Art Collides with Skaters

With skate-stops installed on benches and rails and ‘No Skating’ signs posted throughout Pacific Palisades, Paliskates has become almost the last refuge for the persecuted Palisadian skateboarder. The store, located on Swarthmore, recently held a skateboard and logo design contest and Palisadian Harry Keenan, a 14-year-old freshman at Palisades Charter High School, won with his design of the evolution of skateboarders. Palisadian Olivia Faze, a 14-year-old freshman at Windward School, won the logo design contest. Currently, 50 skateboards with Harry’s design and Olivia’s logo are being manufactured by Sugar Skateboards, and will soon be available for sale at Paliskates, and when those boards sell out, the store will host another design contest. While shopping at Paliskates, Harry and his friends were given blank papers, shaped like skateboards, and informed of contest rules. Although they had three weeks to complete their design, Harry got to work as soon as he arrived home. His design features his version of the evolution of skateboarders. It starts off with a chimp, then a gorilla, moves through early man, up to modern man, before devolving into a chimp on a skateboard. ‘I kind of had the idea in my head before the contest,’ Harry said. ‘I was thinking that it was a cool thing, so when I got the [the blank skateboard] it just kind of came.’ Olivia was also informed of the contest while shopping. ‘I also made a skateboard design, but I felt more satisfied with my logo drawing,’ she said. ‘I just sat down and knew that something like graffiti letters would look great on a deck. Plus, the colors seem pretty suitable.’ Skateboarding originated in California sometime during the 1950s and coincided with the popularization of surfing. Initially, skateboards were rudimentarily homemade with wooden planks (decks) attached to roller-skate wheels (trucks). Skaters emulated surfing moves, hence skateboarding’s original name, ‘sidewalk surfing.’ In the 1960s, skateboarding became more mainstream as manufacturers began building skateboards that resembled small surfboards on wheels. In 1965 the international skateboarding championship was broadcast on national television for the first time. In the early 1970s skateboarding again began to rise in popularity, in part due to Frank Nasworthy’s development of the polyurethane wheel. Traction, performance and maneuverability increased. In 1976, the modern skateboard came into use, and modern skating began to develop. During the 1976 drought in California, many swimming pools were empty and became a breeding ground for a new style of skateboarding’vert skating. Twenty years later, though skateboarding has undergone certain generational changes, some 12.5-million people are skateboarding around the world, using much of the technology and style developed over the past several decades in Southern California. Harry Keenan began skating several years ago. ‘I used to play basketball and football, which kept me busy with practice, but then I took a break from school activities,’ he said. ‘Since I didn’t have anything to do after school, I just started skating. It came out of boredom, and then I got good.’ Now he spends much of his free time skateboarding around the Palisades with his friends. Harry, who generally does street skating because it’s free, skates at local schools, Paul Revere, PaliHi, Palisades Elementary and SamoHi. He also skates on sidewalks and in parking lots around town, on the ‘slick bricks’ on Bowdoin and on the outdoor basketball courts at the Recreation Center. Sometimes though, he heads up to Malibu to skate at Papa Jack’s Skate Park. ‘They let you in for free, so it’s pretty cool,’ he said, pointing out that a skate park used to be set up every Sunday at the Rec Center, but isn’t anymore. Skating around town, Harry occasionally runs into those opposed to skateboarding. In many places, skate stops, which are attached on rails and benches, have been installed to prevent skaters from performing grinding tricks, which can damage public property. Also, business and property owners are generally opposed to skaters using their property for stunts, something Harry wishes could be compromised on. ‘If you walk into a store with a skateboard with Krew pants on, people automatically assume, ‘Oh he’s bad or something,” Harry said. ‘If they could only see it from our perspective, but they automatically assume the worst. They don’t compromise at all.’ Olivia Faze, who has been skating a little longer than Harry, hasn’t run into much anti-skating sentiment around the Palisades. ‘Believe it or not, I have been [skating] since I was six years old. I’m not really a ‘hard-core skater’ so I don’t run into anti-skateboarding views in the Palisades,’ she said. ‘But I do believe that skateboarding isn’t a crime.’ The skateboard design/logo contest allowed Harry and Olivia to marry two of their favorite hobbies: skateboarding and art. ‘Art is a huge hobby of mine and when I have free time I like to sit in my room and draw any random things that come to mind,’ Olivia said. ‘I’ve gotten more into art since the start of my studio art class at my school.’ She draws inspiration from tattoo art, like Sailor Jerry and Ed Hardy designs, as well as from shows like ‘L.A. Ink’ and ‘Miami Ink.’ Apart from art and skating, Olivia is also involved in soccer and boxing. Harry has been taking classes at the Brentwood Art Center for a couple of years. He began with cartoon classes and has now moved onto more serious fundamentals and figure drawing. ‘Besides skating, I just draw a lot,’ he said. ‘I just like a red and black Sharpie and that’s pretty much it.’ Harry, a former basketball and football player, plans to run track this spring at PaliHi. In the rest of his spare time, he and his friends create and post videos on YouTube (www.youtube.com/wangypong). Soon skateboards designed by Harry Keenan with logo by Oliva Faze will be available for sale at Paliskates. Although both will receive a free skateboard as part of winning the contest, Harry plans on getting two extra ones, so he’ll have three’two to skate with and one to hang on his wall. If he’s allowed to enter again, Harry plans on designing another board. It was great how Paliskates had this contest,’ Olivia said, ‘and that I was able to take part in it.’