BIKE BLISS

What better thing to do when the surf is flat than to free-wheel along the wet sand with the salty wind in your hair? The joys of bike riding are almost as abundant as those of surfing, especially on a stretch of beach such as this. It took us about an hour to cycle from Broken Head to Lennox where we embarked on a spot of shopping. Amazingly, this tiny town at the site of one of our National Surfing Reserves has some fantastic outlets.
Primo shoppo is Riley Burnett, located upstairs on the main street, a jewellery wholesale outlet that sells gear to Italy. It's also got a great range of sexy clothing on offer and kooky accessories, like shoes made of rubber tyres. Opposite is a treasure chest of second-hand gear that offered up a few bargains too.
So while we waited for the waves to pick up, we were more than stoked with this fun diversion.

FINS BELONG ON SHARKS, NOT IN SOUP

Just scored a new Limited Edition Yamamoto Geoprene wetsuit top by Matuse which is made from limestone as opposed to petroleum-based neoprene so I'm feeling about as stoked as an eco-warrior can be. Proceeds from this ice cool item of surfwear go to the Surfrider Foundation and hopefully somehow protect our friends the sharks. Not sure what the characters on the front mean. Any clues out there in cyberspace???

http://www.matuse.com/product.html?product_id=110

HOLLOW WOODEN SURFBOARDS

Lat week, The Hoffinator  and I headed to the hills for a 5 day workshop in making hollow wooden surfboards. Little did we know what an emotional roller coaster we were about to paddle into! Day one was awesome - unpacking our wood and assembling the inner skeletal frame. Day two was cool too, creating our individual designs and playing with the layout of the wood grains. A Paulownia tree had been ceremoniously felled before our arrival and each of the 13 participants had a slice or two to play with, along with strips of red cedar and western red cedar. Glassing the inside of the deck and bottom brought out all the gorgeous colours of the wood and we were riding the wave of stoke.

But then we had to become mistresses of power tools we'd only ever heard of like routers, belt sanders, angle grinders and glue guns. It was empowering to wield them around the workshop of our host Andrew Turner in the little dairy town of Comboyne under the instruction of Paul Jensen. But my enthusiasm got away with me and I nearly grinded the deck right off the board. Luckily Andrew's son Rye stopped me before it was too late. An accomplished woodworker who makes guitars for a living, Rye was making an impeccable 5'10" Fish. I opted for the 9' plank - less room for error - or so I thought.

By Day 5 I was in trouble. Having not had much experience with contact adhesive, there was a weakness emerging in my cork and plywood rails. The Hoffinator was in even deeper shit with no cork left to finish off her 5'5" fish. And being the perfectionist that she is, she wasn't going to use a patchwork of scraps like I had on my last of four layers of cork. We had become the outcasts. Set adrift on our intuition, we'd floundered. There was no choice but to leave. Everyone else was going the distance, pushing on into the unscheduled 6th day but we'd had enough of sawdust and rain and cold and concrete underfoot and most importantly - no surf! The only light at the end of the tunnel was the bath, the beer and the black market unpasteurised organic milk procured for our morning chai ritual. So we wrapped our unfinished boards up in layers of builders plastic and left star pupil Jane and co. behind.

But from power tools to couture, Comboyne delivered the goods. As we left we struck gold at a Katie Pye sale in the old Cheese Factory - a couple of choice outfits to help our re-entry into civilisation. And now we're stocking up on inspiration to complete the rail shaping and glassing back in Avalove. Watch this space.

FATBURNER

Took delivery of my fab new 5'10" fatburner from the lovely, loopy Greg Webber who obviously had fun signing his signature along the stringer (see pic). Gave it a test ride yesterday at Bungan in some cute little punchy numbers and it's officially my new best friend. Pity it's so flat today otherwise we'd be on another hot date. Had a chat with a longboarder on the steep climb back up from the beach who said he had "man-flu". I told him I think I have Giardia. Am looking forward to meeting up with Dr G. Spot today for medication and emerging with renewed vigor to take on end of week swell with my new bestie. Thanks Gregoire x

WHITE POINTER POINT

Lighthouses abound on the treacherous South Australian coastline as do cracker surf breaks. After a week of healing surfing with the local dolphins and my amazing girlfriends around this magnificent, remote area, I headed out to this point to pay my respects. What happened next was nothing short of a mystical experience. Scores of white pointer sharks converged in the colliding currents below. It was particularly trippy because my soul buddy had just departed these Earthly shores and his Fijian totem was the shark. I certainly felt his spirit flying free and wild and hopefully protecting me and all our mates in the surf.

Coming soon! 'Sea Hags Ahoy!' - the film of the trip with music by 'The Break'.

SHIFTING SANDS

'Another Day In Paradise' was the title of this stop motion animation which featured in Wax On earlier this year. It was shot on the breakwater at Nobby's Beach, Newcastle by New Zealand artist Sarah Smuts-Kennedy who is currently represented once again at Hazelhurst Gallery in the exhibition 'Shifting Sands'. The fab Ace Bourke is the curator. Not only is he the guy who owned the YouTube sensation Christian the Lion, he is also a descendant of Lieutenant Phillip Gidley King, who with Captain Arthur Phillip in the First Fleet had early encounters with Aborigines in Botany Bay.
'Dream Paradise' is Sarah's new work, inspired by Joni Mitchell's lyrics "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot". It's comprised of seven totem poles that throw shadows on her two videos of landscapes in Kamay National Park at Kurnell. Cool stuff.

HILDA'S HELMET

Helmets rock, according to Hilda (seen here fresh from a surf at North Avalon). Not only does it protect her head from head-ons with other people's boards, it also keeps her head warm, she reckons. And what's more, it keeps the cold water out of the ears. Given the current temperatures, it might be a good investment.

I ❤ Green Ones

Gotta Love this:

http://www.surfersvillage.com/surfing/48231/news.htm

WAX OFF

"Wax On. Wax Off." That immortal line from the classic 1984 film 'The Karate Kid' has inspired more than just a few people over the years. I used the title 'Wax On' for the first party that I helped organise for the Bondi Girls Surf Riders, held in association with Bondi FM at the Bondi Pavillion back in 2007. We had another big bash under that same title the following year but the girls decided to scale it back for the tenth anniversary last year which they held upstairs at the Waverly Bowling Club (a memorable night for many reasons!).
So I used the title for the contemporary surf-inspired art exhibition at Hazelhurst instead. When it wrapped I posted under the title 'Wax Off' but it seems that another art gallery is using it to launch their second surf art show in Melbourne this month. The one thing that strikes me about the line-up is the lack of chicks represented. Lucky it's not like that in the surf.

http://www.green-woodgallery.com/?module=exhibitions

WALK AGAINST WARMING

Climate chaos played an appropriate role in yesterday's Walk Against Warming which attracted 10,000 people in Sydney alone. I was asked to represent on behalf of The Climate Project and was the first speaker to address the rally. Everyone at Belmore Park near Central Station was basking in sparkling sunshine. But just as the speeches drew to a close, the heavens opened up and the rain pelted down. Hail was even reported falling in some parts of the city. One surfie chick i know was out at Long Reef and had to hold her board over her head for about five minutes protection. The ice was so strong she now has little dings all over the bottom of her board!

The Sydney Morning Herald has a report on the event:

(http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/thousands-protest-on-climate-change-20100815-12506.html)

News flash! Al Gore signals me out on his blog: :http://blog.algore.com/2010/08/the_movement_we_need.html

SURF'S UP

Surf's pumpin' so I'm heading off to pick up my board which got dinged in the tiny Rex jet coming back from Ballina. Don't know how it happened as there were only six of us on the flight so it wasn't as if it got crunched in all the luggage. Went to collect it the other day only to find that my fixer had somehow managed to put another ding in the tail. Cripes! Can't wait for that new fatuburner to arrive. Meanwhile, here's a pic of me going out on the first day of the swell in Malibu last March. Nearly drowned in all the weeds but a fun (if somewhat chilly) time was had.

BYRONIA

Whales breaching, dolphins frolicking, warm waves peeling, hippies nuzzling....where else could you be but Byronia?

Lobbed in last Friday and paddled straight out at north Tallow's where the water was fine, if a bit ramshackle. Caught a few then came in to see a pod of whales fully flying out of the ocean on their way north. Could they have been the same ones spotted just five days earlier off the 'bra? Considering that humpback whales can reach speeds of up to 27 kilometres an hour and Byron is 774 kms from Sydney....well, it's possible. Watched the leviathans round Australia's easternmost point from the iconic lighthouse as the sun set over the spectacular hinterland peaks.

Surfed deserted Seven Mile Beach for the next few days as the swell dropped off to next to nothing. But with days like this, fine food galore and friends to play with, what's there to complain about?

HELL (nipple rash)

Nude surfing is an art that very few people perfect. When Suze the Flooze tried in down at Yorkes Penninsular she was crying out for hell nipple rash.

It was this episode that sparked the idea for a video work by The Stoked, a Sydney based guerrilla collective that creates random acts of art, often provoked by other works of art. In this case, Tracey Moffatt’s Heaven provided the catalyst. Responding to the all male focus in Moffatt’s now classic 1997 film, The Stoked created a work in which the camera is trained on female surfers performing the same ritual as seen in Heaven, that of getting into and out of wetsuits in beach car parks.

In this perv-fest you can see radical professional surfer Amee Donohoe who was ranked 5th in the world last year. But don't expect the kind of flashy flesh jobs that are on display in Heaven. The chicks in Hell (Nipple Rash) are a lot more discrete having had years of practice avoiding the predatory male gaze as they suit up in public.

BTW Tracey Moffatt is giving a talk at the AGNSW this Friday at 6pm.

NEW BOARD EN ROUTE!

Nothing like a bit of public shaming to get some action on long overdue issues. I was asked for a contribution to this recent Tracks magazine article on the Webber brothers by middle sibling Monty. His older brother Greg had been promising me a board for years so I thought I'd remind him about it via the quote. No sooner had it hit the stands than I got a text; 'What dimensions?' So a 5'10" Fatburner is on it's way - hooray!!!

Greg and Monty made the amazing film 'Liquid Time' (2004) which was exhibited in 'Wax On'. It depicts what could very well be the most perfect waves ever seen on screen. But they’re only 30 centimetres high. Generated by Greg at the helm of a tinnie and shot by Monty with a boom-mounted lipstick camera, these “Microwaves”(as legendary surf cameraman George Greenough calls them) are breaking on the sandbanks of the Clarence River near the Webber family's spiritual home at Angourie.

Winner of the 2004 Cinematography Award at the Saint Jean de Luz Surf Film Festival, this short film features a chilled soundtrack from Tim “Love” Lee who gained fame as the keyboardist with ‘Katrina and the Waves’. Looking forward to their next cinematic outing.

DAY OUT OF TIME

Yesterday was this year's Day Out of Time according to the Mayan Calendar. Randy "Cosmic Hand" Bruner from 'It's About Time' on the Jewel Network (blogtalkradio.com) explains it like this; "Due to the nature of the 13 Moon 28 day calendar we are left with an extra day at the end of the year. 13 moons times 28 days gives us 364 days. So we’re left with an extra day. We refer to this day as “the Day Out of Time”. It is not a day of the week. It is not a day of the month. It is a Day Out of Time. However, it does have a spiritual value. It is a day in the 260 day sacred calendar of the Maya known as the Tzolkin."

It was "a great day for a picnic or a visit to your local sacred site or just gathering together with friends for a celebration of life", Randy said.

Unbeknownst to the White Resonant Mirror and I (Yellow Galactic Sun), we found ourselves high up on the cliffs at the Golf Course, north of Bondi Beach, beside some amazing carvings of whales, sharks and other marine creatures by the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We'd just come from surfing at Maroubra where we'd seen several southern right whales breaching not far offshore, leaping out of the ocean and plunging back down with gigantic splashes. We thought we might catch another sight of them from up here or maybe even see the full moon rise. Instead we spotted ten, twenty, fifty, eighty and then a hundred dolphins racing south along the coast towards us. As they came swirling to a halt right beneath us we realised that this awesome meg-pod was hunting down a school of huge fish - perhaps kingfish - that were leaping out of the water trying to avoid their jaws of death.

It was the sort of gobsmacking vision that we knew was going to be hard to describe to friends and family. Luckily the White Overtone Wizard called just as we spotted the pod, which seemed to stretch back all the way to South Head, so he knew our over excitement was for real. But my twin sisters (whose birthday it was), parents and nephews found it hard to comprehend when we met with them just 15 minutes later for an early dinner at the sublime Sean's Panaroma.

Only now as I research what was going on in the Mayan sense do I realise what I should've said to make myself perfectly clear. I was a galactic activation portal! "The new year in the 13 Moon Calendar is timed to coincide with a cosmic event. On July 26th the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, will rise with the sun".

Yellow Self-existing Star

I define in order to beautify

measuring art

I seal the store of elegance

with the self existing tone of form

I am guided by the power of flowering

I am a galactic activation portal… enter me

AVALOVE

Life is lovely living one hour north of the City of Sydney. Have extracted myself from the Eastern Suburbs for the first time in my life and am basically blissed out. Having surfed Bondi all these years it's delightful to explore all these gorgeous uncrowded breaks free from 'packer drop ins and runaway learner boards. Saw whales at Whale Beach and Guy Pearce at Warriewood. Wonderful!

PAM'S PORTRAIT

Abbey McCulloch was commissioned to paint this portrait of Aussie surf superstar Pam Burridge for Wax On and now the fab canvas is seeking a home. It's a rare opportunity for someone to have a full tilt legend watching over them and inspiring them into deeper barrels. So let the bidding begin!!

TARPING?!

PUBES

TETRIS TRIO

What to do with your spare grips? Here's an idea: turn them into stubby holders or mouse pads. Featured here is the tetris design grip recycled into new accessories for the discerning surfer. for the stubbie holder I used contact adhesive held together with bulldog clips for several hours. All it needs now is a base to stop the bottle falling through.

VARIATIONS ON BIKINI/BURQINI

Now that the weather's turned a little on the chilly side, it's time to rug up in something glamorous like the above outfit designed and modeled by Aheda Zanetti who invented the Burqini.

The Burqini (centre) was created to assist Muslim women who desire to be lifesavers or simply just enjoy the beach and is her answer to the bikini, consisting of a full length lycra suite with hijab head-covering. The outfit is not dissimilar to the stinger suit (top) one must wear snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef to protect oneself from fatal box jelly fish stings only baggier.

All outfits are also brilliant for summer too, to protect pale skin from the deadly uv rays.

http://www.womengateway.com/enwg/Women+Issues/burgini.htm

GREEN FINS

How super stoked am I to be testing out a prototype set of these new Green Flex Fins???

And I'm especially chuffed to have played a small role in their inception. Back in August 2005, I was hosting DFactory, a monthly design forum at the Powerhouse Museum, and one of our guests was the Global Marketing and Product Development Manager of Surf Hardware International, a company that had taken out that year's Australian Design Award with the H-2 surfboard fin.

Contact was made at the event with another DFactory guest from InterfaceFLOR, a carpet manufacturing company that aims to eliminate any negative impact that it may have on the environment by 2020. Together these companies have been working on extracting the nylon component from old carpets and using the resin-like material to make fins, diverting heaps of junk from landfills in the process.

While still in the trial phase, these Green Flex Fins are feeling mighty fine in my boards. Check out this link for more info:

http://www.surffcs.com/green/

TOUGH SHARK LOVE

They always get a bad rap but sharks rock. My bestie had a Fijian shark totem and he took his heritage to heart.
At the premiere of 'Australia', he crafted a shark outfit that rocked the red carpet to it's underfelt. The dinner shirt splattered with blood was a special touch.
His totem manifested into a stunning decoration last Christmas outside his Darlinghurst cafe FAB. Complete with a red nose, the gnarly beastie took the place of a reindeer and dragged a splayed Santa in 6inch heels on a boogie board sleigh for a wild and festive ride.

My soul mate, the white pointer shark, broke free into the void last month and is currently surfing the cosmic foam somewhere out there in the universe. Fear not his jaws of death. Protect his kind by adopting a shark instead. The Bondi Girls Surf Riders have one affectionately known as Schapelle. She brings members good karma in the surf.
Humans have decimated this mighty species by over 90% through shark finning, a crazy industry that wastes 75% of the animal in quest of what amounts to a carcenogenic cartiledge for a supposedly potent soup.
Help save the sharks and respect their habitat.
adoptashark.org.au
http://nccnsw.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=66&Itemid=596

Wax Off

As the Wax On works are removed from the gallery wall there's a certain sense of melancholia setting in. But, as the good Budd says, nothing is permanent. All things must pass. And so, with Captain Goodvibes 3D head safely bubble-wrapped in the back of my car, I'm heading down to Bondi to hand over our beloved mascot to its rightful owner.

David Elfick co-founded 'the surfer's bible' Tracks Magazine back in the early '70s and produced those seminal surf films 'Morning Of the Earth' and 'Crystal Voyager'. He kindly lent us the Pig of Steel's head for the duration of the show and today he'll take him back up to Palm Beach where he'll preside over the waves from his lookout in the old pink dance hall. Om Mani Pig Hum.

Phantasmagoriapsychosexmagia

With a title like this, you know that Rachel Scott is up to something big and complex. Seen here in a production still from her 10-minute black and white video, Scott conjurs up the sinister side of surf culture as she waxes on in her hoodie to a soundtrack that includes grabs from David Lynch's 'Twin Peaks'. The phrase: "I want you, I want you", whispers out from the background as she inexpertly applies wax to two old surfboards, messing up her long, painted fingernails in the process.

Scott purchased the boards online for just $45 and the experience of going to collect them from a dodgy dude in Bronte is described in a text based work displayed outside the darkened projection room. But this blog-like document from Sunday 22nd November, 2009, has also been coated with a thick layer of wax making it virtually impenetrable to the viewer. Likewise, another framed text recounting a dream in which she is waxing three surfboards given to her by her mother is obscured with black duck tape.

What I love about this work, apart from the tension that's created through a strange mixture of paranoia and humour, is the magic that's captured within the frame that Scott has set up for herself. Behind her there's always some action like guys surfing or waiting for their mates after coming out of the water. There's even a jogger who conveniently stops mid distance and checks his watch before moving on. And if you let your imagination run riot, you can even sense the presence of a shark patrolling the waters, scoping out the legs of the last man surfing.

FROM LITTLE THINGS...

Sydney-based artist Kendal Murray contains memories of idyllic beach holidays in objects like glass teapots and old compacts. Her works are seen here being unpacked by Exhibition Coordinator and chief curator Daniel Mudie Cunningham who leg-roped me into this gig in the first place and who alerted me to these gorgeous objects d'art when they were first exhibited at Arthouse Gallery last year.

In Wax On, Murray's miniatures are displayed on a plinth near Monty Webber's video work 'Liquid Time' - a dreamy vision of perhaps the most perfect waves ever found in the world. But you couldn't possibly ride them because they're only 30 cm high. Only Murray's little surfie dudes could take them on and reminisce about that sheer perfection for the rest of their tiny lives.