An Interdisciplinary Force
Interview With Skatanlives Founder
January 31, 2020
Skatanlives ¶ Wilmington ¶ Art ¶ Photography ¶ 35mm Film ¶ Skateboarding ¶ Crew ¶ Perseverance ¶ Discipline ¶ Hustle ¶ Vision ¶ Visionary
It’s overcast and cold, by Southern California standards anyway.
Any photographer knows the former is akin to the golden hour for shooting pictures. That’s what the brains behind Skatanlives (name withheld at the request of the founder) is doing now, was doing yesterday and will be doing tomorrow.
The creative behind the Wilmington brand – an amalgamation of his skate and music photography work with a clothing brand to further promote his camera skills – this past Sunday held his first photo-art show and skate session at a Wilmington park, surrounded by his crew of skaters and friends. The goal: to hold these shows, at the least, on a seasonal basis. He’s got another event slated for Feb. 15 a photography and zine release in Wilmington that will also tout live music and a skate contest.
“My whole purpose for Skatanlives is to promote local artists and unite everyone together because people are forgetting the importance of creativity and art,” he said.
When prodded to explain why he thinks the arts are being forgotten, he shrugs: “social media. Facebook. All that bullshit. That shit’s sad.”
And so that’s where his story picks up, as he hopes to capture a slice of his life in the Harbor Area neighborhood, documenting his friends skateboarding or playing music while weaving in local artists, ambitiously, seeking to be the connector between people through his work and the events he throws.
“It starts with a vision. A vision,” he said. “But, yeah, that’s it. Just a goal. For me, I started skateboarding. With photography, I could change the world. I’ve told some people that and they don’t believe me. But that’s what wakes me up at 4 in the morning to go to work. I’m trying to be my own boss one day, so I can just ditch that 9-to-5 bullshit and I can travel around.”
He first picked up a skateboard in the sixth grade. “I remember it like my first kiss,” he said of when he started skateboarding, which was inspired by his older brother. An accident that nearly killed him sent him into a coma for two months and from ages 14 to 20 he had to stay away from skateboarding. A surgery allowed him to get back on the board with most of his time outside of work now spent on the streets skating and leaving his Skatanlives stickers around town.
“I’m always in the street skating with friends, going to places to take photos,” he said. “So, I’m consistent with this shit. It’s just, there shouldn’t be no excuse for people not doing what they want to do with their lives. You just have to make a schedule.”
His senior year of high school is when he picked up photography, first shooting on a film camera before going digital. The latter is what he shoots with now, but film is his preferred mode.
“Film, for me, that’s art. The steps [required] to actually make photos with film are way harder. You have to know what you’re doing.”
Skateboarding, photography, fashion, branding. He’s now seamlessly merging all of these disciplines into Skatanlives. And while the goal is to eventually turn this into something he can subsist off of, it’s ultimately a passion project at its core that’s fueling the momentum.
“You’ve just got to do it for the fun, not the money,” he said. “I just want to be remembered as Skatanlives. Once I die, I’m not really going to die because my ideas will live on …. So that’s what’s up.”
UP NEXT:
February 15, 2020
Skatanlives Photography/Zine Release
Presented by Skatanlives, TVA or Die, Ohana Griptape, UnknownPhenom,
421 Bay View Ave.
Wilmington, CA 90744
12 p.m. to 5 p.m.