Despite
it being *cough* a few years since I’ve hung out in skater circles, I
decided to take Brian from Bigfoot Bike and Skate up on his challenge
for this year’s Bay View Gallery Night. He had some brand new retro 80s
style maple skate decks made for the event and asked local artists to
decorate them (to be sold to be used as functional boards) in their best
80’s graphic style. Since it wasn’t initially specified that he meant
NINETEEN 80’s style…Brian agreed that sure…he’d also accept EIGHTEEN
80’s style, thus opening up the possibility for steampunkery and the
like.
As for me, I couldn’t decide whether to create a homage to late 19th century imagery or late 20th century, so I made a bit of a mashup of both esthetics…
Back
in the day, every skatepunk I knew covered their deck with dozens of
stickers (of bands…gear and wear…ads…random graphics…beer labels…hazard
signs peeled off of other things…et al), often topped off or layered
with stenciled spray paint. Considering my fascination with Victorian
mourning practices, I decided to apply this concept to the morbid trends
of the 1880s. Hence…we have images of funeral cards, mortuary logos,
ads for mourning wear, sheet music for popular funeral tunes, and the
like, cleaned up digitally before being hand aged and collaged onto the
board. As a further nod to 1980’s skate culture, I cut a skull image to
stencil over the clippings.
Dropped off the board this afternoon and it seemed to go over well. Again, having been out of skate culture for quite a while, I let Brian at Bigfoot set the price for me ($125). It'll be on display at the shop for BVGN this coming Friday.
In addition to the event at Bigfoot, there are also DOZENS of more exhibitions and other happenings in the Bay View area next Friday for BVGN... a jazz fest, artists' market, even a bike tour of the various sites. Definitely worth checking out...
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