After years and years of skateboarding being illegal in Taos New Mexico, the Taos Skatepark broke ground in August 2000. It was complete by spring 2001. The skatepark idea started sometime in 1999 when preteens and young adults started planning and raising money. The majority of the funding ended up coming from artist Agnes Martin.

The crew of kids that got Taos skatepark built… This picture hangs on the wall of Taos youth and family center.
During the heyday of the Taos Skatepark, 20 to 30 people a day would enjoy the smooth cement and beautiful scenery. Hot days leading to cooling sunsets, fun, friends and four wheels, good times were had by all who were lucky enough to use the park.

Taos skatepark
Skateboarding breeds creativity. Skateboarders live at skate parks, its our home, its our monument. The Taos Skatepark is a living sculpture.
Unfortunately, in recent years the Taos Skatepark has fallen into disrepair. Harsh winters and little to no maintenance have led to deteriorating flat bottoms, choppy transitions and huge cracks. Many basic obstacles are now un-skateable. While being a blessing, the park lacks basic obstacles needed in the first place. The fact is, nobody cares more about the park than the skateboarders who use it. If you want something done you need to do it yourself. I am proposing the park gets turned into a DIY skatepark.

Examples of the disrepair at Taos skatepark
DIY skateparks are not a new concept. The idea comes naturally with skateboarding. You don’t have anything to skate so you use what you have to create something. Fun is the final product. Skateparks created and kept up by the people who use them.

The earliest example of this is Burnside Skatepark in Portland Oregon. Built under a freeway overpass, Burnside is probably the most famous of all DIY skateparks.

http://burnsideproject.blogspot.com

Burnside skatepark (Picture taken from the internet)

Soon after other communities saw similar projects pop up… FDR skatepark in Philadelphia and Channel street skate park in San Pedro California are other famous examples of DIY skate parks.

https://www.gofundme.com/fdrskatepark

http://www.sanpedrosk8.org

FDR and Channel street skateparks (Pictures taken from the internet)

Burnside, FDR and channel street all started with nothing. Taos skatepark would be unique in that we are starting with an existing skatepark! The first steps would be to fix problem areas… The large sections of crumbling flat bottoms could be fixed by piling dirt on top and covering the dirt with cement creating bumps as seen at parks like Burnside and FDR.

Top: Taos parks flat bottom. Bottom 2: Example of bumps at Burnside (Picture taken from the internet) and FDR skatepark

Existing obstacles that were harder to skate could be added to and changed to be easier to access and skate.

Top:  ledge at Taos park. Bottom: example of a DIY quarter pipe (Picture taken from the internet)

Unused areas of the enclosed skate park area could be paved to bring more space for skateboarders to utilize.

Unused areas of Taos Skatepark

Basic obstacles could be add… An easily approachable flat bar, ledges and manual pads are obstacles that the park has always lacked.

Examples of ledges, flat bars and manual pads (Pictures taken from the internet)

Just adding these few things could start a whole revolution where the skatepark becomes entity that brings the community together and reflects Taos’s creative roots. In the future maybe it could include real(possibly skate-able) sculptures! The farthest extent of this project could lead to the skatepark to be covered, possibly by solar panels! Skateboarding could literally give back to the community!

My bro Sean getting some!

The idea is “do it yourself” AKA: DIY… But local Taos skateboarders can’t do this alone! We need the help of the community and the outside skateboard world! Together we can create a skatepark that people travel from all over the world to skate and possibly add to. Together we can breathe life into a living sculpture! PLEASE HELP US FIX OUR SKATEPARK!!!

 

As of now this is just a dream of mine! This page is an example to help start the movement. I am looking at this as an art project but it is less about me and my art than it is about giving back to my community and the activity that has given me so much! Please check back to see how the project has progressed!

Peace and Love!

I am very proud to tell the world about my first solo art show!

My goal at the beginning of 2015 was to lock in a solo art show. I ended up doing just that with a gallery named Everything Changes gallery (ETC gallery). The gallery is located in the same building as the legendary Zephyr skateboard shop once was. Now called dog town reality. In the fact that the gallery is located in such a historic space, the focus on skate and surf inspired art. This is very important to me because I have been skateboarding for close to 2/3’s my life. The show is open from October 24th till December 5th 2015.
Below are pictures of the show and it’s opening. As well as a short video documentation.

A video installation projected on the window of the space. The video is reflected on the sidewalk as well as the floor of the gallery. The video is an animation of my signature.

The first photo you see when you walk in the gallery is a picture of the legendary Indian school ditch in Albuquerque New Mexico.

On the opposite wall is a picture I took in 1999 of a graffiti mural in the old Venice pit. The mural pretty much summed up how I felt about skateboarding at the time.

The artist that did the mural is named Mear one. He is very prolific in the graffiti art world. He ended up coming to the show… Which meant a lot to me.

The heart of the show is a piece I did during my time at the Rauschenberg residency. It is a tribute to Robert Rauschenberg. Ink on water color paper.

On the opposing wall is photo piece. One picture in all four orientations. It is somewhat a tribute to the learning process I went through learning how to skate.

Really what I did was create a place to talk about skateboarding or art or life or whatever people want to talk about. I created two skateboard videos for the show that would play on the the TV on the wall. The first is more of a traditional skate video part with picture of the art in the show and footage of closest friends and I skating over the years, running time 3:33. The other video is over an hour and a half long and is more of a conversation piece than anything, its called iPhone Yardsale. iPhone Yardsale is pretty much all the video from my phone from the last year and a half of my life, put together in different ways. Watch the videos below:

 

 

Masonite homages. Somewhat of an ode to the DIY mentality that skateboarding is all about. This is were the show gets conceptual, a lot of the same characters in iPhone Yardsale show up in the Masonite homages. The idea is that skateboarding inspires what goes on in your life and your outside life inspires your skateboarding.

Details of Masonite homages.

This piece is called, “A good friend will help you move, a great friend will help you move a body”. It is an overlapping exposure, shot on a vintage camera called a robot. Very early in my experiments with the camera I realized that the first three or four shot on the roll overlapped one another. This was my first go at trying to account for that. The person in the picture is my best friend Dave and his 1961 Cadillac. Hence, the name of the piece.

I call these beach vibes… For lack of a better name mostly… But also because they were shot in Venice beach. They are double exposures.

The last piece in the show is a black and white picture of a burlesque dancer. I chose this shot mostly because I thought it would look good on that particular wall. Also because skateboarders like ass.

Also in the show during the opening was a video installation I made in 2012 called “I think this is something”. It is basically video, projected on the floor, of my feet as I push on my skateboard. It was set up in the door way next to the indian school ditch photo. I didn’t get any pictures of it but you can see it in the video documentation of the show below.

 

So thats my show! I am profoundly proud of it! I feel so happy that riding on a board with wheels led me somewhere in life! I just have fun doing it. I plan on skateboarding and making art for the rest of my life. Which means I have a world of hurt ahead of me… I’ll just take it one push at a time!

Thanks so much for your time!
Peace and Love!
Ollie