Journey

Both art and skateboarding have positively influenced my life in immense ways. As the son of an artist, I have experienced first-hand the struggle that artists face to make ends meet (including my mom who is a printmaker), and a similar struggle that skateboarding faces to be recognized, taken seriously and appreciated in a world where major league sports are front and center. I started Art on Deck with the primary goal to help showcase my mom's art on a meaningful medium- the skateboard deck. I did some research and found other brands and artists were doing the same kind...

 Unfortunately Colorado was the furthest western US destination for us, and although I would have loved to go further west in the early 90's, it just wasn't in the plans.   Luckily our route back to Canada involved traveling through Nebraska, where we found a fairly large skate park called EAT CONCRETE.  This place was huge, and also very popular as there were plenty of skaters here. It was really busy, but they also had enough space that it didn't feel overcrowded at all. There were several of quarter pipes, launch ramps and some street features made it more conducive to...

  In the northern Denver suburb of Brighton, Colorado, we discovered a small public outdoor park with a mini ramp and some street obstacles.  I was practicing blunt to fakies and launching.   This park wasn't very busy at all, so I spent a lot of time here practicing and enjoying the outdoor mini-ramp.  It had a painted metal surface which made it pretty smooth and weather resistant. The height was a comfortable 4' and it was very easy to ride.  Here's where I learned to do frontside nosegrinds to fakie. and frontside 180 grinds. The half-pipe was really well-built...

   After Kansas was our the furthest west we'd be traveling - to Denver Colorado.   We were actually staying in Denver for a vacation, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to check out all the local skate spots throughout the city.   Jamaica Jim's was an amazing skateboard park with a large indoor space filled with ramps and transitions. There was an indoor bowl, which was quite popular with the locals.   I was definitely interested in getting familiar with riding a bowl as the opportunity didn't come up too often.  Shown below with my New Deal...