Archive for April, 2007

Images: Corey Arnold

Corey Arnold has worked as a deckhand on a fishing boat named the Rollo for the past four years. Unarguably one of the riskiest jobs in the world, twice a year the Rollo and its crew heads out from its home port in Seattle and makes its way to the Bering Sea (specifically Dutch Harbor, Alaska) where it drops its nets for a few weeks, rakes in crab and carts them to the mainland for seafood lovers to enjoy. If you’ve ever wondered why crab dinners costs so much just watch Deadliest Catch, a show on the Discovery Channel that features the Rollo and a few other boats, and you’ll understand. The photos that Corey takes inbetween throwing traps and sorting crustaceans for a living have less of a sharp edge than the reality series, partly due to the romantic feeling that they evoke, but the dangers show through nonetheless.

How old are you and where are you from?
I’m 30 and I grew up in the suburb of Vista, California. I also lived in SF for 6 years and attended the Academy of Art college.
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Words: Mary Chen / Jim Houser

Through her optimism, through her hospitality to all humans and lost animals, and most of all through her art, Becky Westcott made a habit of celebrating life. So in order to celebrate Becky’s life, I asked her husband Jim about her and how she got to be the way she was. Here’s some of what he said…

Growing up she was always really, really girly. When she was a little kid and they’d go skiing, she’d have on a dress tucked into her ski pants.
Her mom is Nadine Bernard Westcott, and she’s pretty well known for doing children’s books. She’s done like hundreds. So Becky always had that growing up; she was around a really strong woman making art all the time.
Becky was very very aware of the concept of being a female artist. She thought about it and it informed her work. Whatever she wanted to communicate to the world through her paintings, she wanted to make sure it came from a female voice.

She was beautiful, and she was shy, and she didn’t think that she was beautiful. And that’s a lethal combination for girls because it’s all “That girl thinks she’s so great” and she wasn’t like that at all.
She knew what it was like to go into a room and hold your arms in a corner because everyone else knew everyone else. She had always wished she had that close group of friends… and so once she finally had it, she was super in tune with the person in the room that felt that way, and was super inclusive for them.

[In order to paint a portrait,] she would shoot a mob of photos of a person head to toe. She’d shoot a bunch from far away, and string it out until they’d calm down so she could get in close.
Brian Lynch: Sometimes if I can’t get to sleep, I’ll think ‘Remember how you felt when Becky was taking pictures of you?’ and I’ll go out like that.
It was one of her gifts. The photos in a lot of ways are as rad as the rest of her work.

Her work had nothing to do with skateboarding, other than that was the crowd she ran in — her community — and the Do It Yourself aspect. That thing that skateboarders share, of like using shit for something other than it’s supposed to be used for, or I’m gonna use this thing because it’s free.. she had that.
She just liked really old shit. That was her interest in sign-painting — not so much letter forms, ’cause she really didn’t care about that stuff — she cared more about the oldness of the sign.
The stuff that I do appeals to people my age; the stuff she did is timeless. Other than the clothes that people are wearing, you can’t put a year on those paintings.

I remember once we had a baby bird fly in the chimney and fall into the basement, and every ten minutes we’d here this “Pip!” and she would go down and try to find it. She picked it up in paper towels and put it in this shopping basket, and I was like “That’s the rotten one that’s not supposed to live. They don’t get taken care of, they sink or swim” and she was like “No, no, it’ll be OK. It probably just fell out of the nest.” So she put the basket on the roof outside the studio, and every 20 minutes I’d hear the window go up. I was like “Leave it alone!”… I knew it was just gonna be out there dead. And a little while later she was like “Come here! Check it out!” and the mama bird was sitting on the edge of the basket. I was like “That bird’s gonna eat him! It’s some weird bird thing we’ve never seen before!”
And then the next time we checked, they were both gone.

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Words: Miki Vukovich

Grant Brittain picked up a camera at the ripe old age of 25 and started shooting his friends skateboarding at the Del Mar Skate Ranch. The “Ranch” was a skatepark in a small beach town north of San Diego, California that he managed in the early 1980s, and it was there that he honed his photographic skills. After blowing massive amounts of film, he took every photo class Palomar Junior College had to offer. And with that, he felt he finally learned how to manipulate his 35mm camera.

While at college, an influential instructor introduced Brittain to the vast world of photography, and set him on his creative path. In 1983, Grant was asked to contribute skate photos to the premiere issue of TransWorld SKATEboarding magazine and became its founding Photo Editor and Senior Photographer.

Over the past twenty years, Brittain has helped TransWorld grow into the most popular skate mag in the world, and has captured the best skateboarders of the last two decades in photos that have become classics. He has also taught some of the best skate photographers, past and present, and helped them develop their own work. He hopes that they have gotten as much inspiration from him as he gets from them.

Over the years Brittain’s personal work – abstracts, portraits, landscapes and travel images-seems to draw from the opposite energy of his action images. His “off hours” are consumed by a search for calmer and more serene subjects. Still lakes at night and solitary desert forms are among the subjects of his diverse personal work. Some of his portraits of well-known athletes even manage to divulge a more reflective side of their personalities.

Few photographers have pursued so wide a range of subjects and styles. But few individuals find themselves so central to such an active community, where one’s perspective is just a notch askew of the rest, and where movement and progression is the norm.

Grant Brittain’s body of work reflects his deep involvement in an emerging youth culture, as well as his escape from it.

Grant and a group of the skateboarding elite talent left TWS and started The Skateboard Mag, check it at theskateboardmag.com and at shops and newsstands.

A young Tony Hawk
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Photos: Bob Kronbauer

Regarded as being the ultimate tastemaker in music and named the “most influential DJ in America,” Nic Harcourt has been an innovator as Music Director at the influential Los Angeles radio station KCRW, and as host of the highly-acclaimed music programs Morning Becomes Eclectic and Sounds Eclectic.
Nic has through the years been an early champion of many artists including Coldplay, Dido, Moby, Alanis Morrisette, Massive Attack, Damien Rice, Jem, Pete Yorn, David Gray, and Norah Jones.
Nic’s talents have made him uniquely suited to select innovative music for motion pictures, television and commercials. His program is monitored daily by studio and advertising executives. Nic has worked as a music consultant and/or music supervisor for such television shows as Queer as Folk, Life as We Know It, and In Justice, as well as advertising campaigns for Mitsubishi Motors, Apple’s iPod, and Victoria’s Secret. Nic has helped select music for the motion pictures Ice Age, Anchorman, Igby Goes Down, and The Dukes of Hazzard. He has also compiled and produced several volumes of live performance CD’s under the Sounds Eclectic name and recently completed his first book, Music Lust.

Some time last week, between hosting his shows, recording a live session with The Shins and listening to some of the hundreds of demos that he receives in the mail, Nic took the time to put together two lists for us: his eight favorite tracks of all time and his eight current favorites. Scroll down to check out both of his Eight Tracks and be sure visit KRCW.com and their live stream to hear what Nic’s listening to this very moment.

GREATEST HITS
1. The Beatles - Here Comes the Sun
2. T. Rex - Ride a White Swan
3. Radiohead - The National Anthem
4. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love
5. Neil Young - Old Man
6. Gang of Four - To Hell With Poverty
7. Marvin Gaye - I Heard it Through
the Grapevine
8. Frank Sinatra - I’ve Got You Under My Skin

CURRENT MIX
1. Panda Bear - Comfy In Nautica
2. Colour Music - Yes!
3. Wilco - What Light
4. Angelique Kidjo (w/Peter Gabriel) - Salala
5. Pacha Massive - All Good Things
6. The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger
7. Field Music - Tones of Town
8. Feist - My Moon My Man

Tony Larson is one of the main ingredients in the Art Dump recipe at The Girl Skateboard Company Inc. Having been a part of the company for more than half of a decade, he’s designed literally hundreds of skateboard graphics over the years, many of which could already be considered classics. Of those hundreds, we gave him the difficult task of looking back and picking out his top ten favorites, and then commenting on them…

Girl / Eric Koston / 45/ 2004
This deck is from the “45’s” Series and I think it truly captures the essence of Eric Koston. A cock.
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Interview: Ben Guinn

Writer, editor, connector, blogger, tradeshow coordinator, special projects manager… Steven Vogel has worn a lot of hats during his time in the streetwear… um… industry? With the release of his first book, appropriately entitled “Street Wear”, he’s managed to add author to that list of hats. The book is being released May 2007 by Thames & Hudson and the synposis looks something like this… Read more