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Color 8.1 Editor's Letter Buy This Issue Now

art

  1. SECRET PLEDGE

    Drawing inspiration from the likes of “master” painters such as Diego Velázquez and John Singer Sargent, the portraits of Stephen...
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  2. XTRA RANDOM

    Not only is Raymond Molinar turning heads with his skateboarding (look no further than his part in the new Thrasher video Prevent This...
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  3. Unique Beast

    The skateboard graphic is an underestimated art medium that is often overlooked on its destructive journey from the skate shop wall...
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  4. GALLERY

    Mike O’Meally’s photography has always kind of transcended the usual “fisheye at the bottom of the rail” style that we have...
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  5. RACHELL SUMPTER

    Rachell Sumpter paints landscapes that are remarkably, forcefully beautiful. Her soft layers of gouache and pastel are luminescent,...
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  6. GRANT BANHART

    Grant Barnhart's new solo exhibition, a collection of acrylic paintings and a couple of sculptures, is simultaneously excessive and...
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life

  1. SPACE 1026

    Artist-run spaces are slippery beasts, even in the most stable times. Forget evolving neighbourhoods, rollercoaster economies, terrorism,...
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  2. MICHAH LEXIER

    Micah Lexier’s studio apartment offers a peek into the impulses behind his unique combination of exactitude and offhandedness. The...
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  3. FOS

    What happens when you mix one part skate rat, one part artist, one part do-it-yourself maniac and a dozen patches? You get Mark “Fos”...
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fashion

  1. Our Glass

    PHOTOGRAPHY MICHELLE FORD Stylist MILA FRANOVIC assistant ARIANA PREECE
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music

  1. BENEATH THE TOWER: GOING UNDERGROUND…

    Toronto gets kind of a bad rap. For Americans, it’s Canada’s cute attempt at having its own New York city. For most Canadians,...
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skate

  1. SASCHA DALEY

    So the door kicks in and there it is, the scene of a lifetime. A balding middle-aged man sucking the filthy rotten toes of a Hastings...
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  2. JS LAPIERRE

    The first time I heard about JS Lapierre, I was sitting in my friend’s car and I even remember where we were because my friend just...
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  3. GRANITE MEDALLIONS

    As I write these words, Vancouver is in the midst of a corporate overhaul in the form of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Everything...
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Editor's Letter

Intensity in Tent City

It’s Groundhog Day and I haven’t seen my shadow in weeks. Wet weather, tight deadlines, and the added hustle and bustle of a city preparing to invite the world in is all too much for me… And it just so happens that another city was quietly getting ready to do the same, only this gathering was meant for skateboarders only.

I sat patiently in my window seat as the plane descended on Los Angels, a former host of the Olympics and one of the very few to make a profit from the Games in the last 50 years. They learned well from the mistakes made in Montreal, whose debt equated to $500,000 per household to facilitate the 1976 Olympics – a lesson not forgotten by the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) in 2010, as it appears they will try to control costs by erecting massive white tents across all available land. Some of these will span up to 60,000 square feet, resulting in a less appealing skyline than the condos that came before them. The tents will serve as beer gardens for those who can afford to buy-in to one of these domes and put back a few while watching hockey on a flatscreen. Just as bitter as the beer it serves, I’m sure I’ll never know the true mystery of what lies beyond those vinyl walls because the Olympics just don’t appeal to me.

On my journey to the Crossroads trade show in San Diego, friends and associates greet me and everyone wants to know what it’s like back home in Vancouver. “It must be crazy there right now.” To be honest, I’ve been too wrapped up in the magazine to really let it affect me, but still I’m unimpressed. Are the Games even relevant anymore? Even snowboarding, the most recent induction, is becoming nonsensical when hucking back-to-back 1260s is standard play. And at my own former stomping grounds, Big White ski resort, they’ve done away with their halfpipe altogether, begging the question: What is relevant in 2010? Is it the one thing mass media can’t fuck with: art? With Vancouver yielding such warm temperatures that it seems someone forgot to invite Mother Nature, the arts communities thrive as snow remains to be seen.

With this issue appearing during the Vancouver Olympics,

we decided to take the high road – and I’m not talking about the newly built highway to Whistler. I mean the architectural additions Olympic cities collect that can actually be of use to skaters 90: spots! At the surface it would appear the Olympics offer nothing relevant for a magazine focusing on the arts and culture of skateboarding. But it does cause one to reflect on one’s city and that’s why we’re so honoured to feature local contemporary artists 72 to exhibit what it is to be both creative and fashionable in 2010. Again, getting away from the pit of all-that-is-jockness, we focus on the art that’s shaped the aesthetic of one of today’s skateboard graphic artists in “Unique Beast”, an ode to skateboard graphic luminaries illustrated by Aye Jay 82. We introduce gold medalist/crowned “King Of Vancouver”, Quebec’s JS Lapierre 58. And on the West Coast Ryan Smith interviews Sascha Daley 108, one young man who’s been doing a lot more than just “doin’ his country proud.”

As always, Color comes correct in this issue with more culture and inspiration in all our regular departments than you can shake a stick at. Rest easy knowing there’s nothing you’re missing out on because we’re at the heart of it all, from southern California to Vancouver, to the smallest farm towns with just parking blocks to skate, like Notre-Dame-de-Stanbridge, Quebec.

Returning from Crossroads I landed back in Vancouver to an overcrowded baggage carrier surrounded by foreign athletes, coaches and families suited in their respective countries’ colours. I was brought aside by security to a vacant room where my bags were searched and I was asked the same questions repeatedly. The man with the badge is friendlier than I would have imagined, but then again I’m home and we’re known for that sort of thing. We share our discontentment for the chaos the Olympics are bringing and he hands back my passport. Ten minutes later I’m on the new train line, homeward bound to live out the next six weeks of ‘winter’ declared by Punxsutawney Phil. And I realize how lucky we really are here in Vancouver.
—Sandro Grison, co-founder, editor-in-chief