Here's some epic wipeouts caught by Steve Christensen Photo , most shot at the Venice Breakwater and Venice Pier.





Click: Wednesday Wipeouts for the previous wipeout photo sets.

Do we need to enjoy nature in order to protect it? That’s one of the questions at the heart of a surfing art exhibit in Malibu this summer. The show was co-sponsored by the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, a new lab dedicated to environmental storytelling across cultures and media, with the Depart Foundation in Malibu.

When you enter the “Sea Sick in Paradise” exhibit, curated by artist and surfer Amy Yao in a pop-up space in Malibu Village, you might first notice a patch of colors on the wall across the gallery’s central open space. It’s a board wider than it is tall, divided horizontally into a wash of orange-pink above and gently rippled blue below. So you might stand for a moment, in between two oceans, facing Billy Al Bengston’s “Lost at Sea, 6:00PM” with Malibu Beach at your back.

It is one of many views of the ocean in the show, many of them, like Bengston’s, blurred, fuzzed, partial, out of focus. And in most of these images, the viewer is positioned like a surfer: on the beach or in a wave. It’s as if the pieces are meant to show you what it’s like to see the ocean as a surfer, with salt in your eyes. 'Sea Sick in Paradise' suggests that seeing like a surfer could help motivate people to protect the coast, perhaps even more than facts about threats to our oceans, beaches, and surf breaks.

Joel Cesare of the Surfrider Foundation, and a sustainable building advisor for the city of Santa Monica, made this argument in a panel moderated by LENS co-founder Jon Christensen, one of many events taking place around the exhibition this summer. Surfrider, Cesare said, is based on the “very significant connection” that people experience with a place “that provides them joy.” When people enjoy a place deeply, they begin to see it differently, and are ultimately moved to protect it. In Cesare’s words, there is a natural progression from “enjoyment to protection.”
Indeed, this is the story of the Surfrider Foundation itself, which was founded in 1984 by surfers to clean up and protect Surfrider Beach in Malibu. A version of this story is told in the art exhibit as well. In the surf movie “Forbidden Trim,” clips of which are shown in a back room, a military spy casts off his uptight persona during a semi-mystical encounter with surf culture. He experiences the transformative possibility of loving a wave.

Scholars in the environmental humanities argue that communities devoted to environmental protection are built on stories like these. Compelling narratives, often coupled with scientific knowledge, create powerful environmental movements. But not all stories do this work equally well. In the book “The Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks” , Raul Lejano, Mrill Ingram and Helen Ingram emphasize the importance of what they call “plurivocity”: “the ability of a story to be told in differing ways by different narrators.” The beach can and should be a place for such inclusive stories.

In his remarks at the panel, Christensen, who is leading a multidisciplinary research project on “Access for All: A New Generation’s Challenges on the California Coast ”, quoted poet T.S. Eliot: “The sea has many voices.”
The story of surfing has not always been a many-voiced one. Surfers have helped open California’s beaches to the public, but they have also made some beaches and surf breaks unwelcoming to outsiders. The show is aware of this tension. It represents and pushes against the exclusionary elements of surf culture. Jeff Ho’s mural “Black & White” looks like it’s written in a sort of code, except for the words “Locals Only.” Other works highlight more inclusive corners of the surf world. Eve Fowler and Mariah Garnett’s documentary “Life is Torture” explores the experiences of lesbian surfers. And Cristine Blanco’s “Sharks” shows three women of color suiting up for surfing. At the panel discussion on “The New Lineup: Surfing, sea-level rise, access, and inclusion in the 21st century,” Blanco spoke of finding her own way into the surfing lineup as a student in college in San Diego, and now introducing other girls to the ocean with Brown Girl Surf, an organization that gives young women in the San Francisco Bay Area, some of whom live just miles from the beach, their first exposure to the surf.
“Sea Sick in Paradise” includes many voices saying many, sometimes contradictory, things. The exhibit as a whole makes the argument that this “plurivocity” is an important feature of the changing culture of the coast. It is also, as Christensen argues, a key to preserving access for all Californians to the coast, and protection of the coastline in an era of climate change. But art is seldom so literal.

Could art’s focus on the beauty of surfing as easily lead to complacency rather than action?

Beauty is certainly on display in many of the fuzzed-out, idealized images of the ocean in the show. In “The Ocean Comes to Us,” by Peter Fend, a video of waves lapping at a beach loops endlessly on a vintage tube TV. In Tin Ojeda’s photograph “FJV Knost,” a surfer is a dark smudge on a hazy gray wave.
Most strikingly, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s “Ocean Essays” consists of a huge tube of painted nylon. It sits at the entrance to the exhibit. Walk in and you’re inside a wave, everything blocked out but the ocean’s immediate blue.

In another of the show’s video installations, a surf documentary plays on both sides of a hanging screen. On one side you can sit in a plastic chair and watch as usual. On the other, you’re forced by the tiny room to stand just a few feet from the screen. Standing so close that you can see the film grain in the projection, you realize that seeing something up close is not the same as seeing it clearly.

But then, as if to put an exclamation point on “Sea Sick in Paradise,” in the last image that people are likely to see in the show, a surfer rides through a curl made up of as much plastic trash as water. Zak Noyle’s photographic illustration “Wave of Change” is a beautiful and disturbing complement to the life-size model wave that invites visitors into the tube at the beginning of the show. Instead of cast-off materials (canvas and wood) used to make a beautiful wave, a beautiful wave is compromised by cast-off materials.

The sudden, clear-eyed view of what an unprotected ocean looks like does not displace, but does complicate, the show’s other idyllic ocean views. And an inclusive story — like the story told in ““Sea Sick in Paradise”” — should be complicated.

Photos: Jeff McLane |Courtesy Depart Foundation

By Amy DePaul.
Four years ago, Detroit native Mimi Miller had never been in the ocean. Now she’s a devoted bodyboarder, surfer and volunteer for the Black Surfers Collective — a group that, according to its mission, raises cultural awareness and promotes diversity in the sport of surfing through community activities, outreach and camaraderie.

On Aug. 12, you could find Miller standing on the shoreline of Los Angeles’ Santa Monica State Beach, clapping and cheering on newcomers who took part in the collective’s monthly free lessons to introduce black people to surfing, called Pan African Beach Days.

Being active in the L.A.-based collective, with its 799 members on Facebook, has allowed her to do something she enjoys in a supportive, vibrant atmosphere: “I love the community,” she explained in between chasing down stray boards and yelling “Good job!” to kids and adults alike.
About 111 people signed up for the Aug. 12 event, although the collective cannot safely accommodate such a large number. Still, a good 40 people, ranging from young kids to middle-aged participants, got training and coaching. Most did not have experience surfing.

Miller and the rest of the collective’s members are part of the proud if lesser-known tradition of black surfing, which some would argue goes back to native Hawaiians (descendants of Polynesians), who are credited with inventing the sport in the first place. Among the legendary surf icons are Montgomery “Buttons” Kaluhiokalani, a black Hawaiian whom Surfer magazine called “the father of modern day surfing.”

L.A. has its own lore, beginning with black surf pioneer Nick Gabaldon, who frequented the Inkwell Beach in Santa Monica in the 1940s, where black beachgoers congregated during segregation. Also, the late Dedon Kamathi, a radio host and onetime Black Panther, was a surfing devotee, as was police abuse victim Rodney King.

Founder and co-president of the Black Surfers Collective, Greg Rachal is a former skateboarder who found his way onto a longboard early on. “I’ve been in and out of the water all my life, since I was 13,” he said.

Rachal and his wife, Marie, are beach enthusiasts and a vital presence in the collective, which organizes camping and surf trips and takes a leadership role in an annual tribute to Gabaldon.

Rachal’s son, Greg Jr., 15, volunteers on the collective’s surf days because he likes giving back. He is on his school’s surf team, which sometimes comes as a surprise to his white classmates. Greg Jr. would like to see more African-Americans in surfing. Until then, he said, he enjoys defying stereotypes.

He’s not alone. Waterman Michael Brown Parlor has been surprising people with his prowess in lifeguarding, surfing and sailing since he was a college student in South Carolina in the 1970s. He’s retired from surfing and mentors female surfers in competitive events, believing girls don’t get the respect they deserve in the sport. He spent Pan African Beach Day encouraging newbie surfers and taking pictures for his Facebook page devoted to surfing.

Pan African Beach Day was launched a few years ago because too few black people in L.A. get to the beach, and they don’t always have a background in swimming to enjoy the water, Rachal explained. He credited the Surf Bus Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes ocean sports and safety in L.A., for helping make Beach Day a success by supplying the boards, instructing students and providing additional volunteers. Beach Days are open to anyone, although most participants are people of color.

Before they took to the waves Aug. 12, participants gathered on the beach for a talk about ocean safety and played some games that got them into the water. Then it was time to plop themselves on boards laid out in the sand, where they learned how to position their arms and feet and practice their “pop up,” the tricky move from prone to upright, ending in a stance with knees bent and arms extended.

After some popping up, volunteer instructors such as Rachal and other members of the collective took participants into the water, finding the right wave and giving them a push forward. Some newcomers rode the boards on their bellies, zooming into shore with their arms extended, while others proved agile enough to stand up, maintain balance and ride in — always an exhilarating moment for a student and instructor. Waves were small, and wipeouts were minor.

Participant Pierre Scott had attended a few Pan African Beach Days before and was having a good run, standing up and even angling into the barrel of the wave, not just riding into shore.

“I love it. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” Scott said.

“It’s a hype experience,” said Garry Maxwell, who chuckled about the language of surfing, explaining that “I’m stoked.”

Devin Waller was a beginner and felt a bit nervous. But she felt the stoke the first time she stood up on the board.

“It was awesome,” Waller said after the session ended, depositing her board on the sand. “Heck yeah, I’m going to do it again.”

Selective S/SSE Swell; Small NW Windswell.

LOLA wave height chart for the SPAC, showing the SSE swell on tap this week..

Fun size S/SE swell for exposures this week; many breaks shut out
Small NW windswell mixes in
Early mornings have the best conditions/lightest winds
New SSW swell shows this weekend

" North Shore" Is 30 Years Old Today. Exactly 30 years ago, on August 14th, 1987, Universal Pictures took a big risk on a big screen surf film that had never been done before... and it tanked... BUT, what Universal Pictures doesn't realize, is that it far from tanked in the wide eyes of hundreds of thousands of young people who found it hilarious, captivating, inspiring and just straight UNREAL!!!

With each decade that passed, and with its release onto VHS, cable, and DVD ...it gained a cult-classic fan base that spans worldwide.

Fans have proudly made North Shore a part of their lives and their children's lives... Exchanging favorite one liners with their friends and family...naming their kids and pets after their favorite characters, and even inspiring them to surf, to shape, to dream big and to keep the stoke, all while "staying loose"--- on Hawaii, on the mainland and worldwide.

With an 80s dynasty of a cast, packed with pro surfers who are still charging today, with actors who are all still good friends, working hard but still finding time to take surf trips together, and with a soundtrack that was packed full of power ballads (Nature of the Beast by The Angels), legendary Reggae beats, and Australian bands who are still touring today, there's no doubt that this film will continue to charge into the next 30 years with a new generation of stoked youth!

Celebrate as you wish with a few tacos bought with a giant check... with a 20 dollar glass of champagne... some good homemade pork jerky or a flaming hot sugar stick....maybe a good surf sesh... a movie night with family and friends....

When the swell forecast for the first week of August showed signs of double-overhead hurricane swell, the Bay Street Crew knew it was time for a lil Baja action. Although the swell wasn't as big as advertised, the waves were tons of fun and the tacos were on fire! Here's some pics of their trip taken by Los Angeles based photographer Carlos Soriano.







Check out more from Los Angeles based photographer Carlos Soriano on his Instagram: @_neverlikehome

Mid-morning at Tower 26 on Friday, some small, yet fun waves. Here's some photos from Six12 Media.







There's a few more photos, all in high-resolution, in the complete Ocean Park - Friday 8-11-2017 Gallery.

30% OFF on select merchandise at JACKSsurfboards.com. Use code: EOS17
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