All I ever wanted was to be your spine

I set up a new skateboard deck on Saturday. A lot of factors are used when selecting a deck; size, shape, brand/prior experience with said brand, and of course, the artwork. To many people on the outside, the fact that art even exists on skateboards seems frivolous at best, given the fact that they're inherently doomed to be intentionally scraped against curbs, rails, benches, and coping. To someone like me, a skateboard deck is one of the finest examples of constantly changing functional art. It is created to be destroyed.
Some of my fondest grade school memories involve me and friends consumed by pages of mail order catalogs as we made our respective efforts to select the perfect board. I used to study each scratch, smudge, and nick in the paint of a new deck as I used it. Even fourteen years later, I am still taken with the beautiful effect that first lipslide will have on a previously unscathed skateboard graphic.

Sorry for the lack of updates and print releases. I have been incredibly occupied with creating work for my upcoming show at Fillintheblank Gallery in Chicago. There's a whole slough of other fun stuff up ahead:

- Collaborative print with Gina Kelly (Weathermaker Press) for Screens N Spokes
- Flatstock 26 in Chicago, Flatstock 27 in Seattle, and Flatstock Europe 5 (American Poster Institute/Flatstock)
- An art show at My Addiction Gallery in Tucson, AZ

Also, I have work in a couple of group shows that will be opening this week:
- Mini Print Show at Leia Bell's Signed & Numbered Gallery in Salt Lake City on July 11th
- Crazy4Cult print show at Gallery 1988 in San Francisco on July 9th