Some new stuff I’ve been working on.
Chinese Wax Job II
art by Ed Fladung
John Esguerra’s epic, surf, art and surf-art zine Chinese Wax Job II is out at your favorite zine counter. You can order it online from Teeluxe.
CWJ2 features the art works of Patrick Griffin, Julia Chiang, Marcus Oakley, Jeff Canham, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Jay Guillmero, Stine Belden Roed, Ryan Tatar, Ty Williams, Dominick Volini, Tofer Chin, Daniel Piwowarczyk, Steve Green, Ed Fladung, Scott Massey, Paul Gallegos, Pat Conlon, Manny Pangilinan, Brock Potucek, Betsy Walton.
You can see a grip of my photos in the spread above. I’m stoked!
I really like the fine arty spreads and dig the vibe. i love the balance of different styles of art tipping towards abstraction – inspires me to get off this computer and create some paintbrush-to-paper art. I know he puts the zine out and all, but check out John Esguerra’s spread below. Totally sick! If that doesn’t inspire you, it’s been too long since you’ve been for a surf.
here are a few more wicked spreads:
art by John Esguerra
art by Scott Massey
art by Marcus Oakley
Liquid Salt is a new online magazine of sorts, created by Glenn Sakamoto. The concept is simple: contact various artists, surfers, shapers, photographers, and filmmakers from all over the surf-stratosphere, give them compelling and inspirational questions, and let them have at it. The results are amazing. Sakamoto has, in a very short time, collected interviews from a stable of surfing’s most influential people by the likes of Paul Strauch, Gerry Lopez, David Nuuhiwa, Buttons Kaluhiokalani, Doc Paskowitz, Rabbit Kekai, Joe Curren, Rochelle Ballard, Bing Copeland, Jeff Divine, Matt Warshaw, Drew Kampion, Jason Baffa, Chris Burkard & Eric Sondequist, Chris Orwig, Mike Salisbury, Jamie Budge, Jaimal Yogis, John Smart, John Van Hamersveld, Thalia Surfshop, Juile Cox, Almond Surfboards, Jon Wegener, Surf Indian Gallery and more. The list is dumb impressive.
Though I harbor no false assumptions of being any kind of surf tastemaker, I am happy to have been interviewed on Liquid Salt recently, holdin’ it down for my little corner of Mexico. So go peep it, yall.
some recent and not so recent photos redone for a black and white printed format
A few more photos from one of the recent Roctober storm swells.
a shot from that Hurricane Patricia swell two weekends ago. Tzahui Poo charging it.
Sucha at sunset.
My piece is up on the Kind Lines site. I’m super stoked. Truth be told, Rick Malwitz glassed in the photos and added the blue tint. It’s as much Rick’s effort as mine.
If you don’t know by now Kind Lines is a surfy art auction created by Rick Malwitz to benefit Surf Aid International. All 23 art works are on display at the Quicksilver store in Soho, Manhattan today through Oct.2nd. and the online auction starts tomorrow.
Go bid on my piece or one of the other beautiful artworks. Support the good cause, homie. Spread some chedda.
Drizzly logging session last night at the headquarters with the crew, a nice sunset and some clean small rollers. Seriously inspirational session after far too long with the stoke tank on empty. A welcomed change from my last sesshin a few days ago at the shortboard spot at low tide, when I dropped into some waist high slop, slipped off the board and landed on my back on almost dry reef (a pound of flesh left on the reef but nothing serious).
The camera? Canon G9 with underwater housing (almost took my front teeth out last night paddling into a wave).
Something is brewing in the lab of Sir Rick Malwitz of The People’s Republic of Brooklyn.
Kind Lines – An art show and auction to benefit SurfAid International
Kind Lines was created by The Peoples Republic of Brooklyn based surfer/shaper Rick Malwitz.
Kind Lines is an art show and auction to benefit Surfaid International. The event, to take place in September of 2009 in NYC, was created by Rick Malwitz, of the Brooklyn-based Malwitz Custom Surfboards. Malwitz wanted to raise money for Surfaid in a creative, fun way that would celebrate surf culture and art. When he started asking artists within the surf community if they would be interested in donating a painting for the event, the response was overwhelming. In the end, 24 artists were selected to participate. Malwitz hand-shaped and bamboo glassed canvases, each resembling a cross-section of a surfboard, and distributed these to the participants. The rules were simple: any medium, any style, any surf-related theme. In September, these 24 original works of art will be featured at gallery in NYC, and an online auction will follow. The auction will be open to anyone, and is a great way to collect original art from some of the most brilliant surf artists. 100% of the proceeds go to Surfaid. Thanks to the sponsorship by Greenlight Surf Supply, Surf Source, and Swaylocks.
The show will be at 303 Grand, an art space in Williamsburg Brooklyn, in late September, Rick is still hammering out the date and time. The auction will be held by Ebay Giving works, so people unable to attend the event will have a chance to bid on the art.
Please support this awesome project! and oh yeah, I’m one the featured artists.
cover
art by John Esguerra
art by Ed Fladung
art by Sergei Sviatchenko
Wicked little surfyish, artish zine produced by John Esguerra called Chinese Wax Job. John assembled a pretty awesome cast of art makers for this zine. Contributing artists include: Cory Hudson, Ryan Tatar, Ty Williams and my work makes an appearance. I was particular caught by the found image collages of Sergei Sviatchenko, really cool work, reminds me of collage work I did back at CalArts.
To order a copy, write to chinesewaxjob@gmail.com
I love zines as a form of expression and Chinese Wax Job is definitely inspiring me to think about starting my own zine again. very cool.
Me: I don’t wanna hype the swell or jinx it for all the Californians waxing up their boards and getting plenty or rest in preparation for this weekend’s swell, but if you guys get anything like what I saw today, you won’t have to worry about the faceless hordes gumming up your favorite surf breaks, the only people who’ll be in the water are the hard to the core. This swell is freaking huge.
You: Wait… How huge?
Me: Like, I could have amnesia or something, but I feel that today I saw the largest surfable wave I have ever seen with my own two eyes. That big. Easily triple overhead. To give it a decent height, maybe 15 feet? I’m pretty sure the guys in the water would say 20, but let’s not get carried away. It was gianormous.
You: Holy Shit!
Me: Yes, it was an epic day.
I was out at my favorite ledgy point break by 9am. Nice chest high waves, with ungodly long waits in between the overhead cleanup sets. This was the kind of session where you spend the entire lull saying I’m gonna take the next one in, the set comes and they are so nicely groomed and walled up, you just can’t bring yourself to go in. For their size, we’re used to chunky storm swell caused by nearby hurricanes, it was a nice change. I could see another of my favorites breaks in the distance getting pounded, with one lone surfer out. At around 1:00pm or so, after feeling victimized by the mid-day mexican summer sun, I grudgingly paddled in. Walking back to the car, I got a wild hair to go check out that other break, I had the camera in the car.
This is a surf spot that breaks perilously close to an outcropping of boulders and grinds along a shallow bed of rocks and sea urchins. This spot has rarely more than 2 or 3 people surfing it at a time. The wave is a pretty technical tube ride that breaks in a bowl pattern, never really giving you an exit. You either ditch early, pull out Hawaiian style, or dive under the lip, hoping you don’t get pulled back into the rock battlefield. People have horror stories about this break. I showed up to see rows of waves coming in, overhead plus. One guy in the water. As I took photos over the course of an hour or so, the sets just got bigger and bigger. Soon enough there were five surfers in the water and the sets were coming every 3-4 minutes like clockwork and large cleanup sets coming every 15-20 minutes.
When my local homies Tzahui and Birri arrived, I debated stashing the camera and braving the thick foam for some olitas buenas. That’s when everyone started scratching for the horizon. It was huge. Not a single person made it out to where the wave broke. And it came in like a solid, moving wall of water. In classic surf-storytelling fashion, I didn’t get this wave on film1. I was too busy pushing my eyeballs back into their sockets. The next wave in the set was slightly smaller, but to see someone float over it, it was like a two story house, so big and fast that the surfers brave enough to attempt it couldn’t even get up the speed to get into it. They just glided over the top, backwards.
This swell is supposed to hit fever-pitch in the middle of the night and tomorrow should be a killer day. Sack up, Californians, the big boys are on the move….
More shots to come, when I can properly lift my arms again.
photo by Ed Fladung
photo by Ed Fladung
This is “Huevo”, getting some greenroom time before running off to work.
Hi, my name is Ed. I’m a graphic designer who lived in L.A. I quit my job, sold my car, rented out my house and moved to Mexico. Along the way, I learned how to surf and fell in love. This blog is my story. In these pages I write about and photograph my daily experience. I also post about things I find interesting: art, design, photography, music, tech, etc...
