To consume, or create, that is the question?
Whether nobler to think, and work, w/end in mind,
Or lay and wait while others decide.
The interesting bit about questions like these, is they are being asked less frequently.
I recently took on a very interesting project. I wanted a fish board, and I wanted to make it my own, so I found an excellent shaper and we started the process. It was an interesting and very rewarding journey.
Surfboard shapers are interesting cats, and collaborating w/ them is a fun experience. These folks are truly artists, wrapped w/ eccentric notions of crafting vessels ridden to a realm that comes and goes one time. They understand, first hand, this powerful experience and the importance of shaping the ships that can propel surfers and evoke the fleeting feelings derived from spending seconds in a time and space that will never exist again. These people are something between foam alchemists and boat builders, and they are shamens to their tribes, feared and revered.
Needless to say, I approached my shaper w/the notion of a board, some humility, and some good old fashioned green backs. Turns out, this method of motion is mostly successful… I mean it. (I couldn’t resist one more “m”.) Anyway, there I was standing in a space I had never been, trying to express sentiment, action, and motion that has, at best, a very crude language. We began.
I brought three boards that I enjoyed riding, to the mystic. We talked of local weather, and different breaks, paddling, hydrodynamics, eras of art, clean lines, different philosophies of different things, sustainability and even lightly dabbled in politics. One of the best pieces I took from the talk was, he wanted to build the board I needed not the board he wanted for me. That is really what we need from our shamen. We need them to help us w/what we need, not w/what they want us to have. Accepting what they want us to have is not sustainable, and will not take us to these beautiful but fleeting places consistently.
After our chat, I started considering the details of what I wanted, and even put a crude sketch together to discuss the art. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. Being easily entertained, keeps one content. We roughed out the foam blank, decided on retro twin fins, and I left the Master of the craft to do just that, craft.
Time rolled by, as it has, and will. I waited….
Then the call came, and I went. We met at his shaping room, and I realized we had brought notion to life. The unreal was birthed into reality, and a surfboard was born, Bluefish. I was very happy w/ the creation on many levels, and happier still when I caught the first mushy undersized wave on this artwork. It was fantastic. It was skatey, fast, and held a line. We did it.
I do appreciate repurposing, well, most everything, but creation has its place. It should be considered, especially now, in this age of mass production where unfaced capitalists nearly force plastic garbage, disguised as something fun or useful, into our homes and lives only to be put into the trash pile (best case) soon after it was purchased. They happily take the proceeds from the consumer, slightly pay the producer, enlist advertisers to continue ensnaring us, and use the net proceeds to experience the finer things in life. We, collectively, should recognize this and act. We deserve better.
Create!
Build your own! My own what? Build your own whatever you cans.
Edgar~
