The plan was for me to talk at the recent SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT, with my stealth plan to recite a poem I wrote when I still was thinking the show of a wide range of surf-centric art would be part of something bigger, bringing in other lovers of the Pacific Northwest waters, scientists and environmentalists and people who fish or harvest oysters, tugboat captains, and we had some of those… but they weren’t talking about their special connections… and either did I.

Chickened-out. Or, throwback to the 60s, “Haired-out.” I did talk, kind of off the cuff. Here, and I’m not saying it would have been better, is what I wrote:

photo courtesy of Sideslip Surfboards

Art, Surfing, and Barrel Dodging

IMAGINATION connects surfing and art. Surfers imagine how they’re going to cruise or glide or dance on waves… or rip them up. Artists look around, or they, perhaps, stare at a blank canvas and imagine some piece of artwork. It starts with the IMAGE.

The image is, quite possibly, perfect, perfectly rendered, real. Or there are variations, slight or major changes, embellishments, color, perspective, shape, shading, formatting.  

REALITY. This is tougher. Image to reality.

Surfing requires getting your gear together and heading out. Maybe you have reason to believe there will be good waves. EXPECTATION. ANTICIPATION. Even if someone broke a major rule of etiquette and called you, you can’t be entirely certain the waves are chest high and perfect. So, you’re anxious, excited.

You arrive, gear assembled. It’s time for the GREG NOLL MOMENT. Not at third reef pipeline. I’m sure you have that image cataloged in your brain somewhere. Every surfer takes that moment, mind surfing a few waves, putting yourself in the picture. You will wait for a lull, jump in and… surf. Timing, timing, COMMITMENT. You either wade or you leap.

For a writer or an artist, a blank page or an empty canvas can be daunting, even frightening. Getting started can easily be put off with real life chores and commitments. Eventually you make the first sketchy strokes. Wading. Or leaping.

It shouldn’t really be surprising that things don’t go as you hoped. Your words or colors or that six wave set that catches you inside, or wave selection, or just plain PERFORMANCE don’t go as you had imagined. Almost never. Still, you’re doing… okay.

Okay. Let’s say you have a piece of art that you’re pretty satisfied with. Not fully stoked, not ready to sign your name to it. You could do more to it, maybe improve it. But you could also, by continuing, destroy it, lose some quality you almost accidentally, but happily achieved.

Twisting and squeezing this metaphor; you’re surfing down the line, high on the wave face. The wave is getting critical. You could tuck into a barrel you may not make it out of, risk getting pitched over the falls, or you could drop down, attempt to go under and around that section, maybe connect back with the green wave face on the other side.

BARREL DODGING. The result is a less than memorable, could-have-been great ride. And you still might have been wiped out by the broken wave.

The rides that are memorable, the ones that make whatever sacrifice we tell ourselves we’re making to surf, or write, or pursue some sort of artistic accomplishment, are the sections we didn’t think we would make, barrels we didn’t think we would come out of. But we did. Sometimes, even if we didn’t make the wave, we were in there.

I believed I would be a successful artist, or writer, or both, at about the same time I started surfing. If I was grateful any time I got a good ride, I wasn’t satisfied with anything but getting better. I would get frustrated and even angry when my performance in real life, hard, tedious, overwhelming, that Cinerama, surround-sound, twenty-four-seven real world didn’t live up to my great expectations. Pretty standard story.

There are waves, specific rides I remember. Name a spot I’ve surfed, and I will tell you my best ride there, or a perfect wave on which I blew the takeoff, or I didn’t grab the rail when I might have made it if I had; or, here’s an example: Warmwater Jetty, 1970. I pulled out, over the top of a steep section, and watched from behind it peel off perfectly for fifty more yards.

There are things I drew or painted or wrote that I hold, or held, in high regard. And there are all the other drawings and paintings and stories. If I go back and check out works from my past, I am occasionally surprised. Time has given me a chance to be more objective. Some are good enough I can’t believe I did them; others are not.

If we actually had movies, videos, some actual real-time, real-life visuals of any of us surfing, we would learn something our mental GoPro misses. Not as smooth, not as graceful, not as deep in the barrel as we imagined.

With art, there is something to read, or look at, or touch. Almost none of it is perfect. Or sacred. The truth is almost nothing is perfect. If we insist on perfection to be happy or satisfied, we won’t be. Still, we don’t want to settle for ‘good enough.’ We can set a project aside, repaint, redraw. Or we can hit ‘save as’ and keep writing, keep editing. Or we can take that step of putting the brush or the pen or the pencil back onto the surface, boldly going somewhere just past where our imagination has taken us. Or we can tuck in and hang on.

Wipe out or come out.

Either way, the possible gift is another moment we might remember. Art, surfing, life. If our memories aren’t as tangible, as real, as any story or song or painting or sculpture or assemblage, our mental images are what remains, and almost all that remains, of anything we’ve seen or read or experienced.

As surfers, as workers, as artists, as people who are in this real world with other real people, we seek to form new images, future memories.

The best memories, of the near perfect and near-weightless, blissful moments, allow us to forget the anxiety, the fearful and the hateful times we’ve experienced, the real and psychological pain we’ve felt.

These images are our personal art collections, and, hopefully, they last as long as we do.  If there’s a message in here it’s this: Be brave when you can.

STEALTH SURF RIG UPDATE: First, the GOOD NEWS: The ladder racks that never really fit on my work van, with some blacksmithing and cursing, fit on my (equipped with gutters) surf rig. Heavy duty, yes, but the racks I bought for the van were only $65, and I couldn’t find any surf racks for anything near that. BAD NEWS: My second rebuilt alternator developed a high-pitched squeal (not of delight), first heard when I took George Takamoto to Dialysis. “Bad bearing,” George said, with no slack given to me for purchasing cheap. I took it to the auto electric specialist the next morning. He agreed with George. I took it around the corner to O’Reilly’s. Their guy tested it, said it was working, noise (varied in intensity- pretty quiet at this time, must be from something else. SOMETHING ELSE! WHAT?! Later that day, I started the car, opened the hood, stuck my finger on the back of the alternator. I could lessen the squealing. Stephen Davis and I went down with the info to Colin (I’m just going to spell his name the M-Word accepted way). He agreed the alternator was the problem. I went around to O’Reilly’s. The manager agreed, ordered another one. NEXT DAY, third alternator installed with the usual amount of drama and irritation. Worked fine… for about twenty miles. Maybe.

Same squeal. Same lack of compassion from George, same shock from Steve, same questioning from Trish. SOOO, checking out the ratings (now) on the rebuilt alternator, I discovered it has a one out of five. SOOOO, I ordered a supposedly new one through Amazon, four-plus rating, though it looks suspiciously like the ones that failed. To be delivered Monday; the bad part being if it’s another bad part, I don’t think I can exchange it. Should have listened to George. “I’d have bought the BOSCH… Erwin.” “Of course you would have… George.”

I will update on WEDNESDAY when I add the next pages from “SWAMIS.” Hopefully, neither the car nor I will be squealing.

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