My trusty Sears Silvertone is shaped like an old school surfboard Backwash I’ve been winding down after a hard day’s work by trying out new riffs on old guitars. Thinking a lot about surf and surf music lately, I’ve swapped out my familiar, acoustic mini-Martin for a 1962 Sears Silvertone I’ve owned since 1981. I […]
Tag Archives: surfing
Fairy Godmother of Surf
Donald Fortescue is my Fairy Godmother of Surf Over Labor Day weekend our good pals Sandra Kelch and Donald Fortescue stayed at our new wowhaus retreat. Sandra has been working over the summer with Ene and our friend Kathleen Monroe on renovating the interior, and it’s been fun to share the compound with friends and […]
Chopping Wood
I need to cut and chop at least two cords of firewood a year for our primary heat. As part of my commitment to A Year in Surf, I’ve been doing something everyday to prepare myself mentally and physically. Last night after a day driving to and from a marathon of faculty meetings at CCA‘s […]
Shaping the Olo
I use all of may favorite hand tools to shape my first surfboard. These late summer evenings I’ve been enjoying dropping into a state of loose focus as I shape my first surfboard from a slab of air-dried cottonwood. An aroma reminiscent of farm animals wafts up as my plane curls ribbons of excelsior. I […]
A Year in Surf, Preamble
Whether you consider it precaution or precognition, sometimes it makes sense to change things up just when they appear to be running smoothly. I feel very fortunate that my hard work over the years has earned me the luxury of making a living doing pretty much exactly what I want to do, some of which […]
The Legend of Lumberjack Surfing
The following text accompanies an installation I made as part of the NOMO Exhibition we’ve designed and curated as the culmination of our residency at Kohler Arts. Over the past few weeks I’ve made fictional, yet plausible sculptural elements that support the idea that surfing has origins on the Great Lakes. I will provide more […]
Kohler Arts Dispatch
Lake Michigan shoreline along the Kohler-Andrae State Park, south of Sheboygan The remainder of our week continued to be full of surprises as we mined Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and its environs along the shores of Lake Michigan for activity relevant to our NOMO project. As Ene and I process our research and interactions and begin to […]