Book Browse: Seans Cliver's Labor of Love
- Author: Vivianne Lapointe
- Posted on: Thursday October 1, 2009 at 9:00 AM
- Filed under: exclusive, book, skateboarding, art, sean cliver
The Disposable Skateboard Bible by Sean Cliver brings together thirty years worth of deck art in a 368 pages, full-color book including over 1000 kickass skateboard graphics. One thing's for sure, this is not your grandmother's coffee table book.
Originally from Stevens Point, a small town located in dead central Wisconsin, the author has lived in southern California since 1989 when he “won” an art contest for a salaried position at Powell-Peralta Skateboards skate shop. He got his start drawing skateboard graphics, and soon enough became editor-in-chief of the now legendary Big Brother magazine. You might also know him from Jackass. We've asked Cliver to discuss his work and share his views on the skateboarding industry. Here's the dish.
Why the name 'Disposable'?
It mainly stems from the ill-fated nature of skateboard graphics. They’re only meant for a limited unblemished shelf life before the boards are set-up and skated, at which point the graphics become savaged remnants of their former self. Kinda funny, considering how so much time, money, and effort goes into crafting a graphic in the first place.
These designs have, in turn, left a lasting impression on several generations of skateboarders. And, in making these books, I guess that’s what is ultimately the most rewarding for me: watching skaters - be they former or lifer - flip through the pages and trip back in time seeing boards they once rode.
How do you think older skateboard graphics have influenced today's industry brands?
Well, certain printing innovations circa 2001 left the doors wide open as to what could be cost-effectively printed on a skateboard—anything from photos to paintings to Photoshop f*** fests - so the graphic terrain now seen on the shop racks can be fairly diverse and seem nothing akin to the designs of yore. Then again, many of the artists now were all inspired and/or influenced by graphics and/or artists in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I guess you could say it’s a “standing on the shoulders of giants” thing. Not to mention that to this day you’ll still find parodies, homages, borrowed motifs, or flat-out rip-offs being produced of classic and not-so classic graphics from throughout the past three decades.
How did you choose what boards and artists to feature in the book?
I tried to cover as many bases as I could with my first book published in 2004, Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art, but there were still a few artists and boards that I wasn’t able to track down or make contact with then. Plus, a lot of companies’ boards just didn’t fit the format I was thematically going for. So with this follow up book, The Disposable Skateboard Bible, I was able to open it up a lot more in terms of the boards shown because my primary goal was to provide the most comprehensive visual overview of skateboards produced from the ‘60s to right around the year 2000. And the only real reason I stopped there was because I’d run out of room. I’d already pressed my publisher well beyond the page count I’d originally pitched the book to be back in 2007, but I could have easily filled a hundred more pages than the final printed 368.
The best part of working on the books by far was simply meeting and communicating with artists and skaters that I had always known by name but had never formally met before. Well, that and imagining myself to be some sort of half-ass Indiana Jones in search of old skateboards that may or may no longer still exist in their unskated form.
(LOL)
Is that what motivated you publish a second book?
In the years following the publication of the first book, I was contacted by a number of people with boards that I was unable to find in that first go round. So for a while I’d make sly little updates to each subsequent edition of Disposable. I wasn’t trying to be all Dave Eggers about it I was just trying to make the definitive book I’d wanted it to be in the first place. I did this for four printings until I finally decided to do another book altogether. Not only would that allow me to maintain my high on the thrill of continuing to hunt for old boards and unknown collections - I wasn’t kidding about that Indiana Jones remark - but I could also include the two decades of boards I’d more or less ignored in Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art, as well as the stories and anecdotes from key artists and skaters that I wasn’t able to find or fit in the first time around. Most notably people like V. Courtlandt Johnson, Mark Gonzales, Greg Evans, Art and Steve Godoy, Mark “Gator” Rogowski, George Powell, Stacy Peralta, Bruce Walker, and Chuck Hults.
Are some of your own graphics featured in the book?
This time around… not so many. A very large chunk of the first book was based around my own rather involved (if not somewhat Being There) with skateboard graphics history - particularly around the fall of Powell-Peralta and the rise of Steve Rocco and his World Industries conglomerate of companies - and I’d included a lot of my own board designs to help illustrate the story of this industry tussle that had immeasurable effect upon skateboarding. I kind of felt embarrassed though, because that’s what probably precluded several other worthy boards from making it into the final book. Consequently, I was a tad more self-conscious of that fact while putting this new book together, and only included a few random graphics that I had done for Powell-Peralta, Blind, and 101 in the early- to mid-1990s.
What is the largest skateboard collection(s) you have ever seen, and tell me about your personal collection.
Based on sheer volume it has to be the Skatelab Museum collection in Simi Valley, CA. It’s massive. But there are a few other private collectors that have somehow managed to amass stashes of over 700 boards. Not a cheap feat, by any stretch, nor an easy one to manageably store. My own collection consists of only 80 or so boards, and that alone has been a monumental pain in the ass (and back) whenever I’ve had to move it about Los Angeles.
Roughly half of the boards in my collection are ones that I’ve done the artwork on; the other half is what I have to show for going batshit crazy in the consummate OCD sense. You see, over the past nine years, I’ve devoted a ridiculous amount of time, effort, and funny money to tracking down all these boards that struck a sentimental chord one way or another with me - the majority being from either Powell-Peralta or Zorlac with several random others thrown in for good measure (I don’t think any collection is really complete without at least one of Mark Gonzales’s pro models on Vision).
But in the end, what I’ve managed to assemble is a “fantasy” skate shop consisting of my favorite boards from the 80s and 90s. And yes, it makes me absolutely happy in that extremely trivial First World way.
Photo credit: F. Nogueira via Flickr
Has the artistic integrity remained strong within the community or is the book part memorabilia/part nostalgia?
Taking into consideration that I’ve already hit the official mid-life crisis point, yes, the book is part memorabilia/nostalgia. In fact, it’s way more than a part - it’s the whole damn focus. Art and design within skateboarding is and always will be an ever-evolving monster - the activity itself attracts a rare breed of creative individual—but over the past several years there’s been a significant revival in the older generations of skaters that have returned to the board later in life.
Consequently many of the longtime companies, e.g. Powell, Vision, Santa Cruz, Zorlac, G&S, etc., have taken to reissuing their old graphics and board shapes that were popular in the ‘80s to capitalize on this nostalgic niche market. Perhaps I am, too, in a way, but I’m mostly just making the books I’d want to have on my shelf.
Check out Disposable online and follow Cliver on Twitter & on Jackassworld.
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