what girls want... a mini-photo essay of female surf culture

w

my friend

my friend:

you
and your laughter
pierce me
always like an arrow

a death, and then
new life.

how to fix the hollow wooden board...

Welcome to a girl's shaping shed. Here's a little story about how things go in here...

First of all, don't tell Lars. I forgot to put the plug in the 6' 4" hollow wooden Quad Fish that Lars had traded me for some of my own paintings in February of 2009.

I met Lars because I had the good fortune of scoring a hand built, custom, hollow balsa board in Ecuador the previous year. The Ecuadorian balsa board quickly became my favorite board. It was the only board I surfed for a whole year, until it started to de-lam, and then I looked around for help and advice and found Lars from 42 surfboards. He was kind enough to diagnose my board and give me the prognosis: no repair possible. The original balsa construction was paper thin, and there was no way to repair it.

"Hang it on your wall," he told me, knowing that it would be heartbreaking for me to see this thing taken out of the game. I told him that I would eventually shape a cousin to the balsa, and he told me that if I liked the board in balsa, I would like it in any material. (The template for the karmic voyager was taken from the balsa pintail). I told him I would be bummed out not to have a wooden board in my quiver any longer...

Over the next few months Lars and I developed a dialogue pertaining to the awesomeness of wooden boards. Indeed, there is nothing like the weight and feel of wood in the water. I told him how much I love to surf wooden boards. One day he emailed me to let me know that he had a board for me and that I could trade him for some of my paintings.

Yeah!!!!

When he delivered the board he said: "If this board fills with water it is done. No matter what you do, always make sure the plug is in tight." (Hollow boards have vent plugs so that they can let off some of the internal pressure with heat and with elevation changes without compromising the wooden construction)

Ok. Sounds easy, I thought. But first day out, I take the board to local surf spot, paddle out, surf for an hour, and come in with board full of water. Sure enough, I hadn't tightened the plug down like he had so carefully instructed me to do.

I almost had a nervous breakdown. Here I was with a brand new piece of art/craft/surf magic and I had ruined it!!! I cried, screamed, yelled and panicked... then called Emily.

Emily is the only girl I know that has shaped a wooden board and I knew that she would have advice for me. I left a message on her machine and waited with sweaty palms for her to return my call.

"Don't worry... you can fix it. Get a speed bore drill 3/4" and a dowel the same size. Get a hair dryer, some funnels, duct tape, a heater, some hose couplings...."

I ended up with a Dr. Suess style board drying device, blowing warm air through the hollow chambers of the board. 3 continuous days of drying (the hair dryer finally burned out) and I figured it was all good. I then cut the dowel down, filled the hole with wood, then placed an epoxy patch over the hole I had drilled (the 3/4" speed bore drill hole)... voila! Board fixed. No warps, no cracks, and a full summer of surfing. Yeah! The board is a dream, fun to surf and a real eye-catcher on the beach... You can fix the wooden board... just do it fast before the wood absorbs too much water and pray to the gods of surfing that you will get another chance.

peace!

larger than life

i took my mom to look at the ocean today : she needed a bigger perspective and i knew it would allow her the space she needed to think about some larger than life decisions. she said, "i wish i knew the ocean as well as you do." i told her that she knew it well; how could she not? especially after living here for years, every night filled with sounds of waves filtering in through her bedroom window and permeating her dreams with the peaceful roar.

she said, "you know it better, what it feels like to be on the surface of it." i thought about that for a while, the intimacy of knowing waves from the inside out, the fear, the joy, the love, the power. i tried to explain it to her and i think she understood what i was saying, what it is like to know something on a visceral level.


she said, "i like what happens when a wave starts to break and the mist comes off of the top of the wave and blows backwards."
i like it too, i thought. what surfer doesn't love the miracle of offshore winds blowing spray into your eyes as you drop in to a nicely shaped wall. i tried to explain that phenomenon as well.

she said, "i like to think that when i am no longer here, all of this will still be going on without me."

all i could think was "yeah, but i will miss you."

siren song

the summer solstice has passed now, long gone in fact, and the days are still getting shorter
but as you continue to live life full throttle, you are aging in reverse, gaining youth
making each second count.

as the summer passed you found yourself shrugging weddings and BBQs and instead finding yourself sleeping in cow pastures, on beaches,
or in the back of the ancient Toyota wagon, driftwood fire smoke in your hair.

[one night you find yourself crouching naked by the rocks
nibbling at the green sea weed like a gull
sucking juice out of raw mussels
drifting away on a trans-pacific current before awaking]

the newest board in your quiver is already scuffed and dinged from hard livin'
countless hours of surfing leashless, the board getting away from you
crashing through sea foam and sand dollars and crab shells,
communing with all of the elements of the sea.

you follow suit, communing too, riding sea and sand upon your breast
these are your sacraments: the sun, the salt, the air
the deafening sound of waves heard from under the water
messenger from many miles

then arriving at the shore, you join your board, wavelets lapping at her hips
she is bearing new scars, sand taking the sheen out of her gloss coat, chinks in the armour,
a salty baptism that does not end

together you march back from whence you came...
hearing the whisper of mermaids
and the songs of sirens, forever calling you home.

dreaming of ojai

I was sitting on my front porch tonight
watching my neighbors across the street
showing their dinner guests
(in appropriate, casual clothing)
the new landscaping project in their front yard.

They all stood there looking at the ground,
the ornamental grasses,
the colored leaves on the perennials.

After a while, the guests got into their
(new mid-sized blue) sedans
and drove away
while I drank tea out of a well loved glass
and smoked, slowly, a hand-rolled cigarette
and dreamed of Ojai

I'm waking up early
it is winter now
and the northwest swells are beginning their march
south toward the Ventura county line.

The business majors and
law-clerks-to-be have returned to school
and the old guard are too cold to leave their Rincon point bedrooms.
The sun is rising and I am taking my favorite surfboard
from atop its ancient surf-rack home on the Toyota.

I paddle to my spot:
a little peak that looks upon a perfect crescent of rocky coastline,
my favorite artery connecting north to south,
with views of Highway 101 and the tattered hammock on the beach.

From here I wait for the pulse, the driving force of winter storms,
then fly on wings of water
wisps from the broken backs of waves
(the salty breath of god)

Even tonight, on the porch,
I can feel it my own blood:
A primal desire to connect with saline--
the very essence of life.

the voyage begins

begin here:

shaping is fun. glassing is hell. don't get me wrong. there are parts of every process that are agonizing, especially the first time one goes through that process. there are also parts of every process that are full of wonder. being a manic surfer, i felt that it was imperative to shape my own surf craft, and to surf it. i knew it wouldn't be easy, but i had no idea that i was about to embark on a full blown excorcism of all of my demons.
there is nothing as exciting, or as intimidating, as getting your first blank and knowing that with a swift blow from a select one of your scant array of tools/instruments you can either:
1) quickly mangle your dream
2) carefully carve this foam thing into your most vivid dream of glide, slash, rip... whatever it is you think you are going to do upon the face of a wave.

i spent 2.5 days in canada with my brother, the only person on this earth who is as manic and focused as i am, shaping the 7'1" pintail. we barely slept. all basic human needs were swept to the side as we spent 12-16 hours a day bumbling around his garage, googling things, swaylocking things, finding extension cords, cussing, swearing, trying out power tools in ways they were never designed to be used, setting batches of resin on fire, breathing foam dust, getting warped on resin, and ultimately completing 2 surfboards in the process.
glassing. i did all of the "don't do" things on my first attempt at making a surfboard: resin tint, cut laps, forgot to add wax to my first hot coat. what an emotional roller coaster. i made a rash of mistakes on this board, hence its name--the karmic voyager.

it all worked out. i made the board that i wanted and needed for oregon. it is ugly as sin, full of flaws, and i love it like a first-born child. there is not a surf experience in this crazy, fucked up world that can compare to riding a wave on a craft shaped with your own hands, driven by your own desire. do it.