Mind Over Matter: SUAS

Mind Over Matter: SUAS* is an ongoing column that aims to document skateboarders from all walks of life who are still riding their plank after 30+ years of age. My principal intent is to offer the viewer both an insight to why grown men/women choose to continue to ride despite being what many consider “too old” and to encourage the masses to get out and get theirs - whatever that might be.

*SUAS is an acronym commonly used in skateboard rhetoric, it simply means Shut Up And Skate! Click the image to view it super-sized. Enjoy.

 

The Brotherhood: I can't remember when I first met Ed. I think it might have been here, at the Dust Bowl, in the mid-Eighties. He pretty much ruled this spot and worked his style and speed lines around anyone who came to session it. Ed was/is an artist of sorts and at that time I had him paint the Dogtown logo on the back of my leather jacket. I was so stoked! I wore that jacket everywhere for years.

In the Nineties I lost touch with Ed. However, just before the millenium ended I took a photo class and ran into him again at the Visual Arts Center in Portsmouth, VA. He encouraged me to enter a portrait series I was working on at the time, into a local juried museum exhibition. I was hesitant but when Ed offered to frame the work for me I took him up on the offer. To my surprise the photo series was selected for the exhibition. The photographs also won best in black & white photography which in turn led to a feature write up about me in the local paper. Needless to say, Ed helped me along my way to becoming a working photographer. 

Today, after traveling much of the world as a photojournalist, I'm back in Virginia Beach skating a ditch with an old friend. Ironically, it's the same spot we rode some 25 plus years ago. Homies for life.