“It took about 80-ish tries to get the clip on this rail. There were moments when we thought it might not happen, but it eventually did, flaw-lessly.” 5050 to boardslide in Bend, OR. Photo: Erik Hoffman Did you make the art for your first Gnu pro model? No, I didn’t feel like my work was good enough yet. I took it slow for the first few years, working with other artists until I felt confident enough to put my art on a snowboard. It forced me to develop a style that I felt represented me, and also felt attainable for me. I’m not a crazy oil painter painting some perfect landscape or portrait. My art is a little more simple and abstract. Whether it looks really good or not, I want it to be an extension of myself. I want people to see a painting or a snowboard I made and know it’s one of mine, like a little piece of my brain hanging on your wall or strapped to your feet. Are there parallels to draw between your snowboarding and art? There are a lot of connections between the two. I want my paintings to represent myself like I want my snowboarding to represent myself. It’s all about finding these ways to express myself because that’s what snowboarding and skating and fashion and art and all these outlets really are: self-expression. Being able to combine different avenues of creativity and make them all work together is the goal. I love to see what Mike Rav[elson] is doing, showing his snowboarding mixed with the music that he and his friends are making. And Jamie Lynn—making music, artwork, snowboarding, skating and being the misty Jamie Lynn. I’m inspired by people who can do it all. These people who are incredible athletes and take that athletic ability and turn it into this whole multidimensional reality of creativity. It doesn’t need to be anything too crazy. It comes from trying to look at things differently. It’s the same as going to a snowboard spot that’s been hit a million times and being like, “I’ve never seen anyone hit it this way,” and finding your own way to do something that ev-eryone else overlooked. It’s changing your perspective on something in order to leave your mark on it. An attainable-yet-distinct approach. Exactly. In skating too. Pro skateboarders are incredible, but what I’m lacking in skill, I feel like I can make up for in creativity. I’m not going to be doing some huge rail or crazy tech switch flip-in-flip-out shit, but maybe I’ll find something to do that’s simple and a little bit different at a cool-looking spot and some people could resonate with that even more so. I think there’s something to be said for people who aren’t try-ing to be the best, but instead are just trying to be themselves and do it their own way. That’s when the best stuff happens. FOREST BAILEY 053
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 18.4: Page 53
