LEFT TO RIGHT “We almost got arrested hitting something else in Nelson [BC] before this, and we almost got arrested hitting this. The town’s interesting from a street perspec-tive. People in most places don’t have a concept of what you’re doing—to the average person a street shoot must look so ridiculous. But Nelson’s seen some prominent street sections, like Austen Sweetin in Absinthe [Film’s AfterForever ] or JP Auclair’s Sherpa’s segment [Sherpa Cinema’s All.I.Can ]. They got permits for those. Subsequently, everybody in the town knows about street snowboard-ing—the cops, the security guards, the building owners. They’re into it, but only if you do it through the proper channels. It was a crazy cat-and-mouse game trying to hit stuff. The whole town was off limits because we didn’t have a permit. Random people would walk up and say, ‘Are you filming for a segment?’ Forest took some savage slams for this but in the end he persevered. He has the ability to look at those weird spots and make it work.” Photo: Tim Zimmerman “‘Morning Love Time.’ This painting was the original inspiration for my mural and is also the current Gnu Headspace graphic. The five beings represent my family.” Art: Forest Bailey How did things change when you moved out west? Moving to Tahoe took my snowboarding to the next level. I got onto Gnu and within a year had a pro model. I was riding good snow, meeting new people and starting to film more. That’s when I started to realize that I didn’t have to compete to be a pro snowboarder. So, I put my energy into filming instead. Some of my early filming was for Givin’s One and Too , which was a perfect introduction. We had a good crew of people that I really got along with. Then I had the opportunity to start filming for some bigger projects. It seemed like there was this trajectory in snowboarding where you do your independent videos and then if you have an oppor-tunity to film for these mag movies, you take ’em. Jed Anderson had the ender in Get Real , and Keegan Valaika had the ender in the next TransWorld movie [ In Color ], so I felt like I needed to film my TransWorld part. But when you work on these projects and they’re not your brainchild, they don’t necessarily represent you as well as you want them to. As part of the Givin crew I was with all my friends, so it made sense. But being in videos with people I don’t really know doesn’t show my best self. Working on a handful of those projects that I didn’t have as much creative control on bummed me out. I wasn’t as hyped on the end product. That’s why you went back to making your own projects like the Front-side, Backside 1 series and Quiet ? Exactly. It’s the idea of going back to filming with your friends and making your own videos. That’s when I’ve felt the best about videos I’ve made, when it is truly just friends going out snowboarding and having fun. That’s when you’re going to get the best stuff, and that’s what I want to see. [Filming for FSBS] was one of the best years of my life, working on that project with Seamus [Foster], traveling the world and getting to be on our own program. One of the trips we did for that was one of the sickest trips of my life. I was new to mak-ing art in snowboarding and was invited to be in this snowboarder art show called “Human Nature.” It was with Jamie Lynn, Schoph [Schofield], Bryan Iguchi, me and some others. We did one in Jack-son Hole [WY], and one in London. To be in an art show with my heroes, and to watch Jamie show up to London and post up in the corner of this shitty skatepark and make all of his work for the show that night, in person, was just like, “Damn.” It was so cool to see and be involved in. 1 Released in 2018, Frontside, Backside is a several-part, core-classic web series starring Forest and his friends. We spent a week in London hanging with that crew, had an in-credible time, went skating and looked at art every day. Then we flew to Austria and spent two weeks there filming snowboarding, partying and meeting new friends. I’d always wanted to go to Barcelona, so we flew from Austria to Barcelona and spent the last week of that monthlong Euro trip in Spain checking out all these legendary skate spots, looking at art and eating good food. Those are the trips I want to go on in the future, something that’s not necessarily snowboard specific. To go on adventures with my friends and do the things we love—snowboard, skate, make art, music, experience new cultures— and then show them all working together is so cool. Where did your artistic inspiration come from? Both of my parents are highly creative and they’re friends with all types of weird, creative people, so I’ve been around artists all my life. My dad is a potter. He had a studio on our property and for a long time my mom would paint the pottery that he sold at farmers markets. My mom made everything she touched her art and always had huge flower and vegetable gardens. Both of them are still making art on the regular. Keegan Valaika is also one of my big creative inspirations. He would always think of cool creative projects and get all the people around him involved. We’d be doodling, and he saw something in my work that I didn’t. He used this drawing I made on a hat and T-shirt for Gnarly [Clothes]. I was seeing my friends and people I looked up to wearing this gear with something I designed on it and that got me really excited to create more. I was like, “Damn, if I actually put more time into this creativity, then I can make a painting that can go on my snowboard, and then I’m snowboarding on a painting that I made.” With 686, I could design the clothes in the way I want to wear them. FOREST BAILEY 051
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 18.4: Page 51
