Hey, springleap folk
Skate art has come a long way since the sport, culture and industry started way back in mid 1940’s. Today most art is situated on the deck or wooden platform that the rider stands on but can also be found on the wheels and trucks of the board. The later being the most unusual as it’s rather a small surface area and has weird and crazy angles. Most truck art is in the form of a pattern or texture, a popular one being “the wooden truck” look.
I came across a pertinent piece of deck art today because it comes from a scene out of Lewis Carroll’s infamous Alice in wonderland. It’s a very plain image with a few of Carroll’s most intriguing characters and no colour to speak of. I wouldn’t even skate this, it would go straight up on my wall. The other image at the top of the page is another classic example of skate art during the 80’s that was very popular with consumers. The skull has always been popular with the punk and metal cultures and by and large most skate boarders listen to these genres of music. All the images I got here came from a very small but interesting site called Jim Phillips. Generally a very informative site that gave a little history of the images and the era that they came from. A rare pleasure for the inquisitive.
Funnily enough I checked old faithful, Wikipedia just for the hell of it and found some crazy facts. Like, the United States Marine Corps tested the usefulness of commercial off-the-shelf skateboards during urban warfare mock ups in the late 1990s in a program called Urban Warrior ‘99. Their special purpose was “for manoeuvring inside buildings in order to detect tripwires and sniper fire”. Truly weird as the skateboard was always perceived as an image against the establishment.
Till we meet again
Alex
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