Craftswomen of Surfing
San Diego January 2016
#FirstQuality
A NOTE FROM KIM
CRAFTSWOMEN
Cher Pendarvis
Point Loma, California Pendarvis-Studios.com Pendo.com @CherPendarvis
Valerie Duprat
Encinitas, California MereMadeSurfboards.com @MereMadeSurfboards
Craftswomen of Surfing
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oardbuilding and surfing has changed drastically since I began working at Clark Foam in 1978. The waves being ridden and the surfing being performed has influenced board design and, in turn, blank manufacturing. But nowhere have I seen more change than with the growth of female board builders. We’ve always had a few orders coming through from female shapers, but the frequency has drastically increased in recent years. We see their finished boards on social media and are constantly impressed by the beauty of their work. I was fortunate to meet some of these women at the Boardroom Show this year (May 2015) and it inspired me to learn more about their backstories. In that spirit, I share these stories with you. Herein we’ve profiled 5 shapers in San Diego county, with varying levels of experience and expertise. Through my 27 years with Clark, and now 9 years at US Blanks, I’ve had the distinct honor of working with many of the most iconic board builders in our sport. I am proud to now count these women among them.
Kim Thress
Chief Foam Fabricator
Whitney Lang
Mira Mesa, California SurfWindy.com @WindyWind
Christine Brailsford Caro Leucadia, California FurrowSurfCraft.com @FurrowSurfCraft
Debbie Gordon
Pacific Beach, California GordronandSmith.com @GordonandSmith
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SAN DIEGO
San Diego has a long, rich board building history. Pleasant year ‘round weather and waves make it an ideal place to live, but it’s the access to board building materials and proximity to the epicenter of the surf industry that have allowed the shaping community to thrive. While we’ve met amazing female shapers around the world, we’ll use these pages to focus on a few in California’s southern most county.
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
Cher Pendarvis
With wave riding always as the impetus, and working alongside iconic board builders, Cher Pendarvis has quietly influenced surf culture for over 50 years to become one of San Diego’s most revered craftswomen.
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y family lived in the Bay area when I was born. We moved to Hawai’i in 1955. That’s where I first saw surfing. I distinctly remember the shapes of the surfboards and how the contours would transfer and move through the water. Surfing had captured me and I dreamed of surfing from that time on. We lived in Oahu for 2 years, then we traveled and lived in the Philippines, Japan, California, and Florida. I eventually
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returned home to San Diego, California where I had lived as a child. At 13, my mom and I were at the beach and I asked to borrow the lifeguard’s wood paddle board. That was the board that I caught my first wave on. When I was 14, I’d ride my bike to the beach and eventually mustered the courage to ask someone to borrow their surfboard. I learned to surf on borrowed boards. My family was conservative so the idea of a young girl participating in a USBlanks.com
CHER PENDARVIS
male sport was somewhat taboo. I was developing this secret life without my parents knowing. I wanted my own surfboard, so during the spring of 1965 I got a job at my friend’s surf shop patching dings and doing repairs. My mother was an artist and I was always artistically inclined. Patching boards was where I first embraced my technical ability to convey my creative energy through my hands into a functional form. Through that job I was able to save enough money to buy an old 9’7” O’hare that had been broken in half and repaired. It weighed 30 lbs and was very difficult to transport, but I rode it for a year. My next board was a used Dewey Weber “Standard Speed”. Eventually, I bought a used Surfboards Hawaii “Model A”, which had a lot more performance and was better suited for the waves I was surfing. There was a substantial surf community in San Diego in the 1960s. We lived in Ocean Beach Point Loma. I was exposed to USBlanks.com
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Cher glassing a 5’2” Fish in 1970
CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING some of the world’s finest, forward-thinking craftsmen and designers. While surfing in 1968, I met Skip Frye. He had spent time in Australia with Bob McTavish. Occasionally, I’d surf Santa Barbara and see George Greenough surfing, which left a huge imprint on my design awareness. On a six-foot day at Rincon, he was knee-riding a Spoon and drawing radical lines on the waves, when most surfers were trimming and drawing straighter lines. George told me that he was stoked to see me, a female, in the line-up. I was so inspired by his surfing ability and his ideas about board design. I’ve been very fortunate to meet some incredible board builders and remarkable human beings. Cher with her finished 5’2” Fish in 1970
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Cher riding her hand-made 5’5” Fish in 1974. Photo by T. Threinen
CHER PENDARVIS
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING In the 1960s foam was very difficult to acquire, so most of the early boards that we built were stripped down from old longboards and reshaped into smaller boards. We also experimented with packing foam and blocks of refrigeration foam. At this time, surf shops didn’t sell materials, so we bought boat resin and heavy, 8 and 10 oz. fiberglass cloth from Kettenburg Marine. I loved to experiment and feel how different shapes worked in the water. The first board I built was a 6’1” Rounded Pin Tail Single Fin, then a 5’8” Twin Fin, then a 5’2” Fish that I also glassed. Other people began to ask me to glass their boards and make their fins. Our San Diego shaping community has been open about sharing ideas and techniques. Over the years, Skip Frye shaped several boards for me and allowed me to watch his shaping process. I glassed a couple of those boards and made the fins. Skip’s been a great mentor to me. Jimmy Blears won the world contest in 1972 on a board that I built the fins for and helped glass. Fish inventor Steve Lis is a good friend who has had a huge influence on me. Every board he shaped for me, he allowed me to watch him shape. In the late 60s & early 70s I was also inspired by Larry Duff, Ben Ferris, Larry Gephart and Thomas Threinen, who were creative surfers and shapers in Point Loma and Ocean Beach. In the late 70s I was surfing for Channin, and really enjoyed working on designs with master shaper Mike Casey. When he shaped team boards for me, we’d collaborate on templates and he’d openly incorporate my ideas for rail and bottom contours. I’m hugely grateful to have learned from all 8
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our friends. I graduated from San Diego State with a degree in arts and worked as an illustrator and art director for several publications. In the 1970s I was an Art Assosciate on staff at Surfing for five years when it was bi-monthly. I’ve done freelance design and writing, and I’ve taught in various colleges. Some favorite projects were designing and illustrating logos for friend’s surf companies, including Channin, Surfboards by Donald Takayama, and Steve Lis. Through these years I’ve always shaped and built a few boards each year. My husband, Steve Pendarvis, and I got together in 1983. He made his first board, a wood Paipo, when he was 11 and he’s been building boards ever since. Steve’s always encouraged my board building. A creative master-craftsmen, Steve developed a system called “Pendoflex” that changes the rocker in the surfboard. The tail works like a gas pedal; by pressing it downward, it straightens the rocker. It also allows you to find speed in sections of the wave where you normally could not, because of the flexible rocker.
My focus is on custom orders, made completely by hand, and my favorite concepts are creative variations on the Fish, Paipos, Eggs and fun Step-ups.
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
I’m very grateful to have surfing in my life. It gave me a place to go and helped me achieve my independance over the course of my 51 years surfing. Surfing is such a gift. Steve and I ride “prayer waves” for people in our lives. We’ll focus our intention on a friend who is sick and we’ll ride waves for them, praying for their healing. It’s a gift to build boards for friends. It feels as though a part of my presence is with them wherever they are riding waves in the world. It’s part of a communal love of the ocean, the waves, and for surfing. Building a board for a friend is just one facet of that relationship and communication. Learn more at Pendo.com and @CherPendarvis
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VALERIE DUPRAT
Valerie Duprat
Mom, biochemist, and former competitive tandem surfer, Valerie Duprat, shares how board building has granted her repreive from daily life.
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grew up in a suberb of Paris and we’d go to the ocean for 2 weeks every year, but I didn’t learn to surf until my husband, Vincent Duprat, and I moved to California. He’s an avid surfer and a very good shortboarder but my path into surfing was a little less traditional. I actually learned how to surf by tandem surfing. I ice skated as a child so I had a predisposition for balance and acrobatics, but all my formative experiences with surfing were with a tandem partner. We trained tandem surfing for 3 years and were invited to compete in the very first Tandem World Championships in Hawai’i. So much of surfing is just learning the way the ocean moves and learning positioning and I was fortunate to have an experienced partner with me on the same board teaching me all of the nuance. I found it hugely benefical to my learning. 10
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VALERIE DUPRAT
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
A CREATIVE OUTLET
Board building as a creative outlet began with painting. I saw this old, tattered McTavish laying on the beach 5 days in a row. Someone had just left it there, or forgotten it! After the 5th day, I decided to take it home. We repaired the damage and then I painted it. The fresh paint transformed this old, weathered board into something beautiful again. The restoration inspired me and made me begin to think about our equipment as functional pieces of art. I always felt a need for a creative outlet when I wasn’t in the water. I had a lot of latent creative energy from hours spent at the office and at home with the family. I have a PhD in Biochemistry and I work as a research scientist doing DNA sequencing for a BioTech company. It doesn’t really allow for creative expression. Surfing is a great physical expression and release, but I still felt a need to express myself creatively on the land. Shaping became the perfect outlet for that creative energy. Our friend David Charbonnel, of Swop Surfboards, was visiting from France and he offered to lend guidance and insight into his work. I was very apprehensive to take the first step because shaping a surfboard is such a sacred craft. I didn’t want to impose on anyone or ask for their hard-earned secrets, but his mentorship gave me the cofidence and approval I needed to pursue shaping. He’s been incredibly generous with his knowledge, but because he’s still in France, I still have a lot to learn on my own. I’ve watched countless video tutorials just to study planer technique and various other details. USBlanks.com
CUSTOM CLIENTELE
My clients participate in every aspect of the process, from design to artwork. We even surf together so I can see what they’re specific needs are. We’ll swap boards and ride waves together. All of my boards are built on personal relationships. That’s part of the joy of the process. Functionality is always the priority, but form is essential. A vestige of the artwork on that McTavish still drives a lot of my creativity. The artwork is the most time consuming part of my process. I spraypaint most of my boards (directly on the foam, prior to glassing). I want to create a surfboard that reflects one’s personality. I want it to be a creative expression of one’s self. I’m certain that anyone can find a board in a surfshop that will work well, but I believe in the magic of a custom board. When a client is involved in the design process, and my intention is fully devoted to their process, that’s when I believe the board performs differently, better.
Photo: Corey Walter
So much of one’s surfing performance is influenced by their headspace. Having a piece of equipment that was specifically designed for you, with your input, plays a role in how you treat that equipment and how you perform on that equipment.
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VALERIE DUPRAT
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I made boards last year., but I’m not sure I can exceed that. I have a fulltime job, kids, a household to maintain, so one board a week, complete with artwork is a full load for me.
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VALERIE DUPRAT
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SURFING will always be my first priority, especially when the waves are good, but I always find time for the SHAPING room, as well. It fills the gaps in my week nicely.
Learn more at MereMadeSurfboards.com and @MereMadeSurfboards
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WHITNEY LANG
Whitney Lang
Through the democracy of the Internet, Whitney Lang found a modern route into board building while simultaneously developing her ability as a surfer.
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began surfing and shaping at about the same time, in 2008. A lot my initial shaping information came from Swaylocks. I was able to slowly acclimate to the language and the culture through the privacy of my computer. I met people, gathered advice, and got a lot of feedback from the online community in relative anonimity. It felt like a cult that I was breaking into. Once I revealed that I was a female, I did feel a bit of opposition. I’d post a photo of myself shaping and be mortified by the sexist comments people would leave. Thankfully, things have evolved drastically. It’s almost the exact opposite now. USBlanks.com
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I’m grateful for those who have shared their knowledge with me. Without my mentors and friends, I would never have advanced my craft to this extent. Shapers seem more eager and willing to share information nowadays, and I think that’s great for board building as a whole. It seems like social media has opened a lot of previously closed doors. Prior to Instagram and Facebook, people would never post photos of their workspace. Shapers were very proprietary. Now there is a much more freeflowing exchange of information, and surfers are the ones who will benefit most. USBlanks.com
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LEARNING CURVES
Because I was learning to surf and shape simultaneously, every design improvement that I made was noticeably different in my surfing. I shape nearly all my own boards, so it’s been a very interesting experiment. I’m able to deterime what design elements work without losing anything in translation with a customer. I build one board a week, from beginning to end. I shape, glass, set fin boxes. Everything is handshaped. I’m not opposed to using a CNC machine, but I still have plenty to learn with a planer and I feel it’s important to master that craft before moving on. 15
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WHITNEY LANG
WORLD TOUR SHAPERS In addition to building my own boards, I’m fortunate to work at Cosmic Glassing in Oceanside, California, routing and setting fin boxes. It’s been such a good experience because it gives me access to a wide range of high quality craftsmanship. The exposure alone has exponetially increased my learning curve. There aren’t any female shapers that are building boards for World Tour surfers, and there really isn’t a good explanation for why not. My goal is to continue to improve my craft and build boards that are on par with some of the world’s best shapers. Whether it’s me or someone else, I’d love to see World Tour surfers riding boards built by a women shapers.
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WHITNEY LANG
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
THE BOARDROOM SHOW At the Boardroom Show this year they invited 4 women to participate in a live shaping exhibition. I was so honored to partcipate. It was such a unique experience, having people watching every detail of my work, but everyone was very positive. The attendees of the show are very astute and the world’s best shapers attend, as well. It’s imtimidating shaping in a glass-walled shaping bay because they can analyze your technique, but I was able to tune all that out and just enjoy the process. After I finished the board everyone was very complimentary. It was just an honor to just be amonst such luminaries like Skip Frye, Rusty Priesendorfer, and of course the other female shapers, Kelly Connelly, Valerie Duprat, and my good friend, Christine Brailsford Caro. Learn more at SurfWindy.com and follow @WindyWind
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
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CHRISTINE BRAILSFORD CARO
Christine Brailsford Caro
With a background in art and design, Brailsford blends clean aesthetic with historic reference to hand-build unique wave riding crafts.
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was around ten when I began standing on my boogie board. From as early as I could remember, I wanted to surf. I begged my mom to let me go to the YMCA surf camp and she signed me up the next summer. I was hooked. Shortly thereafter, I got my first board, a 6’8” thruster, pintail. It was the worst board for learning, but in hindsight, it was actually great because it started me on a path of really analyzing what is an appropriate board. I would draw and daydream in my sketchbook what I wanted. Several years later, I saved up all my allowance and got a 6’1” round nose Fish shaped by Gary McNabb of Nectar Surfboards. It was huge for my 5’3” build at the time, but I loved that board and it really endeared me to the Fish design. I joined the surf team in my senior year and surfed that board throughout. I remember the 18
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CHRISTINE BRAILSFORD CARO coaches telling us that girls need to ride really long, thin shortboards. My Fish was really easy to catch waves with but impossible for me to duck dive. I dreamed of a shorter, wider board that would be fast, easy to catch waves, and duck dive. A few years later, I bought a used 5’5” Kneeboard, which I surfed for a few years before I rode it on my knees. I learned about rocker that day, ha! Wow, did it go fast on my knees! When I went to The Laguna College of Art and Design,
I didn’t get to surf much. After college I worked a lot with wood and discovered, through reading about Hawaiian culture, Paipo’s and belly boards. After exploring the design and conceptualizing for a while, I made one in 2009 and it outperformed my expectations. I explored that design, through many iterations of design. My friends at the California Surf Museum and the old Leucadia surf shop would let me check out the Paipos that they had. I developed a Paipo that is extremely fast and maneuverable. It further enlightened my path of design. Shaping and designing Paipos helped me learn some of the tools that I use for shaping surfboards. I also began to train my eyes to see templates, curves, and foils. USBlanks.com
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Around that time, I also met Peter and Sally St Pierre at Moonlight Glassing. They are the sweetest people, like the Mr. and Mrs. Claus of the surfboard industry. Through them I met Cher Pendarvis. Cher is a wealth of knowledge in surfing and board building history in the San Diego area. Her stories really liberated my mind and helped me realize that I could do everything that I had been quietly fantasizing about. I was fortunate to be around great surfboards working at the local surf shop, Surfy Surfy, and through my now husband, Manny Caro (Mandala Custom Shapes). Manny’s boards are so much fun to ride! Being able to ride them regularly, along with his collection of boards from Marc Andrieni and Rich Pavel has been a real gift.
CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
Photo: @jennsmucker
I had access to incredible examples of surfboards to study and help train my eyes to see what a good surfboard looks like. I wanted to shape foam surfboards for a long time, but didn’t have the money to begin. 19
I had shaped around 200+ Paipos and handplanes for customers and friends under my Whomp Handplanes label before I finally built my first surfboard. A good friend knew that I wanted to shape surfboards, so she gave me the money to make her my first board, a 6’0” round nose stubbie in 2012. After that I shaped myself a 5’9” version with a glass-on wood single fin, which I also made. I was hooked. I would build boards for myself to ride and test, then sell them used to afford to make a new one (which I still do today). I made a few more boards for friends, soon got my first real custom order, and started my company Furrow Surf Craft. I’ve built around 150 surfboards now and I’m stoked to continue to grow through each board I shape. I have stock boards at Mitch’s Surf Shop, M’s Surf and Sport, Mollusk Surf Shop, Sawyer Land and Sea Supply, 2 Mile, and I’m always busy making customs for folks around the world. I feel extremely privleged to shape boards for people. Bringing joy to others through my craft is what drives me to shape a better board everyday. I have met many amazing people through building boards and am truly blessed. I’m grateful for the opportunity to refine my models and develop new ones.
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Brailsford-Caro’s 5’0” Furrow Fish, inspired by Cher Pendarvis’s 1970 5’2” Fish
The Boardroom Show Shaping Exhibition, 2015
FURROW
The name came from a farming reference. A furrow is a trench or the dug-out hole where you plant seeds. It’s the start of new growth. Surfboards facilitate our experience with the ocean. If you have a good experience surfing on a surfboard, it can add a positive element into your overall conscience. Each time you go surfing, you create new experiences and remember past memories. Maybe it’s a wave you surfed, a place you traveled, friends you shared your local peak with one afternoon with no one out, or that first feeling of trim. If only in some small way, I hope that what I do contributes to that spiral of positivity in someone’s life. Learn more at FurrowSurfCraft.com and follow @FurrowSurfCraft
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DEBBIE GORDON
“‘My first board was a G&S’, we hear that every few days from customers and it never gets old.”
Debbie Gordon
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Debbie Gordon, along with her brother Eric, are now at the helm of the iconic, family-owned surf brand. With a keen reverance for quality craftsmanship, the Gordon & Smith factory is focused on making modern surfboards built on an unparreled legacy.
grew up at the beach and was always surrounded by surfers; Skip Frye, Reno Abellira, Mark Richards, Jimmy Hogan, Charlie Kuhn, so many great surfers came through G&S and they were all like family to us. In the 70s, Gordon & Smith had the largest surfboard factory in the world and my brother and I spent a Debbie with her father, Larry Gordon. lot of time there in our childhood. In hindsight, it’s really remarkable knowing and working with. I how many great surfers and board started working at the age of 12 at our retail store, PB Surf Shop, builders I’ve had the pleasure of
renting surfboards and boogie boards, doing receiving, sales, and worked my way up to management and Buyer for our retail stores through the ‘80s. In 1991 we closed our retail stores and our surfboard production had run into some management problems. My dad basically handed me the mess and said, “Here, you fix it!” That’s how I got directly involved with board building. Because of my first-hand exposure in the retail environment, I saw the interest in longboards growing. As general interest in surfing grew
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
Larry Gordon & Floyd Smith, 1963
through the decades, longboarding was the first logical step for new surfers. We saw a huge boom in longboard business in the early 90s. Dad’s could do it, young surfers developed an interest in history, and Gordon & Smith was perfectly positioned to both produce high-quality surfboards and to provide an education for the social and cultural context of longboarding and board building. When I transitioned into surfboard production in 1991, I began to help design alternative funboard and longboard shapes to facilitate the needs of surfers evolving into a higher-performance phase of their abilities. Within a few years, we had grown our production from 100 boards a year to 1,500. One of the earliest campaigns my father ran was entitled, “White Glove Quality. Iron Clad Strength.” We believe in the craftsmanship of surfboards and I have dozens of examples of friends who have been riding their same G&S surfboard for decades. In fact, the board that I learned on was a board that we had around the house for decades called “The White Ghost”. My dad would experiment on it by cutting different tail shapes, replacing foam core with caukling and honeycomb to test flex characteristics, all sorts of stuff. He often had the ugliest, oldest board on the beach because his boards remained functional and strong for so long. In 2013 my brother and I took over and relaunched Gordon & Smith. We focused on going back to our roots in board building. We glass our surfboards and other shaper’s brands too. Our family history sparked us to begin going through our father’s extensive archives to compile a book that details the various relationships, boards built, and advertisements generated from Gordon & Smith since 1959. The book is a collaboration between our whole family. My mom wrote for it, I wrote pieces, my brother (Eric Gordon) wrote and did the layout and graphic design. My dad was always forward-thinking, but Eric and I have reverance for the legacy that he built. USBlanks.com
Sam Cody, 1970
The factory, 2015
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
“The focus of Gordon & Smith has always been on quality. Our relationships with employees, suppliers, and customers has always been nurtured with the intention of maintaining them for the long-term.”
Gordon & Smith factory, 1970
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DEBBIE GORDON
Larry Gordon and Floyd Smith, 1960
Debbie and Eric Gordon, 2015
Every board that we build today is based on those 56 years of experience and tradition. We have zero interest in rapid growth. We’ve done that. Our sole focus is on building beautiful, functional surfboards for passionate surfers.
We make surfboards, one FRIEND at a time.
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DEBBIE GORDON
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CRAFTSWOMEN OF SURFING
Debbie and Larry Gordon
I’ve surfed and skated throughout my whole life. I lived in Maui for a while and I was able to surf everyday. And now my children are incredible surfers. We have a Mother’s Day tradition of catching one wave together.
SURFING is inextricable from our LIVES. Learn more at GordonandSmith.com and follow @GordonandSmith
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