SAINT CHRISTOPHER with Christopher Thomas Campbell

SAINT CHRISTOPHER with Christopher Thomas Campbell

[00:00:00]

Tyler: [00:01:00] Hello and welcome to the Swell Season Surf Podcast.

I'm your host, Tyler Brewer. Today's guest is Christopher Thomas Campbell, an artist, architect, and surfboard shaper based in Phil, based in New York, and founder of St. Christopher's Surf Craft. I first met Christopher at the Surfboard meetup a few years ago and have had the pleasure to watch his repertoire grow over the years.

And his designs evolve into something unique and masterful. Chris brings a unique perspective to surfboard design shaped by his academic background with both a master's in architecture and an MFA in fine art. Alongside professional experience in art fabrication. That blend of structure, materials and process carries directly into his shaping philosophy.

He's a passionate advocate of the Edge board design pioneered by George Greeno in the 1960s [00:02:00] and resurrected by Kidman and Ericsson and builds edge board's influence by Mark Andrey's approach, adapted for real world conditions from the varied New York slop to the perfectly groomed peelers of Central America.

He has recently released a zine for breaking down his different models of edge boards, and it's absolutely stunning and lovely as I'm holding right here. And today we're gonna dig into board design rail engagement, fin setups, glassing decisions, shaping in a studio in soho, and evolving the identity of modern backyard shapers.

We are excited to bring Chris on for an honest conversation about innovation in Surf Craft and what's next for St. Christopher's Surf Craft. Chris, welcome to the show. Wow,

Christopher: thank you, Tyler. Yeah. Do we have like, uh, seven days?

Tyler: I think we can cover it. Yeah. Got a lot. Yeah. Yeah. We got a lot to, I gotta tell you, like, I, [00:03:00] I had like this morning when I was getting prepared, I was just like.

Dude, there's so much fucking ground to cover. Yeah. It's like, how are we gonna do this? Like, there's a lot of fun, uh, things that I want to, like, dive into. It's like amazing. Like, you have like this wonderful, uh, background of, of art surfboard design and it all kind of blends really nicely. But I've, I wanna just jump right into the guts of it.

Yeah. Let's go. Um, you know, and I wanted to see if like, you know, with your edge board, you know, designs, uh, could you give us first for our listeners, like, what is an edge board? Break it down, what it does. Yeah. You know, just kind of give them a little rudimentary kind of introduction to it. I

Christopher: like, I like the jump straight in.

I, I will say before I go too far in the deep end. Yeah. You know, I think the privilege we have of living in New York and surfing is that. I've heard, um, gen Teel say this, he said, no one moves to New York to be a surfer. No. So the people you get to meet are like [00:04:00] incredible. Right. Like yourself and everyone we meet on the beach when we get outta the water.

So that said, that's why we have this podcast. I might sound interesting, but it's literally just because I can't surf all the time, you know, I wouldn't do anything else where we're upset

Tyler: obsessive people in New York, you know? Exactly.

Christopher: So, yeah, straight in on the edge board. So, um, you know, I got possessed by the design when the film came out on the edge of the dream.

And, um, I had just started shaping. So it was. I was in this perfect, ignorant place. You know, I think, I think that's like important to say. Mm-hmm. Like there's this sweet spot where you don't know enough to know how badly or how wrong you're doing something. Yeah, right. It's like an amazing place to be, actually.

I try to stay there as long as possible, um, in most things. But, um, so I thought it would be a worthwhile pursuit. You know, you watch the performance of those boards on the film, and I, I think, like, I wanna say my second or third board was that, but basically the design, you know, [00:05:00] it's premised off of being essentially two bottom shapes, right?

Mm-hmm. Um, one being a displacement hall and one being a planning hall. Um, and within those variables, there's a lot of elements you can play with. But I'd say the main takeaways, I think when people ask me this question, what I try to say is that the boards have an innate ability to take a high line and go very fast and hold in the wave and, um.

For you and me, for our waves. I'm always thinking about when we go out and the tide's getting low and the waves are racetrack fast, and I just know where I need to be on the wave and where I want to be occupying this. Mm-hmm. Upper, upper third of the wave. And to me, when I first road one, I felt it immediately pull up into that high line and I felt the design engage in, in exactly what I thought we needed.

Mm-hmm. To sort of like make those sections that we don't make and things like that. So, and I'll, I'll be totally honest, I probably overdesigned the [00:06:00] first few, and I had that perfect insane speed and insane lock-in feeling, but I hadn't navigated how to make that into an intensely maneuverable board quite yet.

Mm-hmm. So that's sort of where the, you know, you make one, you feel the amazing feeling and you're like, oh, okay. I got a lot of work to do. Yeah.

Tyler: Yeah. So it's like. Especially here because our waves are in, in Rockaway particularly, our waves are so fast. Yeah. And so down the line when we get 'em that I notice even for myself, just my boards, I'm always trying to stay pretty high.

Yeah. A lot of times when it's fast, like, and when you get that engagement on that high line, you know, you, you feel like you can make any section almost. And I imagine with that edge board just, you know, you have, one of the things I always thought was interesting about the Edge board is also is you have like, you could play with like almost two different rockers Absolutely.

On that board, you know? Absolutely. You have that bottom part, which can be real flat and fast, and then the [00:07:00] rail, yeah. You can have more curve and that can help you engage.

Christopher: That's like basically once I get past the conversational hurdle of telling people like, look, they go really fast, they ride high. It's like I jump straight into exactly what you're saying.

That you, you, the rail line that you have engaged when you're on that highline is an incredibly. Flat rocker rail line. I mean, I, to get into the nitty gritty, we're talking a difference in, um, sort of curvature of half an inch. So imagine the curvature coming up half an inch. Mm-hmm. In surfboard dimensions lot.

That's huge, right? Yeah. So you really, the other thing is you really have three rockers. 'cause you have, what you have is the sort of rail line rocker. You have the, what I'll call the apex rocker. And then you have, if you're adding concave, depending on if you're doing double inset, double single, you're gonna have a third rocker.

So it's really like, it's getting really, and, um, I don't want it to sound too over complicated. Yeah. Because it's not really, you know, it's like [00:08:00] to, for me, like, um, in doing a lot of like historical research, um, what I found was that these ideas existed heavily in sort of, uh. In the thirties in, um, military plane mm-hmm.

Boat planes and things like that, the Catalina boat planes. And their goal was just to get the boat out of the water as fast as possible. Right? Yeah. Like take off so fast. And you can see the displacement of water off that hard edge and how it just lifts, lifts the boat outta the water. So if that's the essential premise, like you're saying, you have all these other variables that you can adjust.

A boat plane is not gonna rip the lip off, you know, on a wave. Yeah. So it's like you gotta adjust those variables for the surfing, which is totally different.

Tyler: Yeah. But it, it adds like a whole new dimension to design, which already, like surfboard design is infinite possibilities. Yeah. And this is like square, square rooting that, you know, putting a square on that.

Like, it's crazy. Yeah.

Christopher: It, no, it's fair to say and like, that's why I think for [00:09:00] me, in the phase that I'm at with the sort of edge boards. I've gotten those sort of edge elements in a place that I really like. And by that I mean that the sort of how much, um, how the depth of the chime that constitutes the edge, the depth of that sort of curvature, the rail that's most appropriate for that type of design.

Mm-hmm. And then within that, you start to be able to change things like the outline and the rocker. I actually find the outline is massive in the, in the sort of way the edge en engages with the sort of design. So those are the variables that I'm starting to feel confident and honing in on right now.

Tyler: You also do like concave decks too. Yeah. Which is another, a whole nother element of like control closeness to the water, you know, uh, you know, really, really interesting actually.

Christopher: Yeah. I think to me, uh, in the recent designs, that's been the element that has sort of like [00:10:00] solidified all these sort of disparate elements, right?

So it. Allowed that sort of feeling of flying up and out of the water. It sort of like, I don't wanna say negates that feeling, but it balances out that feeling where you're not like, uh, feeling like you're just gonna fall off or something like that. Itif, it sinks your feet into the board, it sinks your feet a little deeper into the water.

And it's just the same as a concave on a skateboard deck. Right? Yeah. So when you land that land a trick, you, you're not landing on this flat plank or, or frankly, the convex plank. Right. So,

Tyler: well, it also translates to, I feel like, and, and I could be wrong, but I feel like it translates to, uh, quicker response.

Yeah. Because you have something to push against. Yeah. Whereas when the dome deck, you can hide a lot of foam under your chest and all that, which is great. And you can have thin rails to make it super, you know, uh, nimble in one way, but you also like. You know, you kind of lose a little bit of transference of energy.

You do, you know? Yeah. Like, whereas you look [00:11:00] on like snowboard bindings, like they're all, you know, kind of raised on both ends. 'cause you want that kind of pressure. Yeah. And that, that transfer of energy, it

Christopher: almost becomes a pontoon like phenomena. Mm-hmm. And on the back of the actual, um, zine there, I, I intentionally put the, put the profiles.

'cause I think it's important to emphasize the fact that it gets complicated when people are wanting to order boards and asking dimensions. 'cause I have to tell them like, look, the stringer dimension is not the thickest point on these boards. No. The thickest point is actually at the apex of the, of the edge.

And it's that element that gives you a really balanced feeling on a board that has a center plane around 16 inches wide. You know, it's, it's extremely narrow. So when you're up out of the water, you're essentially riding on a six, you know, slater's boards didn't even get that narrow in like the day. So it's like.

That, um, that deck really does help in that balancing act,

Tyler: uh, for listeners. If you see, you know, if you're watching it, it should be like your bat signal, by the way.

Christopher: I know, right? Like,

Tyler: like I was [00:12:00] thinking like, you should put this like on the chest of your wetsuit, you know, like I was actually

Christopher: reconfiguring a logo with that in it.

You should. I just like, I I love doing the logos, but Yeah. You know,

Tyler: it's super cool. I was like, kind of reminds me of like a surfy bat logo, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.

Christopher: No, it's really cool. Um, but yeah, so the pontoon phenomenon to me is that element that I've brought in recently that has just given the boards a like out the.

Really comfortable feeling. Yeah.

Tyler: And also it's really good for guys with beer bellies.

Christopher: Yeah.

Tyler: I mean, just nests right

Christopher: in.

Tyler: Well, that,

Christopher: that actually one ladies catch you in profile. You know, you look like that ab line, it's just like No, it's

Tyler: right. Well there is, um, this shaper in New York, John Hannon, he was like one of the first shapers in New York.

And he made this model in the seventies called the brute Model. And basically in the center of the longboard was a scooped out Yeah. Con, fully concave deck. And his advertising was for guys with beer bellies.

Christopher: Oh my God. But

Tyler: the, [00:13:00] the, uh, side effects of that was actually flex and had really incredible flex.

And I was actually. In Hawaii, uh, with, I was at a dinner with Joe Quig at Rest in Peace and um, this guy, mark Feral, who's a collector, and he had one of those and we stood on it in the crazy flex. Yeah. And so with your boards even that concave totally changes the flex of the board too.

Christopher: I'm hoping to explore you.

Stringer is poly actually, because I feel like these boards at a point are reaching a number of corrugations, like as in a seashell where there's probably a chance that I could ride a shorter one and see what the flex is like without a stringer, you know? So it it's something I'm, I'm interested in exploring.

It's like

Tyler: the, the Vulcan boards, you know? Yeah. He has that corrugated stringer instead. And that's enough, you know, to and Ryan

Christopher: Harris will do the edge on the rail even. Totally. And that does another, so yeah, there's all these ways to like give a board integrity without a stringer per se. So, yeah. No, it's [00:14:00] very interesting.

Tyler: You now. In in my research. Yeah. You know, and I said even the intro, you have a more of an influence from Anini when it comes to it. I'm curious like how that came about and how you started to, to kind of just, you know, you, you obviously were turned on by Kidman and Ericsson, but there's a bunch of other people now playing with edge boards.

Yeah.

Christopher: It's actually amazing to me, like, not to totally go off of what you're asking, but like I feel like the community that around edge boards that I, you know, somehow feel connected to regardless of any physical contact through the internet and whatnot, that community is like really strong and, um, all really supportive and we're all exchanging ideas and designs.

So I think, yeah, when like Anini started, um, doing that on the Vaqueros and things like that and, and even in like huge consequential boards that are gonna be ridden at like very large waves over there in Half Moon, but like, just to see someone, a veteran [00:15:00] of that, of that. Sort of age and, um, practice, like be willing to explore this design and like sing the merits of it.

I mean, that's kind of a, a pretty big endorsement, I'd say. Right? Yeah. So, yeah. Um, and that was definitely my start. I was very interested, particularly in the outlines of these sort of more hall outlines, these, these forward ones. And that's sort of what I was talking about earlier with the, with the sort of magnetism towards that speed and that high line, and you really get it in those outlines.

So that was really attractive initially. Absolutely.

Tyler: Yeah. It's, it's wild. Like, I think, I also think like it for us here in New York, you know, most people, we, we don't have the luxury of going top to bottom on a lot of our waves. No. You know, they're so fast and it's like you're just racing for that end section a lot of times.

Yeah. And it. It suits it so well. It suits that really well. But I'm curious like how does it feel when you can go top to bottom? Like when you go to Central America? Yeah. You know, [00:16:00] and the rare, yeah. You know, and you're on a wave that you can take your time almost with.

Christopher: To me, the beauty of that is you still have that initial pull up into the high line, but what that does is it gives you a moment to set up your like super deep bottom turn.

So for me it's like this amazing rollercoaster of just getting as high as you can on the wave and then coming down and just when you hit a really deep, like bottom turn with your hand in the wave. Yeah. I mean, you feel. It's knee buckling, like, and I, and you know, other people have said that where like, you feel the water just jetting off of that edge.

So it's, it's so incredible. Yeah.

Tyler: I want to try it with one of the ssw fins. I know. You know, I know. I think that would lend itself really well to it. That would be so wild, you know? Yeah. And that's the other thing, you've really, uh, experimented with fins with this too.

Christopher: Yeah. Um, recently I, I'm not like, uh, sponsored by futures or anything, but the, [00:17:00] the Rasta fins that were on the, on his, um, stab.

Yeah. Uh, the reverse three twos. I mean, those fins have, uh, really sort of influenced, uh, my surfing. So, and those are very, those are very similar to the Haoles, where it's like the approaches. Putting an inside concave on the fin. Right. You know, and, and changing that area of pressure. Mm-hmm. And how the fin is, um, treating that pressure.

I mean, it's the same concept that you're putting under the board, but you're now applying it to the fin. I actually think fins are the biggest area of, like, of, um, improvement we're gonna see in the next decade, probably.

Tyler: I feel like, like with Fins particularly, like you could almost. Shape a board around a fin as opposed to right now we shape boards.

Yeah. And then we just find what fins work with it. And I, I am, I'm curious to see more of that kind of exploration in surfboards where it's like, these are the fins I'm using. What board and shape is gonna go with the fin? Actually,

Christopher: yeah. I like recently was on a little talk [00:18:00] with, um, cliff Kapono when he was in Rockaway and that topic came up and I, I mean, I said I would never start a design without knowing what Finn was gonna go in the board.

Mm-hmm. Um, and that's not to say that the fin is the most important part. I think it's obviously a, a symbiotic relationship, but I would never, I would never start aboard. And that might, that could mean many things. That could mean I want. The option to ride this as a twin or a single. Right. Yeah. Which I think is a really interesting fin set up.

Or I want the option to put in a canards on a twins or if, if that's, but like it's designed for. But I would, I always, you know, start the shape with that concept. And I think in the zine, I think the goal in a lot of ways was to illustrate, because I don't say dimensions. I don't say like what the, it's more about the relationship of the bottom contours to the fins, to the outline.

And I think those variables. In, um, conversation, you can kind of go a lot of places with it. So that's [00:19:00] kind, that's where the a lot part of the goal was with, with the actual zine itself. So it's the devil pod quad, right? You know? Yeah.

Tyler: This devil pod quad. So in the zine listeners that I'm looking at here is what's called the Devil Quad.

And it, uh, for those who are surfboard literate and like kind of surfboard nerds, it's, it's got like, um, that rein Birch Pickle Fork slash Jeff Alexander Gemini kind of, uh, design where the nose is. Uh, basically kind of swallowed out. Yeah. But it also has like an area where the w the air kind of comes in underneath the board and lifts it out, if I'm correct.

Yeah,

Christopher: a hundred percent. And I think this board illustrates one of the key principles for me in these designs. Um, I can't believe we're going on this long about the edge board, but that's, that's good. You, I know about, but the, the key principle,

Tyler: I'm a nerd man. Yeah. I can't help it. I love the nerd on this stuff.

Christopher: [00:20:00] Um, you see in these drawings, you see the two distinct outlines. And for me, what what's going on is there's always a bit of a, of a. Main outline with the center point Slightly forward. Yeah. And then there's always the bottom outline, which is the center points back. Mm. And so it's where those come together that you get this sort of really large sweet spot and really sort of balanced feeling because that's kind of, yeah.

The, the, the combination of those two outlines is what constitutes the edge board. Right. At the end of the day,

Tyler: it's, it's, that board to me really drew my eye just because I've been obsessed with the Alexander, you know, Gemini boards Yeah. Since like the nineties when he first started coming out with them.

And they're, they're fascinating. Like I would love to ride 'em, I don't think they're as functional like personally, but they're super cool looking. They're insane. And then to see insane. What, what's that?

Christopher: They're insane looking. They're insane looking like they look

Tyler: like they're gonna fucking like they look like they're gonna kill you.

Exactly. Exactly. They have [00:21:00] like guns on the end, but. You know, but then to see Ryan Birch take that concept and refine it into something where you see like fucking Bo Young, like yeah. Just doing some of the most amazing surfing I've ever seen. Or Mikey Wright or Steph Gilmore. You know, like you, we could see Steph Gilmore riding one of those

Christopher: a hundred percent.

Yeah. And I'm,

Tyler: I am curious like how that works with the edge then. Yeah. Like that, that kind of lift. 'cause the concept is right, like to get air underneath the board.

Christopher: Yeah. Well actually, you know, to me in this design, and I I, in the way that I would differentiate it from, like what you see in Birch's boards is that he's taking probably a pretty close to a performance outline.

Mm-hmm. And he's taking that area out, which is, is common sense. You know, that like last inch or two or three of the pointy, we don't need it. Well we don't need that. Yeah. So you could chop it flat. But I think in the sort of high performance realm that he's making those for, that actually that rocker.

That, um, is being created by [00:22:00] splitting those two noses mm-hmm. Is absolutely essential, right? In this design. I actually think what it was for me is I was coping with a board that is mini Simmons esque, right? Mm-hmm. And the weight of the front of that nose was getting like, kind of cumbersome to me. You know, I would go for like a hard down carve and I could kind of feel it, like get in the way, you know, pushing water.

And so I, I was just like, this is the perfect opportunity to take that almost taking the tail. Um, swallow and putting it in the nose. Mm-hmm. So it becomes this, uh, and it additionally that outline is a true symmetrical outline, meaning one foot back and one foot up is exactly the same dimension. So it's nice.

So it's got this really parallel outline. And when you're dealing with super parallel outlines with not much curvature, you. Gotta do everything you can to sort of like battle that sort of, uh, what could be tracky or what could be, you know, sort of, um, heavy. So yeah. That, that's, that's where I saw the application of [00:23:00] that in this design.

But yeah, of course pulling, you know, that's the thing that these boards do so good anyways, is they have that sort of center plane and I, and the concave runs all the way through the front on almost all these boards. So you're pulling a lot through the, through the nose. And the paddle power is always exceptional.

And you're just

Tyler: lifting out of the water a little bit too. Yeah, exactly.

Christopher: You're hydroplaning on the paddle, which is like pretty amazing feeling, you know? Yeah.

Tyler: God. You just need to get like, uh, one of those, um, chain Ann Fins on there. Yeah, exactly. And you'll be like, you'll almost be foiling then, you know?

Well, no, you

Christopher: bring up a good point because it's, that's, I don't want to trick anyone into thinking this is like the end all, be all design Yeah. Or anything like that. And I think to your point, I've been battling a little bit with the fins, having too much lift. So when you see like, um, one of the designs I have in here, the flying fish, you know, I think that board's actually best paired with a 50 50 keel.

Mm-hmm. Um, the 50 50 [00:24:00] keel is there because that fin doesn't create as much lift. Right. And you can sink the tail on a really wide board. So that relationship, like we keep going on about, of the fence. So the board is like kind of the most important part, you know, at the end of the day. So the,

Tyler: the other board that I just, you know, I want to draw attention to for listeners is obviously the, um, the asim, you know?

Oh, you have, yeah, yeah. You know, the, the white, the water tiger. Water tiger. Yeah. You know, because again, like. There's so many, so many places to explore with that. Yeah. 'cause you're one, you can do two different rockers. Yeah. You know, on each side of the board you can do like different concaves on each side.

You have different edges. Like, it's just so many options with that. It is crazy. It's endless.

Christopher: And you know, to be honest, like that design. Have you ever, um, held a, a rabbit's foot, a Lovelace rabbit's foot before? I have not.

Tyler: Yeah.

Christopher: So the board, they're cool. They're cool, right? [00:25:00] They're hard to ride. But Derek, he, Derek,

Tyler: Derek Hein reckons it nearly destroyed his knee.

I believe that it

Christopher: takes probably like, uh, you know, five sessions. They're really get, you know, and the stance you have on those boards is crazy. Yeah. You're basically standing at a 45 degree angle. Yeah. But that's besides the point. I think when you look at those boards, um, there's a. A tow side that's an edge.

Mm-hmm. It's, it's, there's no if, ands or buts of it's a hundred percent an edge. Right. And then you have a swooping concave that goes across the bottom into what you could call it sort of tri plane because, or a sort of chime, because that chime depth is no greater than the depth of the concave. So that's kind of the differentiation in like a tri plane or like a edge board.

Right. Um, so you're basically, you only have the edge on the one side. And to me, just. As a sort of starting place, that seemed to make a lot of sense. You know, we go on our heel side and we want to, um, have more rocker. Mm-hmm. [00:26:00] We wanna like, and that's the one thing that can happen with the edge boards is if you don't have that added rocker on the heel side and you go for a big cutback, you know it, you might not be able to wrap it as tight as you want, but you can change that with fins and stuff.

But anyways. That kind of is a solution to having what everyone says is the best of both worlds, right? A trim, high rail line, tow side. Mm-hmm. A more curvaceous, um, lower rock heel side for your cutbacks. And so in a sense, in theory, you know, that's the best of both. But I mean, we're only adding more variables at that point, right?

So it's just like, it's like, oh, okay, what's going on here? I don't even know anymore. You know, you're like, I mean, I put it at the end there, I said it, it's probably best complimented with like a really adventurous or, you know, willing, you have to be open-minded. It's just like you have to be

Tyler: that and maybe want to live in a place where there's waves a lot of the time.

So yeah, you can experiment or be in a wave pool or whatever, you know? I

Christopher: know you probably, I mean, [00:27:00] not to diverge too hard, but, um, that, that's the biggest hurdle I think for us is like in Rockaway, is that we have to. We have so little time in the water that what the choice we make in the board we ride is so precious to us.

So, and unfortunately we all like, you know, we do okay in the city. So some of us have the privilege of owning a lot of boards, so then making that decision gets harder and it's just like, oh my, you know, it's, it's endless. So it's

Tyler: Oh so many times where I'm just like, should have taken this other board.

Yeah, exactly. Should have done this, you know, and should have done that. You're always like questioning your, your quiver selection, you know? Whereas if you only have one or two boards, you're

Christopher: Yeah. A little bit more,

Tyler: you can, and for

Christopher: me it turns into, um, it's not a job. It's obviously an amazing privilege and like a spiritual, like, sort of, uh, adventure, but like.

I have to go down there as research, you know? I ha I'm in the water. I'm like searching for those feelings.

Tyler: Have you, have you gone to a Wave pool yet with these? No, and I'm

Christopher: dying

Tyler: to,

Christopher: I'm

Tyler: dying to, you gotta go to like [00:28:00] a, you know, Virginia, I guess I wanna go to Scotland. Scotland. Well, band just went there. I need to talk to Kwame too.

Yeah. Okay. You know, and that, and then you can go, then go up to Theso and go surf around there too, or whatever, explore, you know, which wouldn't be so bad. Or do a trip to the outer Heberty while you're there

Christopher: to, to my knowledge, the only, like, well, so Kidman had his little edge in his last film, which by the way, I only was able to watch it three times and I'm like really

Tyler: upset about that.

Christopher: I didn't know when I watched it three times in a row. And then I was like, wait a second. What? What did I just say? Yeah. Um, but, uh, and then, um, I know in Scotland, um, Jay, you know, Jay Surfboards, um, oh yeah. He, he's, he makes a lot of edge boards and I think his have been in the, in the Scottish wave board.

Wow. So, yeah, I know. I think it's an amazing, uh, it'd be an amazing opportunity to explore design really rapidly, right? Yeah. Some people are there to like advance their surfing really rapidly. I think [00:29:00] the v vein of research that could be accelerated is like Yeah. Um, in, yeah.

Tyler: Have you, are you ever follow the guys red fluid dynamics?

I don't follow them, but I have seen, yeah. Some of that posts, yeah. They take like, they, they model like the energy. They just did a

Christopher: lovely, uh, yes. Fm I saw that post, you know, let's, it's super cool, like to

Tyler: see like where the energy is being burned off. Yeah. Where the speed is like to, to quantify surfboards is like kind of a holy grail.

I feel like Agree in some ways, but. As you mentioned to me, you have this real, um, issue or fixation on calling a surfboard art or a sculpture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or not. So in one way, if you want it to be sculpture, you know, then you don't want to quantify it. But if you wanna quantify it,

Christopher: I don't know if those models can, I think they're amazing.

Like I, but there's always that human element, that human variable that like, is really unquantifiable in the sense of [00:30:00] like, and I don't mean like, oh, we're so special, but like in the sense that I might be a super front foot forward surfer, which I am, and that changes the way I ride my board a hundred percent.

Right? Yeah.

Tyler: I mean, I'm a super front footed as well. Yeah. And you know, and I've always. I've actually worked really well with boards that have, uh, forward v you know, for that. Yes, yes, yes. That where I remember like, uh, doc LA years ago was talking about that when I ordered a board from him and he's like, what are you front foot or back?

And I'm like, I'm front foot. He's like, we're gonna put a little uh, v in the front actually. And that works really well for that.

Christopher: I think that would be good for you on the edge too. 'cause in a way it's sort of like, yeah. With the way that I've sort of decided to use the design is most of my edge, um, sort of greatest width is pushed forward.

And that's sort of where your front foot's gonna be a lot of time. And it, and it does loosen that up quite a bit. Yeah. Did you just

Tyler: sell me a board? I kind Did You just sell me a board right now here I didn't even notice it. Like I just got sold to board people, [00:31:00] like I'm getting a board with, with four B Right.

Manifest.

Christopher: I was actually gonna bring a board and then I was like, wait a second. Can't I

Tyler: saw how small that studio was? Yeah. As much as I would love that. Yeah. Yeah. It would be, it wouldn't fit. And also we'd draw way too much attention from the people in the hallway then, you know? Yeah. And Martha coming on afterwards would be like, what the heck is this?

You know, I'd sell her aboard. She's, um, was curious in like how when you started shaping, like did you have people that you could go to for advice or to mentor you in any way? Or was this purely self-taught?

Christopher: Yeah, it's an interesting topic 'cause I think I share the story of a lot of people. My, uh, my contemporary, uh, as shapers.

And it was, um, no, I had, long story short, no, I didn't have any firsthand person I could go to and say like, I didn't have that storied history. I didn't have like a [00:32:00] mentor that was like, you know, started in the fifties and was like this amazing Yeah. Sweep up. I know. Sweep up. Exactly. Yeah. You don't have a Chandler Well, was, I was sweeping, but it was just, you know, after yourself.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, no, I didn't have that at all. So it was a really curious journey, but I think it's a, it's a, it's a story that's not. Dissimilar to others these days. And in the sense of like, if you're research minded, if you are willing to go down the rabbit hole, and like I said earlier, if you're willing to like exist in that hyper ignorant space for an extended period of time mm-hmm.

You can kind of, sort of at least start your journey and then when you start your journey, you're gonna find out how much you suck at it. Yeah. And that's like really important, you know? That's humbling. Yeah. It's important. It's very humbling. Yeah. So I just took, you know, the standard thing of like, um, you know, looking at the boards that I had doing sort of online research, going to Pilgrim and, and Chris would, you know, let me measure the boards if I wanted, you know, whatever.

Yeah. So doing that [00:33:00] sort of research, um, and then utilizing the skillset I already had of sort of, um, material knowledge and tool knowledge and. In a way it was, um, liberating to not be married to this history of like, how boards are made. 'cause you know, if you're, if you're a shaper that's been taught by a historical shaper, there's like a sort of set of pretty tight parameters and rules.

Yeah. You, you, um, are taught and they're all invaluable. But if you're an outsider, I think you bring a different sort of approach to removing material that's like just different, you know? Yeah. And it. It's both. It can be, um, a hurdle, but it can be really liberating too. So that's kind of like how I started.

I I had those things going for me. Um, yeah.

Tyler: And, and you also, you studied sculpting architecture. Yeah. So you have this grounded knowledge already in structural design and know how, and obviously good with your hands [00:34:00] and, and have an eye for detail, which I think those are skills that, you know, you have to learn, you know?

Yeah. And, and going to schools are really good for that. Yeah. And I think that helps tremendously.

Christopher: I was in a really, um, a perfect space of in architecture school and undergraduate architecture school, and then graduate architecture school where the computer was being phased in, but I was still possessed with, um, hand drawing, hand modeling, all these things.

And it was a choice that was accepted at the time. Yeah. So. Yeah, if there was a huge takeaway from that early days in architecture school, things like that, it was that we were building these models with our hands, building these details, like building details with our hands, so understanding materials in that way.

And, um, I'm not so sure people have that these days, so I, I'm very grateful that I fit into this tight little pocket.

Tyler: Well, it's like you, and like Rachel Lorde was a similar thing, you know? Yeah. She was a sculptor. I love that interview,

Christopher: by the way. That [00:35:00] was great. Oh, she's phenomenal. And

Tyler: like, but she went from a sculpting background and, and I feel like you were saying, like, it, it's liberating in one way, coming in from the outside without the restrictions of learning in a rigid format.

Yeah. You know, it's like, I think that allows you to look at. The board slightly differently or the, the process differently than other people would have, you know, who've grown up in a more traditional shaping background.

Christopher: And, you know, what the other, I think that's all true. And then the other thing that like can't be understated or overstated, whichever way you say it, um, is that you, um, if you work in this world of like miniature and models and things like that, you understand how to translate physical form in, in, um, different sort of, uh, forms.

So just being able to take a measurement off of what and understand that what it's gonna take to get to that point in that material, that that's a [00:36:00] really, that's a skillset that I couldn't have predicted would've been so beneficial. Mm-hmm. But it's sort of the thing, like even in my sculptural practice or in the practice of, um, helping others make their sculpture as a job.

I'll often have to translate a model that they'll make into a larger scaled sort of piece. And so being able to go back and forth like that is, is pretty, pretty amazing actually. Yeah.

Tyler: Is that how you and Christian Teal bonded miniature artwork and stuff? You know, like his, his, his, uh, beach chair lifeguard chairs.

Yeah. God structures and everything. Love. Yeah.

Christopher: I love Chris's like, like, um, some of his wood sculptures he was making in school and stuff like, that's so cool. Um, actually Chris is, uh, Chris knew my coworker and best friends, uh, one of his family members, um, from way back in the day when they would get in some trouble sometimes.

So yeah, I, there was another connection there, but yeah, it was easy. It was an easy in, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously that relationship that Chris has the same sort of relationship to art and I think surfing, so it's great. [00:37:00] Did, where did you grow up, Chris? So, I grew up in North Carolina. I was born in Canada.

Hey. Which is a secret. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, um, hopefully, hopefully ICE doesn't come here. Yeah, I know. Uh, uh, um, born in Canada and then I moved to North Carolina when I was like six, I wanna say. And I spent most of my youth into my mid twenties in North Carolina. So what part, where are you, Charlotte. So, and you'll hear that and you'll say like, well, what's your surfing?

Sort of, you know, but like Charlotte's not too far. No, it's not. And that was the thing. It was like just enough where. I caught the bug so early I, uh, going to Wrightsville Beach. Mm-hmm. That, and it, you know, anyone who's listening probably has caught the bug. So, you know, like once you catch it, you're not getting rid of it.

Yeah. And it pushed all the way through into my teens, where once I was like in school, I was like, waiting for the weekend or waiting for after school when I can drive three hours mm-hmm. And get like two speeding tickets just to get down [00:38:00] to the water, you know, like, it was that crazy, you know? So, um, yeah.

No, I, I caught the bug really early in North Carolina, but spent all my days skateboarding, so

Tyler: Yeah. You were saying like skating really informed Yeah. Your surfing, was it, were you a street skater? Were you more surf skate, or were you bowls pipes? Like curious, like what? So we

Christopher: had, um. And like no one's gonna know about if someone listening, please comment on the video of this.

But there was a guy in Charlotte, in the suburbs, and he was, I think the rumor was he was a engineer and he invented some machines that bottled Coca-Cola. He got young, A rich, pretty young. Yeah. I think was the narrative. Um, how much of this is true? I don't know. But he decided to spend his money on building a, basically an incredible snake run skate park, and a bowl in a barn, a clover bowl in a barn in North Carolina.

And he would let anybody come every Saturday. For my entire youth. I went [00:39:00] there every Saturday, so I skated this clover bowl like religiously. And it had like a gnarly, like it had a 10 foot like vert deep end. It had like, so the reason I say that influenced my surfing so much is like the way, that's why you're front footage.

Yeah, exactly. The way you pump a bowl and the way you produce speed. I was so obsessed with going as fast as I could in the bowl and every time I'm on a wave I get that exact same feeling. Mm-hmm. So I'm, I'm kind of always trying to make escape. The edge boards to me are really skatey, you know, on the shorter end.

So, um, it's that above the water feel that looseness you're gonna get when you come up off the lip and things like that. But yeah, the skateboarding, I did skate street like all the other six days course of the week Right. When I wasn't at Tom's, but, um, it was featured in Thrasher actually a couple times.

But um, and then the snake run. Around the outside. He, he sheet metaled the whole thing, which is insane. Yeah. So it was so fast. Still

Tyler: lit lick. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. If it [00:40:00] rains. Holy shit. Of course. Humidity and then leaves were on, you know, it was like, it was in the woods. It was literally

Christopher: in the woods. So, and it went through trees.

Were in the middle of it. What? It sounds like a fairytale. But that's where like, when I think back to my formative experiences, like on board sport things, it was that, I mean, like, I definitely skated street, but like, it wa it didn't have an impact in the way that I think I, like my body works in relationship to like moving fast and things like that.

Right.

Tyler: Did um, the skate scene and culture help inform your artistic approach as well? And like exposure to art? Like, I am curious where your Oh, that's interesting. Interest in art and architecture came

Christopher: from, yeah. That's interesting. Um, no, I would say surf was stronger. Mm. Like, you know, like I was, um. There was like that like phase and this is gonna,

Tyler: you, you heard Thomas Campbell and you're like, my real name's Thomas and Campbell.

This makes sense. I guess this is it. Yeah. Skate and surf right here.

Christopher: No, it was like those, like early days. This is gonna be [00:41:00] embarrassing 'cause my music taste has changed dramatically. But people love Jack Johnson, but that era of like, when I love the bubble gum pop come. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No. So I went

Tyler: on a Jack Johnson like tangent like a month ago.

I was like, I don't care what people say. So did David and Jazz. I don't know if you heard that everyone Yeah, it's, it's in the air anyways.

Christopher: No, in that like, um, thicker than water, sort of like that era. And I was, um, the imagery actually I'd say was more influential than anything. I think when you're at those early stages of art making and you're trying to, like, you have no clue how to make what is meaningful to you.

Right. But I still think that imagery stayed with me a lot. But I mean, to be honest, like Toy Machine, things like that, ed Templeton, that was like pretty influential too, but. In a way that we had a surf shop in Charlotte, if you can believe that, called Waller Bears. And it was a surf and skate shop. And I think just like staring in those sticker cases, like, you know, you were allowed to go behind the counter.

Yeah. I was the stairs. That's not fair, man. Yeah, I, I would, I would dole out the

Tyler: stickers, you [00:42:00] know, in my dad's shop. But I, it was funny, like, I did not like stickers for some reason. I was like, the opposite of my brother had his like whole door sticker and I, for some reason I got grossed out by stickers at a young age.

And I always had like a kind of not like, I get it. I wasn't as into it. I was like, oh, fucking stickers have it. Whatever.

Christopher: No, I mean, that paraphernalia to me, like, I'm not saying that that's like art, but to me it is art. Well, it, you know, it's like. That,

Tyler: that's how Neil purchase got started.

Christopher: Yeah. The ephemera of those practices was always fascinating to me, and it's still fascinating to me, and it's in my work now, but like the way, yeah, the, the way you use that imagery to sort of like create a mood or attitude, I mean, at the end that's all we're trying to do, right?

Yeah. So to me, like seeing the Devil Cat in fourth grade and being like, hell yeah dude, that's like, you know, it's like there so,

Tyler: so to this that it feels rebellious. Yeah, exactly. It feels like it's gonna piss people off, but I love it.

Christopher: Exactly. [00:43:00] Yeah. So I, I. In a way. Yeah, I'd say the combination of those two, like is yeah.

Inseparable from who I am and the art that I make now, and like how I think about the world, so, absolutely.

Tyler: And your parents then, like what did, were they supportive of it? What did they do, if you don't mind me asking? No, no, no. It's totally

Christopher: fine. Um, they're, uh, they were like obnoxiously supportive and uh, you

Tyler: know, you're too cool.

Nothing to rebel against. Yeah, exactly.

Christopher: No, honestly, it was like, it was painfully supportive. Like even to the, even when I was like, I was like, I wanna be an artist. I was gonna go to SCAD in undergrad. Um, and then I changed to architecture at the last minute. But like even then, yeah, it was, um, it was weird.

'cause you know, that's not the most common story, right? Yeah. When you talk about wanting to be in, in the art world or things like that. So they always, like, the parents

Tyler: are like, don't be an artist a lot of times. Or like pushing them to like, have a backup at least. Yeah. I

Christopher: think the only. You know, there might've been a little pushing to go into architecture.

Yeah. So when [00:44:00] I, when I went through undergrad and master's in architecture and then I came back and did an N up eight, they're like, Ooh, that's probably our ball. Should have just let 'em get it outta the way earlier.

Tyler: Do you, do you ever just want to be like, my name's Art Van Dele, I'm an architect, you know?

Exactly.

Christopher: Oh my god. You know that, uh, Guido Ucci sketch. Yes. Father Guido, that's one. Yes. So you wanna sit around, drink an espresso coffee, talk about things you know, absolutely nothing about. Perhaps you should become an artist picked. It's like, yep. Well, that's kind of what I want to do, so, okay, cool.

Tyler: But you, you got to like work with, like we were, we were texting you before Yeah.

Like you got to work with Matthew Barney, which is like. Visual artist video, but structure everything super conceptual. Uh, also like kind of a interesting character in his own right. Yeah. Uh, personality wise, like, yeah. Yeah. How did that come about and what was that like? And that was also like when you started shaping too.

Yeah. A

Christopher: hundred percent. Yeah. So that, [00:45:00] I mean, if you could define chapters in your life, which I, I do like to set up chapters, you know, I, I do that with like, yeah. Things like this. I like to sort of like do that. Anyways, Matthew, uh, came about after my MFA, I had helped someone with some projects and she had previously worked for him and like.

You can probably guess. Like he's not just, he's not putting out, uh, a call for, uh, help. You know, so if it's not a wor a word of mouth sort of connection, you're never gonna end up there. Um, with one exception, one guy that worked there just camped out for like a week and was like, I have to work. He was like, he was 18, so he was like, I'm gonna live in this parking lot until you let me work here.

And they did anyways. Uh, that's awesome.

Tyler: But yeah, so, so I had that connection and, um, by the way, that person's now working in finance. Yeah, exactly.

Christopher: No, he actually lived in the studio the whole time I worked there. Oh, that's awesome. He was gnarly. He was awesome. Nick Rogers. What's up? That's awesome. Yeah, he was sick.

Um, but I had that connection [00:46:00] and um, I, you know, I knew Matthew's work. Yeah. But like, I didn't know what, how much of an impact it was gonna have on me and how incredible. Working there would be and how much, almost like a cult experience it was. And I, I can imagine. Yeah. Um, so I got, you know, I went there thinking it was gonna be a three month sort of hire just for a short term project, and I ended up staying there for five years.

Wow. And that studio was on the water in Long Island City in this really sort of like old New York setup where it's an old fruit factory, 20,000 square feet, nothing in the building except our sculptures and what we're working on. And all day you're staring through this 30 foot swinging door onto the East River and, and the sort of skyline and to move to New York and to that be your formative experience.

I mean, I, I, I can't put it into words, I'm trying, but it's like, it's, it was really profound and, [00:47:00] you know, being around a person like that, I don't think I had been around a person like Matthew where. Every aspect of your life is tied to this sort of narrative of, not that it's like, not that a narrative in the sense of writing a fiction, but like every aspect of your life is of this sort of idea of like the artist, the, the creative, the sort of like all enveloping world you build around yourself.

So. Getting to witness someone who lived a life like that and permitted us to be a part of it was, uh, yeah, pretty profound.

Tyler: And how did the shaping then come about? Yes. Like, and was he like, what are you doing? That space was so big. Yeah. That you could just hide it. I could hide in the corner, like straight on.

No, but he probably came in and he's like, I don't remember doing that. Yeah, exactly. But that looks cool. No. Um,

Christopher: so there's, there's Matthew and then there's like the people that run the space, right? Yeah, yeah. The administrative people. Yeah. So there was the, um, [00:48:00] shop manager, Canoa, and he, he's Hawaiian, he surfed, right?

He, he was so, he's a water man of sort, right? So he was Hawaiian born, true Hawaiian dude. Like serious about it. And um, so he was more or less in charge of the shop and he was pretty game with letting me shape Nice. And what I, what it started out as was not. Shaping a surfboard. I actually had an idea for a sculpture, and it was sort of tied to this, this is gonna sound really weird, but I had these like dreams when I was a kid, when I first started surfing about riding an ironing board.

Tyler: Yeah.

Christopher: And yeah, so we've all, we've all been there, we've all looked at it and thought

Tyler: I could make that work.

Christopher: So I wanted to make this sculpture somehow related to that. And I was like, oh, I gotta learn how to like make a board. 'cause I don't want it to be a board. Right. Yeah. This ties into my, like a surfboard is not a sculpture thing.

Yeah. But anyways, so I didn't want it to be a board, but I needed to learn the process. So I learned the process of shaping and glassing, like just to make these sculptures. Wow. [00:49:00] And I was like, okay. It's go time. We're doing this. Yeah, we're doing this, we're doing this, this. Yeah, we're,

Tyler: we're gonna make a surfboard.

Christopher: And it's an amazing, I didn't intend it to be like this educational scaled down thing, but I keep talking about this scaling down thing. Yeah. I made these boards that were like this big and they had these like bent dorsal fins, sort of this play on like, I don't know, this like machismo culture around certain, anyways, so I made these objects in there.

They were this big and it was this really nice introduction to the whole process of shaping and glassing. 'cause you learn everything at a smaller scale. So, um, that was not on purpose, but it played out pretty nice. 'cause then I knew the process, so That's so cool. Yeah, it was lucky.

Tyler: I, um, I want to, uh.

Discuss something that'll be kind of fun and a little s out there maybe. Yeah. But, uh, in my research I came across a couple of your written pieces on your website, which were awesome. I was really [00:50:00] struck by them, actually. Oh, thank

Christopher: you.

Tyler: And I wanted to explore them and how they kind of relate to surfing actually.

Yeah. 'cause I was thinking there's something to this. Yeah. And I don't know if you have thought about it, but like you wrote this piece called The Presence and Value of a Veneer. And, uh, for our listeners, this essay argues that a veneer, like a brick veneer on a wall uses only the surface skin of a material to evoke the appearance, and thus our assumptions of solidity strength, integrity.

Uh, because a veneer only replicates the exterior face while assigning the real structural and functional work of hidden components. So it is basically like saying like that veneer gives this aesthetic of strength, but yeah, behind it it could be there's so much more going on.

Christopher: Yeah. We're still like, sort of psychologically convinced of its like sort of, um, strength, right?

Just by the visual. Yeah.

Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. And like, I'm curious like how that relates to surfboard, particularly like [00:51:00] glassing. Yeah. You know, 'cause I feel like you can take a shitty board and put a beautiful glass job on it and you know, people will automatically assign value to it, you know? Yeah. And assign kind of like this prestige to it if you have this beautiful fucking glass job to it.

Yeah.

Christopher: Yeah. No, it's really fascinating actually. And I pulled back a lot on, on that actually in my boards lately. I'm like, I'm, I really want to just do clears and see. But anyways, yeah, no, um. It is fascinating and I think it's a part of our culture that's so important though. 'cause like to me, like it may be a placebo effect, but if you believe your board is beautiful, yeah.

It's gonna ride 10% better. You

Tyler: know, I'm sorry. It's just true. If I got Martin Potter flames on my board, that's, I'm going fast and I'm doing big floaters, you know, like that's a hundred percent. I truly believe that too.

Christopher: And I think there's this other element of it, it it, it's an element of like, um, [00:52:00] participation or authorship for the buyer in another sense, right?

Like getting to choose this color or like, things like that. And they invested in the board in that way. Right. You know, I'm gonna go on a little tangent please, but, um, I, you know, when you think about art and you think about like. A sculpture that sculpture's, I think it's generally accepted that that sculpture's not complete until it's viewed by sort of like a person.

Yeah. And they impose their sort of experiences and impressions onto it and then that's a complete work, right? Mm-hmm. And that surfboard's the same way in a lot of ways. So I think like that opportunity, the visuals, the way the, the, the surfer or the person experiences that board before they surf it, it's not irrelevant and it does have an impact on the way it's surfed.

So to me, those tho they're inseparable, you know? And I think, you know,

Tyler: it's a perception is almost reality in some way. Yeah,

Christopher: exactly. Yeah. And um, and I think the tool of the surfboard as an [00:53:00] implement in the act of surfing and the art of surfing, right? Um, if we want to call surfing an art form, then I think it's an essential, it's an essential element.

Yeah.

Tyler: I'm curious like, um. You know, you have a really close relationship with the King's glassing crew as well. Yeah, yeah. And I'm, I'm curious, like then how that came about because Yeah. You know, they, they make the veneers for your boards, basically. They make the veneer. They, they're, they're

Christopher: more important than me, honestly.

Uh, uh, and I'm not saying that facetiously, I genuinely, like, I could not sing the praises more or like be more grateful for the relationship that I have with them. And it started just at one of the, um, the meetups. You know, we'd have where it's sort of like, it doesn't not work. Yeah. We had one right after, I think after that where it was just like, local shapers.

Matt Roar organized

Tyler: it. Yeah. That was like the little, little kind of get together, which is awesome.

Christopher: Yeah. And Aaron was like, I just met him and he was, um, Aaron is the laminator at King's. Yeah. And Drew's the sander. But I just met him and [00:54:00] he was like trying to start this up. And I had hit this sort of wall where.

You know, the, the labor and, and the sort of like, everything involved in glassing, it's so cumbersome, right? If you, if you're not properly set up, right. Yeah. I was doing it on my roof, like literally on my third story roof of my Crown Heights house. And my wife was like losing her shit, like the fumes and the, like,

Tyler: it was, can I tell you, you are part of a wonderful tradition.

Yeah. Because you're not the first, like, uh, there used to be this guy Javier used to surf Rockaways Mexican guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would shape the board in the kitchen and then glass it on the roof, you know, and his wife eventually divorced him, but

Christopher: rightfully so. Yeah.

Tyler: But it is like a, I pushed you right

Christopher: to the limit.

Tyler: I've heard new, I've heard this from numerous people where they're just like, yeah, and I, a glass on my roof, or I shake in my, my kitchen or whatever. I had it

Christopher: so dialed where I was like, you know. I was like rushing home. 'cause [00:55:00] I knew the temperature was gonna be 73 and I knew the wind was gonna drop and I knew like I had this low humidity, super tight.

Yeah. I had this super tight window where those variables are like so important. Yeah. You know, especially when you're like only 20 boards deep on glassing. Like, you're like, oh man, I'm gonna mess up in other ways. I can't mess up the temperature and all that, you know? So yeah, that was like, I was really hitting a wall with that one and sometimes I was doing it in Matthew's studio, but you know, it's like setting up a whole glassing setup, you know, it's, it's intense.

I was doing it on the dock and then the wind would pick up and it was, it was brutal.

Tyler: Leaves would get blown onto it. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, there's Dustin here.

Christopher: What is, this is

Tyler: there's

Christopher: trash

Tyler: character. Yeah. I was not selling boards to people at that point in time, so, you know,

Christopher: but that sort of hurl. It, it was so serendipitous because, you know, Aaron was like, I wanna start this glass shop.

And it was this really, really rare thing. You rarely hear this where someone is like, [00:56:00] I just want a glass. I know. You never hear that. I was like, you, you're joking, man. Like, you like, like are you an angel that's just like come down from, you know, and I was so excited and. W what ended up happening is that we got to simultaneously follow this trajectory and develop this relationship and I presented them with possibly the hardest boards to glass right out the gate.

I know. So like I really made best friends. Right. You know, how many six packs is it gonna

Tyler: take? I know, right? Like, how much weed do you guys need? Exactly. What do you need? You know? Right. Seriously. Come on, come on.

Christopher: And that originally glassing studio they had was so tiny. Yeah. It was the size of this recording studio.

Crazy. Maybe double, you know, but like, oh my God, man. And so like those early days of like, yeah, I'm not the best shaper. Yeah. You're not the best Glasser yet. And we got to really kind of develop it. And now it's at the point where, you know, that glassing process is really sophisticated. Yeah. And really challenging.

And if you [00:57:00] don't get that sharp edge, sharp in the right spots all the way through, it's not gonna ride the same. Yeah. It's point blank. It's not gonna ride the same so. Drew the sander 10 years younger than Aaron. Um, he really worked on that element and slowly but surely they became like the best edge glasses in the area.

Wow. You know, so, but yeah, I got very lucky. I mean, like, that's, that's a miracle, you know, because

Tyler: the boards look phenomenal. They're turning out so good. They're gorgeous, you know, I mean, that's like,

Christopher: and the performance elements are there that the glassing, you know, we've been working through like glassing schedules and stuff, and they're getting light and strong and there's all those edge elements that make it stronger.

So like, I think it's really getting sophisticated

Tyler: Now. Are you guys starting to play with different materials yet at all, or different types of, kind of glassing or epoxy or things of that nature? It's, no.

Christopher: There, I think like for now, you know, if you've glassed board, you know, it's like those two processes are so different.

Mm-hmm. That, you know, with their output, it's, [00:58:00] it's better to just stay in that one sort of vein right now. And like for me, um, the central nature of the foam. Is so much. I mean, EPS is not exactly the sexiest material to carve, so I, I, I wouldn't want to necessarily change. Um, I think there's a lot of merit in people that do.

And I think that, you know, I recently had a conversation last week, um, with, with a, a Columbia grad student. She was researching, um, sustainability mm-hmm. In certain boards. Mm-hmm. And so a lot of those materials, I think they get these impressions of like greenness or sort of things like that. And they're not necessarily green, they're not necessarily, and to me, at the end of the day, I think there's other ways to sort of, um, build a board with integrity that someone wants to keep for a long time and is very strong, particularly in hand shaping.

You can make, I, I wrote a little blurb on this the other day 'cause I kind of was, um, pontificating on like the strength of, uh. How a [00:59:00] blank that's well chosen can, um, make a board that's way stronger than a board that's cut on a machine with no sort of acknowledgement of where the cut's happening. So, long story.

Sorry, go ahead. Yeah,

Tyler: I was just gonna say like, I wonder, like if the pressure from pushing down. With your body weight. Yeah. Is compressing that foam more than like a machine, which is just dances across the top of it and is not pressing

Christopher: down. Yeah. That's an interesting, you

Tyler: know, because it makes it, 'cause that core is dense.

Yeah. And the outer part is less dense and as you get down and if you can compress it more, I wonder that's not,

Christopher: no, no. The poly blanks are denser on the outside. Oh, okay. Because they, 'cause I always Yeah. Saw. Yeah. So they, one that's blown. All the pressure goes to the outside. So, um, I was actually showing this, um, Columbia writer, like I had a cutoff and you, if you feel the center of the blank, it's really, really soft.

And then the edges, like that's why you, the cross, the cross is so hard on a blank, right? Right. Like you can literally take a blank, chuck it in your car and it won't get any ding dings. But if you had [01:00:00] shaved that skin, you know, you'll get dings on the blank. So the goal with I like hand shaping is you're gonna take all your volume off the bottom and you're gonna leave that deck like just barely skinned.

And your deck is so strong and where your, your feet are, it's like so strong and that that can contribute to the longevity in a way that I think like people underestimate sometimes. So those are the green elements that like, I was like, oh yeah, that's a sustainable element. That's actually pretty provocative.

You know,

Tyler: I feel like green surfboards in general, like it. It can be kind of counterintuitive. Like you, you can, yeah. You could do like sugar foam or the polyol foam. Yeah. Or whatever. And like, you know, and those could be great. Like, I don't know, but like sometimes just making a really good, well-built board with good glassing, maybe a heavier, slightly heavier glassing on that's solid will last longer.

And that actually ends up being better. Someone keep Right.

Christopher: You know, I think like falling in love with the board is not an insignificant thing. You're gonna ride it longer. You're gonna,

Tyler: you know, the, the only thing I think is just trying [01:01:00] to, um, maintain, keep, uh, longevity of flex, I think is probably the, the one obstacle that you get with a board that lasts a long time.

You want something that keeps that liveliness and after a certain amount of time it loses that, uh, memory, you know? Absolutely. Um, but I think like, yeah, like I, I, it is interesting 'cause I'm curious, like there's a lot of, there's so much stuff out there now that's coming. Have you,

Christopher: so the, in, in the vein of the edge boards.

Yeah. Um, there's a guy. He was in Australia, I believe, but now he's in New Zealand. But, um, his brand's called Young Craft and he works with the ver de the ver de guides. Yeah.

Tyler: Those things look sick with the wood skin.

Christopher: Yeah. I don't find it gimmicky at all. And I actually feel like the arguments about flex and material are like very sound and not to mention their edge boards.

So they look pretty sick. They look beautiful. They're stunning.

Tyler: I've seen the Harrisons. Yeah. Harrison. Yep. Harrison. His name's Harrison. And I saw those. I'm like, these are stunning. They're really nice. Yeah. And [01:02:00] like, and he's a good surfer, so you kind of believe him. You're totally, totally, no, you watch it and you're like, I kind of want that one of those.

Yeah. And like I think there's something there to that. Yeah. I always, I'm always like. When I talk to Shapers, I'm always like, what, what, uh, what's a different way to come up with shaping boards? Like, how are, how can we construct a board differently? Yeah. How can we, you know, I always thought like, it would be fascinating to do a surfboard, like a skateboard deck where you have layers and the different layers of material even that you can do.

Changing the phone in the Yeah. Like you could put something instead of a stringer, you have something flat going in there. Yeah. And you can even do, like in the middle of the board, a, a really, you know, solid wood and then not towards the tip and tail. You could do something more flexible a hundred percent than just stack the board almost.

Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm always like trying to think of different ways that we can make the words. Yeah. The

Christopher: fascination for that stuff never ceases, but like, it's more, I think like, if I'm gonna be brutally honest, that the hurdle of the experimentation is so [01:03:00] huge. It's like just the, just to even carve out.

Long, my board saved five hours to shape Yeah. To carve out, which is long. It's very long I, I'll admit, but like, it's those extra edge elements and things that take longer, but to carve out that five hours and you know, is already like, so then to start to go into like, all it, you know, it really, to be honest, it becomes a real like, sort of like second, third thought in the, in the running list of like, oh my God, I just wanna shape this thing.

So I know,

Tyler: I know, I know. I always go to like Mike Becker with zany ideas. Yeah. And he's always, and he's always like, yeah, all right, let's go for it. You know? I love that. I love that. Yeah. One of your other, uh, written pieces I really liked was your, uh, material, gender, and metaphor in building practices.

And this essay was kind of like. Yeah. Talking about how we ha we ascribe this masculinity to building and construction and how we do those things. And I'm [01:04:00] curious, like, is a surfboard, masculine or feminine? Oh

Christopher: wow, man, it's on his website, by the way. You can look it up. I'll have link to it. No, I, you know, that was an interesting piece to write for me because, um, I don't know.

Growing up in North Carolina, you have a relationship to, like the construction industry, particularly in Charlotte, it was the fastest growing city Yeah. In the, um, in this country at the time. So, um, you know, you'd see these materials, um, like the pink foam. Yeah. And you'd be like, oh, that's so curious. Yeah.

Like, what's up with that? And then you see the pink Panther, Panther, the pink. Yeah. And you're like, well, what's up with that? And then you start to associate your ideas about that color, about that, that, um, cartoon character with that material and with what's going on around you and the conflation of like that.

Construction environment and the, and that material and the way it looks and things like that, and the sort of fusion and conflation of those things gets really [01:05:00] interesting. And so to me, that's a model of for making for me, like in a way that I still use today. I, I, I absolutely, like if I think of like making a work as a poem, right?

And you have these words with their inherent symbolism and meaning, and you bring them together and it changes. That's, that's all that's really going on. Um, you know, the surfboard thing is so interesting because you can make a pink board, right? Yeah. Let's just say you make a pink board and you can call it puss Surfboards too.

Yeah, exactly. Right. To Lisa Vincent style. You know, and I don't, I don't know. I'm not, I don't think people, I don't know how to put this. What's your interpretation of it? I'm kind, I'm kind of curious what

Tyler: I mean. Obviously surfboards have been a very masculine thing for Yes, of course, yes. For a number of years.

But at the same time, we have this interesting history, right. Like, um, Mike Purpose putting Raquel Welsh. Yeah. You know, or, uh, other females on the bottom of their boards. Yeah. Even Elvira had a, [01:06:00] had like a board, you know, like, so there was like imagery. Yeah. And surfers kind of talked about making love to their boards Yeah.

And the waves. And there, there was like this romantic, the dance sexualized, uh, way of talking of surfboards and surfing. Absolutely. Yeah. So. It, it, it entering the womb. Yeah. No, it's, it's very much like, it's super fascinating because the, the world has been dominated by men for so long. Yeah. And now we're seeing women really come into surfing and come into their own and take ownership of it in a way that wasn't done before.

Yeah. So I think, you know, obviously I've always felt like surfing's a mirror, you know, it's whatever, you ascribe it, it comes back. But I do think like surfboards can be feminine. I think it could be a very feminine thing. It's obviously phallic too. Yeah. Could be androgynous. It could be, you know, like, it could be, you know, her not mite mph, you know, trying to make up a word there.

You know

Christopher: [01:07:00] what, um, I spent Thanksgiving, uh, looking through, I, I don't know if you had the original issues, but I had the hard, I have the hardbound of the old surface journals through Surface Journal. Yeah. So I, I was just like, I got him last year and I didn't really take a deep dive. Yeah, so I took a deep dive like over Thanksgiving.

Oh my God, man. Male dominated

Tyler: though.

Christopher: Yes. But if you, well, and the other like really hard hurdle to get over besides that one is that like the aesthetics were like, ugh, like, sorry everyone involved, but like, you guys got so much better. It's amazing. So once you get over the aesthetic hurdle of like the layout and things like that, I, there's so many fascinating details about the.

History of surfing and, and to, to the point of this conversation, you, when you look back and you see like those quig boards and maybe Vey did a couple like mm-hmm. In the late fifties where they were building boards for women and children for Darling. And they were amazing advanced surfboards that were [01:08:00] better than the stupid, clunky piece of shit that they were building for the guys.

And they just were too, I don't know, like too caught up in it to realize that they had already made a really advanced piece of equipment, you know, with someone else in mind that wasn't them. And if they were a little more open minded, they might have like seen like, oh my God, this like quote unquote woman's sport is actually like a way better.

Well, well, Joe Queen, they did that became the

Tyler: Malibu chip, you know? Yeah, exactly. Darly board, which is fascinating, you know. Yeah. And, uh. Yeah, I, I, I feel like maybe the surfboard could be more feminine and I think it wouldn't be such a bad thing if we adopted more of that femininity too.

Christopher: The cocoa ho boards look, I mean, incredible, right?

Like they're, I

Tyler: I almost looked at ordering one. I know. It's like, these kind of look sick. I mean, it's

Christopher: those, it's that classic story of like someone ordering a fry and then like, or their wife ordering a fry and it comes way more foil than the usual fry. And people are like, oh wow, that's really sick. I wanna ride that one.

You know, it's like, yeah,

Tyler: yeah, yeah.

Christopher: So, I don't [01:09:00] know. Yeah.

Tyler: I also think like we have yet to really, um, explore design for women in surfboards because of their body shape is different than ours. You know, their weight centered more around the hips. The guys tend to be more centered in the shoulders, and so I think there's.

There's aspects of design that have yet to really be unlocked yet for female surfers, which could also benefit men too.

Christopher: Well, uh, there's a Derrick Hind es I want essay or video, I can't remember. But, um, I distinctly remember him talking about the edge boards and he, he goes on about how women are surfing these boards much better than men.

They're not trying to overpower the boards. Mm-hmm. They're letting the board do its thing. And the, the grace is sort of like exhibited by, you know, by how they surf. And so to me, I, I was also fascinated by that. So I do try to like loan out boards to any female surfers. I see. Any of you out there Want to try one?

Please. 'cause ladies, it seems like y'all are [01:10:00] better at writing

Tyler: this Steph Gilmore. Yeah. I mean, you know, don't get me started. Yeah,

Christopher: yeah, yeah, for sure.

Tyler: It's like you watch her and you're just like, yeah, dude, she's letting the work, the board do the work. Exactly. Yeah. And it's like. Something I, you know, like I enjoy watching like a Dane Reynolds overpower his boards, you know, and I love seeing like power, but there's something about a clean line and seeing, letting the board just look like it's doing the work for you.

Absolutely. That is pleasurable. Like watching Torin Martin even like, he lets the boards do the surfing. Yeah. Almost. As opposed to like watching a, you know, a Johnny Boy Gomes who I love, but overpower. It doesn't matter what he's riding. Yeah. He could fucking overpower anything. You know,

Christopher: it doesn't matter.

But in a sense it's like, to your point, I think we're moving away from boards that are specifically designed to overpower waves. Right? Yeah. And not like that didn't happen before, but I think that like, it's just, it's in the air. And I [01:11:00] think that people not only enjoy experiencing a wave in that way, but they enjoy watching people ride a wave that way.

Mm-hmm. Way. And it's, and that transformation. Tied to these ideas of gender we're talking about. You know, I don't think it's like insignificant at all. I think it's really because it, it shifts the lens towards people that are surfing gracefully and things like that. Mm-hmm. And it's an enjoyable experience, man.

It's,

Tyler: it's also relatable. Yeah. I think it's more relatable than the acrobatic surfing we see today where I watch elo. I, I can't, that's a different sport to me. It's not, you know, it's talking about what's going on. It's a totally, it's a totally different sport to me. Whereas if I watch like a, like a Steph or, or jsa, like I, I am seeing this pure line.

They're drawn and I'm drawn to that and yeah, it's beautiful and it's, it feels more familiar in a certain way.

Christopher: Yeah. It's funny because it's a trick, you know? It, it looks attainable, but it's actually really hard. It's, IM, it's like so damn hard, you know?

Tyler: It's like, [01:12:00] that's the thing. It's an illusion. And like watching Tom Kern surf, like.

You know, you're gonna picture yourself like him when you're surfing. You're not gonna look like him. Yeah. But you could see yourself. I can't see myself doing gaber surfing like Gabriel Medina. 'cause there's no,

Christopher: nor do I want to, you know? No, and it's not, no shame on them. Yeah. No,

Tyler: but it's like their surfing is maneuver, maneuver, maneuver instead of this painted piece, you know?

Hundred percent that is being created, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Now I gotta, we gotta, we've, we've danced around this, but your fixation on calling surfboard sculpture arc. Yeah. Yeah. Like we've danced around it. Like what is this, because you have this conversation with Shea, summer of Summer Surfboards, who we love SHA summer, I guess.

Yeah. Yes,

Christopher: yes.

Tyler: And I'm curious like what are, what those conversations are like and what you are advocating for with this. Yeah. I

Christopher: find it to be a super fun conversation because I think when, when you get into the practice of art making, I think you sort of set up parameters for yourself. And I think a [01:13:00] good starting place is always like.

A work of art is inherently, um, functionless, right? Mm-hmm. As a sort of like starting place. I think that's pretty essential. Um, I was recently watching, um, Charlie Rose interview, Richard, Sarah. It's been popping up in my feet a bunch lately, like it's an old video, but it's really, really useful because whether Charlie Rose is literally as ignorant as he plays, it doesn't matter.

He's playing for the audience, right. He's exactly. He's a, he's a surrogate. So, um, and he's doing a really good job. And the way Richard Serra sort of starts, describes that, you know, the inherent uselessness, the intentional uselessness of the art object, right, right. Is its most essential piece. So when I get on and on about this, I think for me it's, it's me having respect for the two practices in a sense that I see so much value in the work put into the surfboard and how, how it functions.

And I'm not saying. A board has [01:14:00] to ride in a prescribed way, but it has this functional element that dictates its form. And I'll say that again. It's a, it's a function that dictates the form. And that will never happen in a, in a work, good work of art. So, you know, I think it's that differentiating element.

There's a million ways you can negate that concept, but I, that's the starting place for me and Shea, like when we were talking about this stuff. That's awesome. And, you know, um, even on the way here, I thought of a hundred different ways that that cannot be true. But I think in a way, like if you think of, I'm fine with describing surfing as an art form, right?

Mm-hmm. Because I don't, I don't know. Necessarily like, um, think of it as a sport per se. Yeah. So if I think of how the surfboard plays a role in that, it's sort of like the ballet slipper or the, um, I don't know. And there's more analogies, but I think of it the two Two, yeah. A little less, more to their performance, but [01:15:00] yeah.

And, um, the functional element of mm-hmm. An art of that artistic pursuit is, is, and that's out of absolute respect, you know? And that's for both, right? Yeah.

Tyler: Yeah. Do you then, does that change how you perceive shaping a board? Like, I remember having a friend tell me, like when he shapes, he thinks of himself as a machine almost.

Yeah. As opposed to like a sculptor. Yeah. Like he counts each line and he thinks of himself almost like a robot in some ways. Yeah. When he shapes and obviously everyone has their own. Uh, spin on that, but I'm curious, like, do you, does that then inform how you approach the surfboard? Do you think, I'm sculpting this, I'm shaping this, I'm designing this.

Like, how do you see that?

Christopher: Yeah, I think that actually is kind of on point. I think like, when you shape a board, the most success you're gonna have is if you set up a series of pr of, um, procedures that you're gonna follow, right? Mm-hmm. And there's like slight derivations along the way. But if you don't have that sort of [01:16:00] set of procedures along the way to execute, you know, you'll, you're gonna go astray.

You're gonna, yeah. So, and when, I don't know, sculpting is a little different because, you know, you're, you're never in the act of sculpting. The events that occur are sort of like. Imbued in the conceptual nature of the work. And you wouldn't say that for a surfboard per se, if it doesn't

Tyler: do what you want it to do, you know?

Christopher: Oh no. This surfboard is imbued with the act of sculpting itself. You know? Um, this surfboard

Tyler: is imbued with the modernist aesthetics and the critique of cap post-capitalism and, and the song I was listening

Christopher: to at the time, and then the cat jumped in and landed on, it's, it's all there man. It's the ephemera of the act, bro.

It's gonna ride fine. Don't worry about it. No,

Tyler: I even painted a halo on the rails, man. You know? Exactly. Yeah. The parabolic halo on it. Yeah.

Christopher: I, you know, and then like shaping in Matthew's studio, [01:17:00] you know, you kind of. The juxtaposition of those two things. You really, it becomes so vivid, the difference between what's going on in those two places.

You know, I

Tyler: got an art idea now.

Christopher: Yeah.

Tyler: Video piece, sculptor shaper, side by side, showing the process, dude. Pretty good, right? Pretty good. Yeah. Man, that could be a conceptual artist here.

Christopher: So I was also thinking about this in relationship to, um, you know, our, you, I don't know if you got to meet him when he was in town, but the perfect designer, perfect design guy, the French guy.

He makes these Oh

Tyler: yes, yes, yes. Yeah. The, the with um, I can't

Christopher: remember his name right now. Acid? Uh, yes.

Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. So to me, I feel bad now. They, I did get to meet him. Oh, I know, I know. You go get to, I'm

Christopher: gonna leave it. I'm gonna approach this listeners. Hundred percent. Okay. Keep myself later. No, no, no, it's fine.

I'm gonna approach this a hundred percent objectively. 'cause I think it's a good example of what, like my. Uh, fixation is a little bit like, and I say that because [01:18:00] what, he's making the form of those things, although being like, socially these holes,

Tyler: by the way, let's say. Yeah. The crazy hull. Yeah. Yeah.

Christopher: The, um, the sculptures are sort of, uh, I I wanna make sure we're on the same page.

Yeah. Not, um, but their, their form is. Referential in the sense of like, socially it references a surfboard and things like that. But when he adds like a, a sort of a jigsaw blade or like this guy Yes, this guy. Sorry. Yeah. I wanna make sure we on Yeah, I was thinking of, uh, Tristan for a second. Yeah, yeah.

Tyler: I'm sorry.

No, no, no, it's fine. Guess this guy who's in Portugal, uh, for that event and like I saw the saw blades and all the Yeah. Saw Yes. And in the coffin boards with the, with the handcuff leash and, and the Sadomasochist center. Hundred percent sculpture to me. Yeah.

Christopher: And, and it's like, and I, I wanna get my point across here.

It's that like, although it's referential to surfing and surfboard forms, it's a hundred percent, it's form is derived of, its [01:19:00] of it wanting to be a sculpture, right? Yes. So. Totally sort of, um, functionless in that sense. And to me, you can look at what he's made and you can look at say, a dick brewer polished like gun, and you mm-hmm.

It's so apparent to me that once a surfboard and wants a sculpture,

Tyler: right. So

Christopher: that's like, where, that's where like the puritan version of that idea, I think is like a good illustration. Or even like trough makes six surfboards, you know, and they're so in the, the gas tank with the fin on it, that's incredible.

But I'm like, I won't ride that thing. But, um, you know, and it, to me it's like the form is augmented by their sculptural intentions and it's not augmented by this sort of like, um, the Yeah. The design. So yeah, that's, that's where I get, I love that, that's where my hangups go. And, and Shay and I went on for a little while about it and he had some good counter arguments, but yeah, I think everyone should have this conversation.

I think it's important because you'll, all the time you'll walk into a shop and people are like, oh, that's like a work of art, that's a sculpture. And it's [01:20:00] not, it's not like blasphemous to say that. Yeah. But I think it's in service of both. Like that's an amazing design, you know, versus like, that's an incredibly thoughtful art object.

You know? I think, I think the difference is significant and they, of course, influence each other and they're of course, like ancest, you know, it's like they're, it's important that they're together.

Tyler: Well, they're not, you know, the surfboard isn't challenge, I mean, it is challenging, you know, it can be challenging, but Yeah.

But for the most part, you make it not to be challenging. You make it to, uh, so that people can surf and you're not, like, art is almost there to challenge your perception. Yeah. I feel like, or to change your, your perception, your perspective of the world. And a surfboard may not necessarily do that. No, it can.

It's a potential, I think

Christopher: it's a tool for that, right? Like in the sense that I'm almost gonna like, negate myself, but in a sense of like. The surfboard is complete when the person rides it in dialogue with the wave. And the same way that a sculpture is complete when it's occupying a space and a viewer [01:21:00] views it and has aer sort of experience.

And I think those are analogies. I don't think they're sort of like the same thing. Right, yeah. Which is like getting in the weeds a bit, but you know, it's fun though. Yeah, it's fun.

Tyler: I feel like we should take a few gummies and just like get on the couch. It's really, and record some more, you know, it's really seriously.

Um, so I gotta wrap this up, but I, I've been doing this a little bit more. I'm trying to do is I used to do a long time ago this thing called the Surfers questionnaire. Yeah. And it was based on like, kind of the inside the actor studio. Oh man. Questionnaire. So I have a couple questions I want to ask you.

Are these rapid

Christopher: fire or can I think about it? You can, you can take a few seconds there. I'm not gonna,

Tyler: come on. Let's go. Um, what is your favorite surf term?

Christopher: It's just gotta be you, man. You,

Tyler: you, I

Christopher: loved it. I mean, 'cause it's, you know, it's, uh, universal. Mm-hmm. And it's not, it's language, but it's more sound.

Right. Yeah. You know, so I think it's the annunciation. It's guttural though. Yeah. And you can't say primal. [01:22:00] You can't say you. That doesn't mean that's a tree. Yeah. Literally. That's a trait. Yeah. So if you don't, like, it's sort of like, uh, hearing a poem, read aloud versus reading on the page, you know, it's like,

Tyler: yeah.

It feels like to me like you is almost a call to action too. Like, it's like

Christopher: Absolutely. Yeah, we're going surfing huge. I don't say much in the water, but that's like one that I'll always try to throw out if I see someone coming down the line, you know. Me too.

Tyler: Um, what is your least favorite surf term?

Christopher: I, I don't love kook.

I mean, it's fine. Mm-hmm. But I just don't happy, prefer Barney. I, Barney's great. Barney

Tyler: is absolutely amazing. Bar barnyard to the max.

Christopher: I have the shirt, I have the, the Barney's, New York, uh, Marshall Brothers shirt too. It's so good. Man. Keep that thing on ice. It's too good. Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm not opposed to the ideals around why you would say someone is or isn't, but I think it gets misused and I, and I don't, you know, I don't know.

Tyler: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kook [01:23:00] is, it's an okay term. It's okay, you know. Alright. If you can go back in time and grab any surfboard from your history, what board would it be and why?

Christopher: Oh man. So I, um, in my early twenties, I had. I was obsessed with Robin Machado as I still am, but I had the two boards that were released, um, around that time, which was the Merrick Single fin.

Mm-hmm. And then the fish. Yes. And I had the fish and I no longer have the fish. So that board was great. I know I still have the, the MSF too, I believe. Yeah. So I remember

Tyler: taking, I borrowed that once in Peru and it was just like, oh, insane. Right. That was like one of my first fish experiences. And it was just like, because

Christopher: that was kind of post litmus, but like, I don't know, it was on a different wave.

Like Rob was still kind of, he had stopped kind of professionally. Yeah. So he was, yeah.

Tyler: He wasn't competing, but he was riding it, like that fish that he had in the, you know, what was it? Not the seedling, the sprout. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Uh, that he took down the coast, uh, with [01:24:00] like Skip and, uh, Joel and all that.

Christopher: Yeah. So that was like, yeah, that was pretty pivotal to me. 'cause I never surfed a thruster like at all. Really. Um, I only surfed like the single fins and then those ports were really pivotal and I, I exclusively wrote that. Single, the MSF uh, two for like a long time. I could

Tyler: see that that board was great.

It influenced my surfing so much. It's so much float too. And like, yeah, it was almost three. I felt like I would always just be so high up on it. Yeah, it felt really nice. Crazy low

Christopher: rocker

Tyler: two, but so pinned out. It was like kind of perfect.

Christopher: Yeah.

Tyler: Um, if heaven exists, what sort of wave would you like to surf for Eternity.

Whew.

Christopher: You know, um, there's a wave in Nicaragua. I, I, I'll leave it at that. Yeah. Um, it's a left point and some of those photos in the book are from there, but when it's just like a little overhead, it is just like the most perfect wave ever. Um, it, it's like open, big face, beautiful. Just like high lines. I mean, it's perfection.

[01:25:00] Yeah.

Tyler: So now Chris, where can our listeners find you? Where can they get, uh, where can they get a copy of this six zine? Yeah. And also where can they order a board?

Christopher: Yeah. So you can find me at St. Christopher Surf Craft on Instagram. You can email me. I think it's on there. Campbell. Mm-hmm. T Christopher at gmail.

Um, the zine, I made limited copies, but I have. Some at Kings Glassing. So if you're going to pick up a board from them or you just wanna stop by, you can hit them up. Aaron is very welcoming. Um, and he'll show you around. But um, you can also just hit me up and I'll send anyone a PDFs. Nice. 'cause um, I'd love for people to give me their sort of like impression of it and all that.

Tyler: People it's beautiful and it's also like newspaper quality. Yeah. Really nice, you know. Um, and also where can they find your artwork as well? My artwork.

Christopher: Artwork, it's a different story. Um, I don't like necessarily participate so much in the sort of, um, hustle and bustle of like the gallery life. Not that I'm opposed to it at all, [01:26:00] but if you wanna see my work, um, my Instagram just Christopher Thomas Campbell with Underscores is I have a lot of doing some drawings lately too.

I saw. Yeah. Yeah, that looked really

Tyler: cool.

Christopher: Those works are, um. Based on experiences I've had, um, uptown in Rockaway where um, some of you may have also experienced this, but you'll go out for a first light surf and there had been a sort of ceremony on the beach where people have, um, offered sort of flowers and fruit to whatever sort of spiritual being there offering Ite Huey.

Yeah. And, um, surf God. Exactly. Yeah.

Tyler: Huey the surf God.

Christopher: And so you're in the lineup. And there's these fruit and flowers floating in, and you come in and the detritus has sort of like come along the shore and, um, that flotsam creates what I would call almost a drawing. So they sort of reference that. But those things are never just by themselves.

They're always mixed in with other elements. So as those sort of things come together, it sort tells a story, it tells an interesting narrative. I love them. I

Tyler: saw those on your Instagram. I was like, oh, these are stunning. They're really [01:27:00] nicely done. And I was just really stoked. So listeners, go check out his regular Instagram as well.

Yeah, please. And, and see his artwork. 'cause it's, it's great. And like I said, some of the, uh, the, the pieces he's written are on there that I, I recommend reading. They're really fun, very thought provoking. As you can tell. We had a really nice, very deep conversation, you know, about surfboards and all that.

If you're still awake right now, please go look what is. Art. Yeah. You mean like paintings and stuff? Yes. Yeah, exactly. Well, I really enjoyed this, Chris. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming on and um, I'm just fucking stoked on your boards and when I have enough money, I'm gonna be ordering one.

So I'm really excited. You'll

Christopher: get a big discount. Don't worry. Listeners, you and Martha.

Tyler: Me and Martha. Yeah. Well I appreciate it and uh, I gotta give a quick shout out here to Joe, our engineer here in the studio. We're here at the newsstand studio in Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan. And we had all these people checking [01:28:00] us out, going through.

It was real fun. And, uh, yeah, don't forget to hit like, and subscribe and of course follow us on Instagram at 12 Season Surf Radio and we'll see you all down the line soon.