A dead surfboard is a sad thing. And we all have different ways of moving on from a once beloved piece of foam that put us into (hopefully) a lot of waves. Having a favorite board that gets washed up in the rocks at low tide can be like watching your dog get run over by a car. I wouldn’t know this personally because I’ve never had a dog (thanks, Mom). But I have slammed plenty of boards into cliffs (thanks Steamer Lane). And I have this attachment to some of my boards that won’t let me part with them once I’ve moved onto smaller, lighter, faster and hopefully more ding resistant things. I actually started to worry for a while that someday I’d turn into the surfer dude equivalent of an old cat lady – filling my lonely soul (and backyard) with a graveyard collection of yellow and brown foam.
So about a year ago, determined not to let this happen, I took pens and markers to a couple of boards I couldn’t stand to let go and got all kinds of artsy on them. I’m actually pretty proud of myself for the matching final products, which got my creative wheels spinning with the thought of collecting old surfboards and turning them into pieces of art. I knew I wasn’t the first person to come up with the idea but that didn’t stop my mind from drifting into running a monopoly on recycled surfboards as paintings. Then I walked into a booth at a local festival and realized I’d been completely one upped.
Artist Jimmy Romo takes that concept of repurposing boards, only his final product is some of the most unique work you’ll ever find. He has everything from fish to silhouettes of horses and city skylines carved out of old boards. You’ll look at each piece and notice the unmistakable outline of a surfboard. You’ll do a double take, not thinking this was carved from an actual surfboard then “Yeah, that was made from a real surfboard.” Some even have traction pads still intact. So while a dead surfboard will always be somewhat of a sad thing, at least somebody out there is granting them a beautiful and creative fate.
To see more of Jimmy Romo’s work you can visit the Coastal Creation’s Facebook page.
