As some of you might know, I have wandered into the art phase of my life in this past year.
I have done paintings for many years, but never really approached them as anything other than a fun way to pass some time. In the mid 1980s, I got into doing some airbrush art that I sold in a small gallery in Dana Point – those did pretty well. I was able to use some office space in the back of the SURFER magazine building to do them while I was working there as advertising director. I stopped doing those when I left that job to do a clothing line with Sundek.
About 20 years ago, a friend gave me a small acrylics set and I dabbled with some simple paintings. I hung a few of them on the wall at our surf house and guests started buying them. This was still all in the just-for-the-fun-of-it stage. During this past year, I haven’t been able to surf as much as I would like due to some health issues, so I got much deeper into painting. Somewhere along the line, it really captured me and has kept my stoke totally alive and burning. I post them on Facebook and thankfully they have been selling.
This brings me to this week’s story. I recently did a painting of Honolua Bay on Maui, as I remember it from surfing there in 1964. Sometimes when I post I include a story behind the painting, and I did with this one. It was suggested that I elaborate on this one further, so here it is, the fuller story behind the “Honolua Bay ‘64” painting:
In December of 1964, I was on the North Shore doing one of those annual surf trips to catch some big waves and surf in the annual Makaha International Surfing Championships. A big swell was on it’s way, and everybody was getting ready for it. Curt Mastalka, who I had stayed with the previous summer across the street from Ala Moana, was starting to make a surf movie. He came by and asked if I wanted to fly over to Maui with him and Jock Sutherland to get some footage of us surfing Honolua Bay.
I had only heard…
Read the full article here
