With all the hype surrounding the finals of the Cold Water Classic, we almost forgot about another Northern California surfer competing against the world’s best the very same weekend (October 13/14). However, this contest didn’t take place in the water, but in the shaping bay.
Master shaper Marc Andreini of San Mateo represented Northern California in the inaugural “Tribute to the Masters Shape-off” competition held in conjunction with the Sacred Craft Consumer Surfboard Expo at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Southern California. Read the surf column on Andreini here. Over 4,000 surfboard lovers attended the two-day Surfboard Expo.
While the word around town this week was that Andreini’s shape should have gotten the nod, Florida’s Ricky Carroll took top honors and the $1,000 winner’s check Sunday in the competition honoring Mike Diffenderfer. Aside from Andreini, the Floridian beat out master craftsmen Tim Phares (L.A.), Terry Martin (Orange County), Jim Phillips (San Diego) and Scott Ray, who traveled all the way from the Great Lakes to participate.
Above: Andreini with self-shaped “Hot Curl” boards, the old-school redwood planks ridden in the 1930s and 40s. Andreini is known throughout California as an authority on retro single fin boards, from the seventies and back.
“I’m just very, very stoked. What a great competition,” Carroll said in a statement, upon receiving his first place prize check in front of the packed crowd of surfers at the Expo hall. “This ‘Diff’ was a unique board to replicate, and all of the other shapers did a great job as well. I had made Cheyne Horan a few boards with a similar bottom as this ‘Diff’ back in the Lazor Zap days, but the ‘S’ deck and classic ‘Diff’ rails really made this challenging.”
Andreini was considered by many to be the favorite heading into the competition because of his extensive knowledge of the designs of Diff’s era and his work with SC shaper Doug Haut, a close friend of Diff’s.
Kudos to Carroll for shaping a beautiful blank, although it’s a little ironic that a guy from Florida wins a shaping contest honoring the late Mike Diffenderfer, who’s single fin pintails became the stuff of legend after proving themselves in the powerful Hawaiian surf. It’s safe to say that Carroll’s board will probably never be ridden to its true potential in Florida–unless of course someone decides to paddle it out during a rare massive hurricane swell. Double overhead Reef Road perhaps?
Below: Diff eyeing another nearly completed semigun shape that most likely wound up tracing a big bottom turn along the face of a heaving Hawaiian wave at someplace like Hanalei Bay or Sunset Beach.
In last Sunday’s Sentinel I wrote a piece on Marciano Cruz, known around town as Chango. The article (click here to check it out) focused on Chango’s incredible life–the challenges he’s faced, how surfing helped him turn his life around, and his campaign to share his passion for the ocean with other disadvantaged young people in the community.
Chango during his heat at the 2007 Santa Cruz Longboard Union Invitational at the Lane this Memorial Day. photo: Boots McGhee.
While I was happy with the way the article turned out, because of space restrictions I wasn’t able to delve into a number of other elements that make up Chango’s rich personality. In addition to being a community activist, a passionate surfer, and a mentor to many young people in Santa Cruz, Chango is also a talented artist. He has worked with a variety of mediums over the years, including acrylics, pastels, felt pen, etc. Recently he’s really gotten into painting surfboards with paint pens.
Chango’s art is in high demand around Santa Cruz. He has painted boards by request for many talented surfers, including CJ Nelson, Bud Freitas and Cold Water Surf Club founder Christian Wadman.
The following is a small sample of some of his most recent surfboard murals. All photos were taken by Santa Cruz photographer Boots McGhee (check out his website here).
Chango has only taken one art class in his whole life–a nine session class at Cabrillo–but loved it and says he wants to take another whenever he can find the time. The board he’s holding above was on the cover of the Sentinel last Sunday as well as last spring for the front pager we did on the Big Stick Logjam at the Point. It depicts Quetzalcoatl–the feathered serpent who is thought to have been the principal god of the Aztec religion–and the symbol of the Aztec calendar above.
Below is Chango’s latest project. He’s in the process of painting a used 10’0″ nose rider given to him by CJ Nelson. He’s almost finished–just needs to add the detail and add some contrast so it stands out more. On the bottom of the board is a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, hands cupped, water pouring out from her fingers and into the deep green of a Pleasure Point lineup, stacked to the horizon with groomed lines of swell. Evening light is shining through the lips of the waves. When he’s finished, an arc of roses will hang above her head.
“The Virgen is the first thing I ever painted on a surfboard,” explains Cruz. “I paint the Virgen because she has been loyal to me when I have needed her most. She watches over me and keeps my faith strong. She is like my mother.”
The symbol of the Virgen is an important symbol of faith and guardian in Mexico. This type of imagery makes up the foundation of Chango’s art, a world he first began to explore in prison. Back in the day, when Chango was doing time and bouncing around the prison system, there were no art classes offered in the pen. He would get a friend to smuggle an extra white sheet or two from the laundry room and swipe a felt marker pen from the commissary. With these tools, he would make elaborate murals on sheets.
“Art was a tool to survive when I was in jail,” Chango said, ”to get what I needed whether it was toothpaste, books, cigarettes. It also attracted people who liked what I created.”
Locked up in Susanville, day melting into day, no one knowing where he was, Chango began drawing on envelopes with felt tip pen and sending them to people on the outside.
“I learned that the art was a way to communicate with others,” Chango said. ”If you send some art to someone on the outside, they’ll keep in touch. Doing three years, nobody knew where I was. I started drawing on envelopes and sending them to people on the outside. People really got into it. Art attracted people on the outside.”
“We all have abilities that we don’t search out,” added Chango. ”With my art, I searched it out to communicate with others and attract others.”
The notion of a surfboard as a blank canvas first occurred to Cruz when he saw photos from the late sixties and seventies of surfers on wildly painted boards. The idea resonated with him, not only because of his artistic ability, but because of the tradition of decorating objects during festivals in Oaxaca such as Todos Santos (All Saints day), Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Christmas, and the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
“In Oaxaca when we have festivals, people decorate the entire town with flowers and paper decorations,” said Chango. ”We bake big special breads that we don’t normally ever get to eat. We even dress up the cows and other animals with bells and ribbons.”
Painting his surfboards with the imagery of his culture–the Virgen de Guadalupe, Quetzalcoatle the plumed serpent, and an entire pantheon of other Mesoamerican gods and symbols–is a way for Chango to reconnect with his Mexican roots.
“You want to show where you come from,” explains Cruz. “I’m proud of my traditions and I want to display it in the water. With these paintings I feel like I regain something of who I am, a part of my culture I never learned about before.”
Above: A Mayan holy man/priest. Below: An abstract take on the ancient Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (with Marciano’s cat admiring his work).
