearing a gas mask in a cemetery with a collection of Dogtown boards. Seeing that only made the mystery deeper. Later, I found Thrasher and the Dogtown ads.
Where is this story going? There’s so much to write about.
Fast forward.
I became a novelty chandelier maker heavily influenced by Art Nouveau, the same art movement that influenced Wes himself.
The end.