Your background as a skater is present in almost all the work you’ve done over you long career. What makes skating such an important reference point?
The people that introduced me to skateboarding were creatives. Everyone that started out with Paul Smith were skaters. Spike Jonz was a skater.
I discovered it when my friend Jake Burlingham gave me a bunch of mixtapes, punk tapes, a Misfits t-shirt, and a couple of Transworlds and Thrashers. This was my starter kit. Every skating magazine in the 80s had a section about skateboarders that either painted, illustrated, sculpted, or both. I remember showing these magazines to my mom and, since she was an art historian, she was like: “this is really cool.” Since then I’ve met people from all socioeconomic walks of life that all went on to do really great things through skateboarding. Most of us have been friends for more than 30 years.
There’s a certain freedom that skateboarding and the immediate culture that surrounds it kind of promotes. It’s an autonomous sport, which was one of the things I always loved about it. No one would get bummed if I didn’t make the goal or the pass. If I didn’t make a trick, the only person that I had to be accountable to was myself. It’s like a martial art in a lot of ways; you’re constantly just testing yourself. And you don’t have to be good in anyone else’s eyes because its your own deal. That’s what’s rad about it to me, and that’s why I’ve always kept it close.
Skating requires a person to think about their surroundings and surrounding objects for uses beyond their intended function, which I believe is an inherently creative activity. Could this account for the connection between skating and design?
Definitely. I can liken it to “assess, adapt, and overcome,” a military term. You constantly ask yourself: “What can I do with this curb? Look at this crazy cement thing that’s made to be the entryway to a basement door grate--what can I do with that? What about this curb cut for wheelchair accessibility?” You’re forced to look at your surroundings and architecture in a different way. Yes, this is essential to design.
