My daughter (not yet a surfer) wrote this in 2006 for a class while at the University Of Washington...
Acknowledgements
I can’t imagine how my life would look if I’d grown up with a lawyer for a father, instead of a carpenter-surfer hybrid of a dad…
Miserlou. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches with sand in them on the van ride home from Westport. Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax. Surf Punks: My Beach! Go Home!
The pungent smell of wetsuits fresh from the cold Northwest surf. Those magic words: “Offshore winds, low-chop, four-to-six foot swell.” Sunscreen in my eyes. The Ventures. The sight of my dad coming in from the garage covered in shaping dust, looking like a ghost.
This is the stuff of my childhood, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Just as my identity relies on my dad’s influence while growing up, I couldn’t have written this essay without his help—explicit or not. I never would have dreamed of writing about surf culture if I hadn’t grown up under the same roof as one of its well-respected members, nor could I have gleaned the same understanding of its cultural influence without long discussions with my dad this past quarter. I suppose this paper is a meager attempt to honor my father and thank him for his exceptional role in my life. Of course, this hardly begins to do him the justice he deserves, but well, coming to regard to our parents as people is tough, and we all have to start somewhere.
As a result of my research and reminiscence throughout the writing process, I’ve gradually unearthed a small part of my identity that too craves the ocean. Despite years spent resisting my dad’s many enthusiastic attempts to get me onto a board, it appears I may have finally come around. I’ve decided to take up the sport after all—and this time not wimp out after one minor wipeout. It’s in my blood. Perhaps the best way for me to thank my dad for his many gifts to me will be to—as Hyde would put it—labor under this gift of the surf, and incorporate it once and for all into my own identity.
Ann Jensen
English 494
Final Project
Fetishize the Wild Surf!
A Brief History of the Surf Board and the Commodification of a Subculture, as Catalyzed by Film and Technology
My very first memory is of a surfboard. My dad and I were at the beach in Santa Cruz, making sandcastles and enjoying the sunny weather, when a young boy walked past carrying a surfboard. My dad asked if he could borrow the boy’s board for a few minutes, and having received permission, he waded with me and the board into the ocean where knee-high waves were breaking. Promising me I was going to be a surfer like him, he picked me up and stood me on the board, giving it a gentle push into the miniscule wave—a ripple, really—that was traveling past. As a toddler with no experience in the surf, I stayed up for all of two seconds, and promptly tumbled off the board into the chilly waters of Northern California, surfacing with a mouthful of sand and a deep enough understanding of the surfboard and the sport to last a lifetime. Or so I thought.
Described by Trevor Cralle as “a sport, an art form, a subculture, a social phenomenon, an existential attitude, and a way of life that is world wide” (Cralle, xxii), the vast and reaching influence of surf culture could not be possible without that most deceptively straightforward of objects—the surfboard. Through this one object, it is possible to trace the history of surf’s cultural commodification—from revered fetish to disposable cultural symbol and back again—as negotiated through technological developments in the shaping industry and media depictions of the surfboard and its cultural usage. By raising the possibility of finding the perfect surf conditions, and its realistic depiction of the sport, Bruce Brown’s wildly successful 1964 documentary The Endless Summer helped catalyze the subculture’s commodification, while paradoxically preserving its purity and roots. Because of its contradictory nature, the film serves as a lens through which cultural commodification and fetishization can be examined, helping explain the post-1960’s commercialization of the sport and the boards that make it possible, which in turn prompted the rebelliously nostalgic return to the traditional by independent shapers like my father towards end of the century.
The surfboard has a history as rich and varied as the members of the surf community who exalt it. In its earliest days, surfing was a form of ceremony and social hierarchy; the type of board and wave ridden by a surfer was determined by their social status. The physical shape of the board spoke of one’s social rank, with the largest boards reserved for the ruling class—so heavy they had to be carried down to the beach by a team of servants—leaving the relatively smaller boards for the commoners. These early boards were massive, crafted from solid redwood or white pine, measuring between 14 and 18 feet, and weighing around 150 pounds. The creation of these early surfboards was a highly respected ceremony, filled with tradition, and spiritual significance. Scures describes this ancient board-building process:
“Only certain trees were used, which were ritualistically chosen and carefully transformed into the ancient wave-riding vehicles. Before the board ever touched the water, there were more ceremonies to be performed, which would serve to forge a special bond between man, board and the sea. Regardless of a surfer’s social position, all surfboards were treated with great respect and care” (5).
The reverence with which the surfboard was shaped illustrates the pivotal role it played in the society and cultural heritage of the Hawaiian people, where it served as a fetish, an “act of recognizing God everywhere you [look]” (Cohen, 200). Connecting man to the mysterious unknown of the sea, “betray[ing] an awareness of the incomprehensible, and an effort to commune with it,” the surfboard was more than a piece of sporting equipment—it was a bridge between the impermanence of human life and the ever lapping eternity of the ocean (204). Essentially, the surfboard allowed its rider to penetrate the unknown, in an attempt to harness its power and make it knowable. Contemporary longboard surfer Billy Hamilton elaborates on this ancient spiritual connection with the ocean, saying “to become the energy of the wave, that’s the main idea. You take when the water gives, and you give when the water takes. It’s a constant interplay of bold confrontations and mellow respect.” Echoing the traditional beliefs of the Hawaiians, it is clear that without the surfboard, communion with the sea would be nearly impossible, elevating the board into a position of great importance and totemic power.
Up until the 1950’s, surfboard design had remained fairly static, with changes only occurring superficially according to local surf needs and available materials. Accordingly, surf culture stayed relatively true to its reverent roots, with surfers treating the sea as an integral part of their spiritual and social interactions. Thanks to the advent of cheap, easily reproduced polyurethane technology developed for WWII and the booming aircraft industry, however, in the 1950’s the formerly sacred and locally based surfing world exploded onto a broad consumer market. By taking the most recent minimally altered incarnation of the surfboard and replacing the wood with polyurethane foam, shapers were able to reduce the weight of the boards to around thirty pounds, a fraction of that of its Hawaiian predecessors.
This change in manufacturing methods revolutionized surfing. Not only did these featherweight boards make surfing—a sport formerly inaccessible to outsiders due to the weight of the hefty boards—easier for beginners, they were also much easier to mass-produce for a growing market. Whereas it once took weeks to shape a board, using specific materials and sanctified methods in order to produce the ideal object for connecting man with the infinite of the sea, it now took a couple days, working with materials developed for distinctly secular airplanes and war.
These boards’ mass-production proved necessary, because when used regularly, fiberglass boards show wear in months, rarely lasting as long as their sturdy wooden counterparts. Combining this inherent flimsiness with the commercially catalyzed growing consumer desire to ride the fast yet fragile boards of the increasingly famous professionals, the industry was left with a market for a disposable surfboard. When the ritualized, independent shaping community realized that their tradition of modifying boards according to surfers’ needs by improving board performance was being threatened by a massive planned obsolescence, they retaliated by experimenting with other, more durable materials, such as graphite/carbon, and Kevlar-49. These attempts were stifled however, since the new hegemonic profit-driven community of shapers would be put out of business if an indestructible board could be created, no matter how well it might potentially ride.
Having demonstrated that the only driving force behind surfboard shaping was now consumerism, it became clear that modern surf culture was being transformed into a mere shadow of the highly regimented and spiritual system of old. As surfboard production and the availability of relatively inexpensive, easily ridden boards increased, so did the representations of surfing in the media, creating a demanding market of stoked teenagers looking to emulate their favorite movie stars or musicians. In the early 1960’s, a slew of over seventy truly tacky Hollywood “waxploitation” films were produced, with the accurate assumption that, just like the boards that make it possible, although completely transformed from its origins, surf culture sells. Ben Marcus describes these films:
“Hollywood has mishandled, misrepresented, misinterpreted, and misaligned few other people, places, or sports more than surfing. Perhaps only the Nazi party has been worked over more. Perhaps that is. […] Some of the worst movies ever made were waxploitation flicks: Surf Nazis Must Die, Monster from the Surf, and too many more.” (Marcus, 102-103)
These filmic misrepresentations of surfing, although absurd in their portrayal of the lifestyle, were hugely popular. They commodified the sport and culture, marketing it predominately to people who had never seen a wave and consequently don’t know fact from fiction, resulting in a blind acceptance and approval of a gross cultural misrepresentation; Americans literally bought the lies the films espoused.
The commercial soundtracks which accompanied these films were also a huge hit with American consumers. Frankie Avalon and Elvis, singing so-called “surf ballads,” sold right alongside artists like Dick Dale and The Ventures, who were far more legitimate within the subculture. It was all the same to the average indiscriminate consumer, however, and record companies made a fortune off the sounds that had become associated with surfing through film.
To the long-time surfers who had watched while their lifestyle was commodified and spoon-fed to consumers, the media representations of surfing, and their real-life ramifications, were an outrage. Joan Ormrod gives an example of the surf community’s reaction to this commodification: “The exploitation of surfing caused such fury in the Californian surf community of the time that Mickey Dora, the most famous surfer in California and a vociferous opponent of surf commercialism, released a jar of moths onto the screen at Beach Party’s first screening.” Local surf celebrities were not the only voices speaking out against the commodifying free-for-all of their subculture. In a letter to the editor of Surfer magazine, a reader describes the dangerous influence that surfing has had on the typical consumer:
“Your influence in the surfing world and in the changes it has undergone are fantastic. […] You, since 1961, have taken all the stoked kids from anywhere near a beach, plopped them into the ocean, sold them colorful boards, insulated them with the warmest wetsuits, wrapped them in leashes lest they fall off, and then showed them how to surf through pictures. If they weren’t making it, then there were neat sandals and constantly changing board designs for them to spend money on in their effort to become like the guy in the pictures” (Surfer, March 1977: 16)
By painting a picture of surf culture that makes surfing appear as simple as purchasing the correct media-endorsed paraphernalia, including surfboards, publications such as Surfer—which are paid to advertise commercially produced boards and the media representations they make possible—contribute to the already overwhelming appropriation of traditional surf culture, disregarding the original philosophy of the lifestyle in favor of financial gain.
In 1964, as a response to the staggering exploitation of a once sacred activity, and in “an effort to depict an authentic surf lifestyle,” long-time surfer Bruce Brown “cobbled together $50,000 and set out with two California surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, to produce a true documentary on real surfers. Not beach bums or playboys who sang to their girlfriends, surfers were athletes who enjoyed the adventure of scanning the globe in search of the perfect wave” (Ormrod, 41, quoting “The Sick Six: Six of the Most Important Surf Movies Ever Made, from the Fifties to Now”). Often declared the most successful documentary ever made, The Endless Summer has a simple premise: take two local California surfers who are fed up with the crowded conditions of their home beaches (no doubt caused by the increase of interest in the sport due to commodification), buy them two round-the world tickets, and send them on what the Beach Boys call a “Surfari” as they travel the planet in search of the perfect wave, in a state of perpetual carefree summertime.
The film’s production values are remarkably simple. Financed in part by the meager profits of an earlier film sponsored by master shaper Dale Velzy, Brown’s The Endless Summer was shot on 16mm film, using real locations and surfers, a stark departure from the flashy waxploitative Beach Party movies that dominated the box office of the period. The decision to travel the globe in search of the perfect wave was serendipitous, as Brown explains: “Originally we were just going to South Africa and then come back…but it turned out to be $50 cheaper to go all the way round the world, so we did that.” This relaxed attitude towards the filmmaking process reflects the traditional, low-key philosophy of the surf community that the film portrays. The actual filming methods used in the film also demonstrate this low-tech, basic approach to telling surf’s nostalgic story. Many of the film’s “action” shots were captured by attaching a waterproof camera to the nose of a surfboard using rope and a suction cup, allowing the viewer to experience surfing through the perspective of that which makes the sport possible, the surfboard itself. This not only saved money, it also allows audiences who are otherwise unfamiliar with surfing to get a realistic depiction of the surfer’s experience, rather than watching Annette Funicello and her hair pose in front of a blue screen.
The Endless Summer portrays surfing as a community-based activity, introducing each local surfer by name, providing the audience with an interesting anecdote about them as they demonstrate their prowess in the local surf breaks. The intimacy of Brown’s narration makes the audience feel like well-versed members of this subculture, drawing them in to this romantically traditional version of surfing captured on film. The depiction of the sport itself aids in this nostalgic rendition of a rapidly modernizing tradition. The surfers all ride medium-sized waves on long boards made of wood, indicating a preference for the traditional methods that predate the polyurethane revolution that changed the face of the sport and subculture. The only flashy wave riding, or “hotdogging” that is present onscreen comes in the form of riding the nose of the board, an activity that looks easy, but requires great skill, something an amateur would be unable to do on a recently bought, commercially-produced board.
The message of the film adds to its simplicity: “With enough time and money you could spend the rest of your life following the summer around the world” (The Endless Summer). What surfer hasn’t dreamt of quitting their workaday life in favor of the possibility of forever communing with the ocean? Its simple premise reinforces “one of the defining myths of surf culture and representations of surfing outside the subculture,” working to both preserve the nostalgia and hopefully instill traditional surf values in the new generations of surfers who will inevitably see it (Ormrod, 39). The film’s success both within and without the traditional surf community is understandable, for “when compared with the flashy, hyperbolic poster for Muscle Beach Party, the simplicity of The Endless Summer poster promises a mythic and idealized version of surfing and surf culture as Robert August and Mike Hynson, ‘follow this everlasting summer around the world,’” providing a refreshing take on what was by then a well-worn genre of film (41).
As the two young men surf the globe, their experiences further reflect the sparse aesthetic promoted by the film. Multiple long shots of the two surfers alone in the water, looking toward the horizon, silhouetted by a golden sunset evoke the idea of an eternal summer twilight spent communing with the mythic unknown of the ocean, forging nostalgic connections between the type of surfing depicted in the film and the philosophy of the surf community that predates the film’s production. Ormrod elaborates on this effect: “The notion of the wave forming ‘just over the horizon’ is a promise of the fulfillment of the quest but also it holds an echo of pushing back a frontier or exploring a new and undiscovered country” (41). The Endless Summer helps perpetuate the traditional values held in the Hawaiian surf culture, of treating surfing as an attempt to know the unknowable, to discover the undiscovered realms of the ocean and what it represents spiritually.
Because of its minimalist production and authentic, albeit nostalgic, depiction of the sport, The Endless Summer has been praised by the surf community as a masterpiece of the culture. Matt Warshaw explains the film’s importance: “The Endless Summer defined our sprit. For the first time the rest of the world would have a clear look at the surfing lifestyle’ (Ormrod, 39, quoting Surfer’s Journal History of Surfing Films). Cutting through the cheesy image of surfing promoted by Hollywood movies at the time, the film was seen as a true depiction of the subculture whose roots were rapidly being exterminated by commercialization.
Adding to its authenticity and acclaim within the surfing world as “belong[ing] to a sub-genre of surf films described as ‘pure’” and non-commercial, the film was originally exhibited without any set soundtrack or script (Ormrod, 39). “The narration was live and the music was from records or a tape machine that would be turned on and off between talking. The narration often changed and it wouldn’t have been unusual for different music to be used at different showings” (Marcus, 104). Because there was no contract between Brown and a record company, the film initially bore no mark of commercial ties to the music industry. There was no potential for profit to be made by commodifying the lifestyle presented in The Endless Summer by pairing it with a commercially viable musical act. Brown chose the soundtrack for each exhibition based on what was right for the situation, not by what a record company executive thought would sell. The film’s initial distribution further reflects its production and message. It is what Ormrod describes as one of the few
“surf films made by surfers for limited surfing audience and typically exhibited at surf clubs. Brown’s credentials as a surfer, a surf filmmaker and his association with significant shapers such as Dale Velzy would assure the authenticity of surf culture to its audiences. “Pure” surf films relied on the film producer distributing and exhibiting them around […] high school halls, and clubhouses to enthusiastic surf audiences” (39).
Having found great success within the local surf communities who had viewed the film and deemed it authentic, in an attempt to gain Hollywood distribution and a wider audience with which to share his message, Brown visited American cities such as Wichita—where the film ran for two weeks to packed houses—resulting in Columbia eventually picking it up for widespread distribution.
The Endless Summer was re-released in 1966, with a fixed soundtrack featuring The Sandals and Bruce Brown’s own narration, based on the loose script he used in the early days of the film’s exhibition. This re-release, which Brown had hoped would dispel myths promoted by commercial films and expose surfing’s true nature to a wider audience, worked instead to help further commodify the sport by increasing its popularity, and consequently, the demand for surfboards. By promising audiences that the perfect wave is nearly at hand, the film necessitates faster and more technologically advanced shaping methods, removing most of the former tradition and reverence from the act of surfboard shaping. In an “Endless Summer,” one will need an endless supply of quickly and cheaply produced boards to help them ride that perfect wave waiting over the horizon. This change in the way supply and demand was negotiated within the industry in turn changed the way surfboards were ridden, and the way in which surf culture was viewed commercially. Up until the 1960’s, the only real changes in the surfboard had been changes of material and fin structure. Then in 1966—the same year as The Endless Summer’s commercial re-release—young Australian Nat Young secured the change in everything once held sacred in traditional surf culture, by introducing the shortboard and the new method of riding, ending the long-held tradition and domination of the longboard. In stark contrast to the calm, naturalistic riding style of the longboard, this new shortboard’s ride was marked by sharp, erratic, aggressive movements which sliced and violated the wave, appealing to a younger, faster generation. Because of this inherent appeal to a demographic with a large disposable income, the short board cemented itself—and the surf culture it has come to represent—in the minds and pockets of Americans for generations to come.
Ironically, The Endless Summer—which promotes the traditional values of independence and reverence for the sea—created such popularity for the sport that the beaches become even more crowded than before. “For many surfers…the real search for the perfect wave has been less to do with adventure, romance, and the pursuit of new experiences and more with just getting the hell away from what Mickey Dora called “all the surf dopes, ego heroes, rah-rah boys, concessionaires, lifeguards, fags, and finks” (Ormrod, 44), precisely the people that would see the film and decide to take up the sport in their own quest for the perfect wave. Instead of enlightening the masses to the reality of surfing, it contributed to the already overwhelming problem of the culture’s commodification.
Because The Endless Summer promises that with the right resources it is possible to surf perfect conditions, the wave itself becomes a commodity, to be ridden on the fetishized and commodified surfboard. The ocean has lost the mystery and reverence it once had, becoming incredibly knowable and quantifiable. Brown even goes so far as to pinpoint the exact location of the perfect wave, and describe it using mundane terms. According to the film, Cape St. Francis, South Africa is evidently where the perfect conditions can be found, where for three hundred days out of the year there are straight offshore winds and seventy degree water. By revealing the quantitatively best break, Brown removes any of the mysterious communion of man with the sea still remaining in the sport, practically guaranteeing that anyone with a board and enough money can understand what has taken hundreds of years and several civilizations to even begin to know.
The role the surfboard plays in this commodification spurred by the film reveals its role as a fetish within the commercialized culture. “Surf culture[…] organizes itself around totemic objects such as the surfboard or the perfect wave. However, it is not only acquiring material goods that gives meaning in a culture; it is in imagining the acquisition” (Ormrod, 44). Since traveling to South Africa to find the perfect wave isn’t a realistic goal for the typical viewer of the film, the surfboard and culture it represents are fetishized because of their imagined possibility. If wave perfection was possible for American surf consumers, commodification and mass consumption would cease to exist, because people would stop imagining the perfect wave’s acquisition and actually acquire it. Cohen elaborates on the fetishization of objects and what they represent: “the extent to which almost anything appeals may be the extent to which it signifies, to which it evokes and resonates with associations and meanings in our own minds” (205). The Endless Summer depicts a pseudo-reality of surf history, produced when the sport and culture were just about to become hugely commodified, but still retained much of their traditions, purity, and local charm. Perhaps the film is so iconic and popular with wide audiences because of the loss it both signifies and immortalizes. Through the film, people consume the idealized, nostalgic version of the subculture, not the hyper-commercialized version of the sport that it has actually become.
In the years following the release of The Endless Summer, surfing’s popularity continued to grow. By the 1980’s, the surfing world was so ubiquitous as a fetishized culture in mainstream American that it had become a two billion dollar-a-year industry, thanks to hyper-consumerism of an image that was readily marketed and purchased by savvy youth. Films like Point Break, which juxtapose fast-paced action sequences, bank robbery, skydiving, sex, drugs, and frenetic short board surfing crafted an image of surfing that is almost unrecognizable from the version of the sport as represented by The Endless Summer, let alone the spiritually rich Hawaiian cultural cornerstone from which it originated. In a world where bigger is a better, nostalgic representation of a long gone culture was seen as quaintly boring, definitely not marketable. With the advent of MTV and mass media consumerism, surf fashion became a huge trend as well, prompting longstanding surf outfitter Quicksilver to go public on the New York Stock Exchange. Comparing the low-key, individualistic nature of the early years of surf culture to the mediated, trendy commodified surf-culture of the period following the 1980’s, it is easy to see how surf legends like Mickey Dora could describe mass marketed surf culture as having “turned our once great individualistic sport into a mushy, soggy cartoon” (Cralle, 20).
Contributing to the already overwhelming commodification of surf culture through surfboard itself, the 1990’s technology boom further endangered the increasingly obsolete role of the local shaper in crafting the surfboards that make the sport possible. Computer software like CAD/CAM design program began to be used to create surfboard templates, and coupling them with computer guided “shaping machines,” surfboards could easily be replicated without the need for a shaper. After the initial milling, all the human touch required was some final sanding and fiber-glassing, which was easily accomplished by Santa Cruz based company SurfTech, in an enormous factory in Taiwan. Not only did this outsourced shaping system threaten to obliterate any remaining mark of the sacred, devastating the already dwindling population of traditional shapers, it also raised questions of inhumane working conditions and environmental harm, due to the toxic nature of the materials.
Boards are now being created by factory workers who’ve never seen a wave, harkening back to the mass marketing of surf culture to landlocked consumers through media that began in the 1960’s. My dad explains the frustration of the local shaping community:
“This is a situation where the master/apprentice relationship of surfer/board and designer/builder is lost. And with that, a future great surfboard designer just isn’t being nurtured. Who will be the next to discover a breakthrough design? A factory worker? It feels like the things we have worked so hard to create are going to be co-opted by guys with more money and an unquenchable desire for even more.”
This is clearly an issue close to the hearts of many independent shapers like my father, who have been pursuing their passion for non-commercialized surf culture their entire lives. By writing off the expertise of years in the water and the understanding of shaping that only a surfer can have, in favor of high profits through overseas outsourcing, the commodified surf industry has turned its back on thousands of years of tradition. It is a veritable slap in the face to the small communities who are still true to the lessons years of experience and devotion to the lifestyle have lent them.
As a result of this disillusionment with the shaping industry and its commercialized direction, in the mid 1990’s there was a resurgence of interest in the longboard, and a nostalgic return to the traditional shaping methods used prior to the 1960’s. Staying true to their innovative roots, by combining new, lighter-weight materials with nostalgic techniques, independent shapers revived the “long-ignored long boards, making them retro-cool again and insuring they remain influential to the board design industry of today. In fact, half of today's surfing population rides the same style of long board as those designed almost 50 years ago” (Jensen). While the revived interest in traditional surf culture may have come about through a nostalgic attempt to recreate the past, the lasting effects of the longboard as a once again relevant part of surfing are huge. Having long dominated the sport both visibly in the media, and physically in the waves, the short board and everything it had come to represent as a cultural fetish now has great competition. Now people can look to both styles of boards and riding, and decide for themselves which version of the sport is the best suited to their own desires—something commercial and edgy, or something with roots that go deeper than the movie screen and the radio speakers.
With interest once again piqued in the roots of surf culture, the local independent market for traditional surfboards and methods has re-opened, providing shapers like my dad with an opportunity to play an innovative role in the direction that surfboard design is taking. In 2003, following a rich tradition of shapers who use local trends and needs as inspiration, my dad set out to create a board that honored the past but looked toward the future, in a form of nostalgic remembrance that doesn’t risk obsolescence due to unrealistic expectations regarding the power of nostalgia. His innovative shaping style carries forward a tendency towards the original, with elements of the past being honored throughout the process. Using “the basic stringer and internal rib structure of a boat or airplane wing” as an artistic template, my dad has experimented from there, eventually developing a method that uses over 300 pieces of wood to create a hollow wooden surfboard. This is no easy task, since “one mistake ruins weeks of work. To do this, you need patience beyond belief and a mastery of the process, plus the ability to adapt to minor crises and be mentally open to new ideas and materials” (Jensen). Clearly, shapers like my dad view the shaping process with far more reverence and respect for its difficult process than the outsourced corporations, demonstrating their subtle resemblance to the sport’s first shapers.
Because of his innovative thinking and advocacy for independence within the shaping community, my dad has helped change the way shapers view surfboard design, and although not yet impacting change on a global level, his work is inspiring change throughout the independent surf community. In his own words,
“Among the non-commercial builders I’m well respected and am the standard to which all others are measured. My work is considered to be that of a true craftsmen and innovator. I get e-mails from around the world praising my work, with regular requests to be my apprentice. You never know how far and wide one’s influence can be” (Jensen).
With this awareness of his responsibilities and influential role within the independent shaping community, my father describes his goal as a 21st century shaper:
“I wanted to re-invent an aesthetic rooted in history, with a connection to region; to primarily use woods indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. I’ve been intrigued with the artistic concepts and inherent natural beauty of wooden surfboards; working with an infinite palate of raw, natural materials opens up artistic horizons that foam and fiberglass never could.”
A truly independent spirit, my dad never accepted the status-quo in life, let alone in the popular surf community. Living in the Northwest, he is less influenced by the hegemonic media representations of surfing, and the majority of the time he surfs alone and is home before 8am. His frustration with the dominant surfing culture is evident while describing another reason for developing his new method. “I wanted to give the finger to the surf industry for limiting exposure to viable alternative surf vehicles. I can build my boards from what I can get at any good hardware store” (Jensen). Unlike the mass-produced boards that still dominate the industry, my father’s boards are accessible to anyone with enough experience surfing to know what they want out of a board, and the necessary drive create their own personalized surfboard. He is putting the power to connect with the unknown of the ocean back in the surfer’s hands, by enabling people to literally create their own connections with the infinite sea. With time and independent shapers like my father working to counter the negative commercialization of the sport, the current perception of surfing has begun to shift, returning to its roots while keeping an evolutionary eye on the future, providing a former subculture with the opportunity to gradually reclaim itself as something far too full of life to commodify.
Growing up surrounded by representations of both mainstream and independent surf and shaping culture, I’ve been blessed with an unusual understanding of how objects are transformed by commodification and consumerism. Watching my dad shape his boards in our garage, eavesdropping on his conversations with fellow Northwest shapers, and going to the beach with him on mini-surf trips has given me a deep appreciation for the slightly rebellious spirit of the independent surfing community—especially when contrasted with the obnoxious commercial surf magazines with their Reef girls in thong bikinis, and the ridiculous late-century surf films that bore absolutely no resemblance to the subculture I had grown up in. Observing the tides of power change within the shaping industry as the commercialized shortboard was demoted in popularity, to be on equal footing with the longboard, and the effect of this on media representations of the sport, has shown how cultural objects are not only affected by commodification, but also change the way we subsequently commodify cultures. Now whenever someone, having learned of my dad’s occupation and my upbringing, says, Wow! Totally radical! Can I have a board? I’ve always wanted to surf!, I simply smile coolly, confident that as change is slowly affected within the shaping industry, public understanding of the true, non-commercial nature of the sport will gradually grow as well. And until that point in time, I’m prepared to patiently explain the differences between the surfing they see on the screen and what actually goes on in the waves, and if that fails, introduce them to an expert—my dad.
Works Cited:
Cohen, Leah Hager. Glass, Paper, Beans. New York : Doubleday, 1997
Cralle, Trevor. The Surfin’ary: A Dictionary of Surfing Terms and Surfspeak. Berkely: Ten Speed Press, 1991.
The Endless Summer. Dir. Bruce Brown. DVD. Image Entertainment, 1964.
Jensen, Paul. Personal Interview. 6 Nov. 2006.
Marcus, Ben. Surfing USA !: an illustrated history of the coolest sport of all time.. Voyageur Press INC, 2005.
Ormrod, Joan. "Endless Summer (1964): Consuming Waves and Surfing the Frontier." Film & History 35.1(2005): 39-51.
Scures, Joseph. “The Social Order of the Surfing World.” MA Thesis. University of Washington , 1986.
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