Skateboarding
Skateboarding
Red Bull Origin: Celebrating the birthplace of skateboarding
An unforgettable celebration of the birthplace of skateboarding with challenge-focused contests homaging the people, stories and the origin of skateboarding.
These events drew inspiration from the DogTown/Z-Boy skaters and the streets of Venice, where the first bowls were carved, first ramps were launched and first fire hydrants were spun upon like the old images embedded in our history remind us. But what’s just as important to this event is a cultural preservation looking back in time, through photographs, artwork, and even articles and interviews connecting the pioneers of DogTown with the latest generation.
It might seem impossible to bring together all that is skateboarding’s Origin in one weekend, but skateboarding unsurprisingly showed out in full force. Day 1 kicked off with the Bowl Session at the Venice Beach skatepark. Mayhem, madness, miracles, whatever adjective you want to use, skaters like Chris Russell and Greyson Fletcher turned the bowl into a blender. Legends like Tony Alva and Christian Hosoi stand guard on the coping, a living representation to the crowd of just how far pool and bowl skating has come.
Jordan Santana 540s at Red Bull Origin in Venice, California
© Colin Kerrigan / Red Bull Content Pool
“This is what it’s all about,” says Hosoi as Jordan Satana blasts a 540 several feet over-coping. The crowd is a community of Venice locals, industry heads, and skaters from all walks of life, doing what skaters do best – skate and have fun doing it. But even so, Venice Skatepark and its bowls saw some of the heaviest skating to go down.
Following the bowl session, the herd of skaters moved on to the next challenge: A Natas Kaupas inspired fire hydrant obstacle, where these incredible skaters are taken back to one of skating’s most iconic tricks ever filmed in Venice, humbling some and bested by others. To no surprise, one of skating's most unique skaters, Anthony Anderson, won the contest with a Natas spin Natas himself could be proud of. The event reminds us just how talented the earliest skaters were and how their contributions still endure to the commitment and creativity a skater must have with their environment.
As a part of the weekend, an art show called Artful Dodgers was hosted by Red Bull at the Rose Room. Teaming up with Juice Magazine to host Artful Dodgers, to mission was to benefit the Dolphin Project featuring artwork by Stacy Peralta, Steve Olson, Lance Mountain, Craig Stecyk III and Jim Ganzer.
These incredible legends, surrounded by their friends, family and peers, spoke directly on their art work and what the event meant to them after all these years.
There’s a summer buzz in the streets of Venice, painted vans of peace and love are stuffed with surfboards, as a mural of Jay Adams reflects the setting sun, ending an amazing day of events that saw skaters take home big checks and even bigger smiles. The jazzing bars and painted alleyways shuffle everyone into the heart of DogTown to the Rose Room, an art gallery just steps from the sand and the Pacific Ocean. Skaters step off their boards and into line as a bouncer checks IDs and puzzlingly is reminded skateboards are allowed inside.
The check in line is a who’s–who of skate legends with family friends and local skaters searching their phones for RSVP confirmations. While it’s not a what-are-you-wearing event, the people watching and fashion statements are all part of the fun.
Venice legends at Red Bull Origin in Venice, California
© Colin Kerrigan / Red Bull Content Pool
Reggae music is bouncing off the walls, Juice Magazine stacks goodie bags filled to the brim, and instantly one notices a full spectrum of skateboarding in one room. Skate dads and groms getting their first history lesson, skate legends and wild Venice locals exchanging hugs and “how are you?”
One can't help but notice Steve Olson, the charismatic legend with his arms stretched behind two friends posing for a photo. “I see so many of my friends, what an amazing amount of gorgeous energy in one room,” said Olson. “That’s what’s really going through my head right now.”
Olson explained how the Origin of the Artful Dodgers came to be.
“It happens how it always happens. They asked me if I wanted to do the show, I said no. Then I woke up the next morning and I said yes. But I said, I want to do it with Ganzer, Stecyk, Peralta, Lance and myself. Then it happened in like two hours. At 7:30, I called everyone and everyone said yes and was super stoked. People were saying it was a heavy lineup but it wasn’t a heavy lineup. It was just my friends.”
Christian Hosoi performs a frontside ollie at Red Bull Origin in Venice
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
We noticed a tall man in a vintage green Carhart jacket pointing up to one of the photos highest on the wall. Low and behold, it’s the iconic photograph of Tony Alva holding a leopard (more on that later) and instantly we recognized the legend Craig Stecyk III, a true contributor and architect in the Origin of skateboarding. Stecyk, being the amicable man that he is, suggested we walk upstairs to a quieter spot, happily agreeing to answer a few questions for us.
“We’re standing next to Tony Hawk’s official biographer,” said Stecyk. “So maybe we don’t want to have this conversation here.”
Jokes aside, we got right into it. We asked Stecyk if he felt the same way as Steve Olson about the gravity of the art show.
“Steve is having a socio-concourse with his friends in every situation I've been with him, including abject misfortune. He’s always happy, he’s a son of a combat veteran fighter pilot and he conducts himself as such.”
Craig Stecyk shot and wrote some of the first photo essays and journalistic pieces in the '70s covering DogTown, providing the texture needed for the world to understand the spirit of skateboarding’s rebellion. What does he think his artwork has meant to skateboarding?
Red Bull Origin in Venice Beach, California
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
“I had the fortune to have my mom do all the work and I just happened to drop out of the slot in Ocean Park, California and thought perhaps I had done something of significance because I was having so much fun,” said Stecyk. “I was conceived as my father always told me, in the casino ballroom annex at the old ocean park pier. I feel guilty. I’ve been technically dead and flatlined a couple of times. And it might be the only thing I ever actually accomplished.”
Upon hearing Stecyk’s coyness, Lance Mountain steps into the event from the check in line and raves about Stecyk.
“Craig Stecyk wrote the way skateboarding can be something cool and something interesting, something way more than just a sport. People were trying to make [skateboarding] a sport since the day it got going. Stecyk’s writing, Stacey really benefited from it. You can see it in the movies, and with Zephyr and Powell. Craig passed on this idea of how you can present skateboarding to people and they can choose what they want from it. If people like it and they come to be around skateboarding it's because of the foundations of what these guys laid and I just got to benefit from it."
Stecyk reflected, “Art is artifice and there’s a certain amount of self analysis that comes with interacting with your friends. It could be destiny, it could be fortune. It’s like what they say, everybody has a future but nobody has a past. That is what’s pretty well summed up for me in this event.”
Lance Mountain helps put it into perspective.
“If people come to be around skateboarding it's because of the foundations of what these guys laid. I just got to benefit from it.”
Paige Heyn perfoms a switch ollie at Red Bull Origin in Venice, California
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
It’s the same for all of us. We all get to benefit from it today and enjoy events like Red Bull Origins and Artful Dodgers that keep skateboarding close to its source. There are not too many things in the world where you can experience directly, free of charge, the ethos and spirit that forged its creation.
Literally, on the first wall, there’s the radically unconventional artwork of Steve Olson perfectly capturing who he is and what he’s meant for skating. Then only a few yards away on another wall is the incredibly creative and undeniable style of Craig Stecyk III, with photos of Alva next to canvas topped with pool coping. Keep moving your eyes to where the DJ sits and one-of-a-kind hyper realistic drawings done by Stacy Peralta of antique skateboards are casually next to the incredibly intimate and historic surf photos by Jim Ganzer.
Even for people born well after the '70s, all skaters know these gentlemen are at the heart and the origin of skateboarding. From building companies, creating magazines, defying the odds and naysayers, to ultimately, ensuring the story of skateboarding was written and told by skaters. Their displays at Artful Dodgers reflect the chapters of the Origin of skateboarding.
“It’s basically having four generations,” says Lance Mountain. “It really is four different generations in one room, even if we’re only a few years apart. But now that people look back into skateboarding, I wouldn’t even get to do it if it wasn’t for these guys. For us, growing up, it was, we got to judge ourselves. We didn’t have a judge. We got to judge like, ‘Oh I like what you’re doing, I don’t like what you’re doing. Oh, I’m going to one up you on that, and the aesthetic counted in that as well.”
Skateboarding has always attracted those people who want to draw their own inspirations from it and not be told what’s cool.
Zion Wright performs a backside 540 at Red Bull Origin in Venice
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
“For me, it was coming from, ‘I don’t get to buy that stuff and it costs money. So, I am going to make my own Alva shirt,’ Mountain said. “It would have been cool to go buy my own and pay him some money, but we were broke. And we wanted to have an Alva shirt, so we made our own Alva shirts. Then a month later, there’s another logo in the magazine that we wished we could have... And eventually you just make up your own logos... And kids are still doing it. And that’s skateboarding.”
The people responsible for opening the doors, expanding the horizons, dropping in, whatever analogy you want to use — there’s a spirit of gratitude throughout the event.
“To be invited into these guy’s lives, who I looked at from my bedroom,” Mountain pauses. “I remember thinking it would be so rad if these skateboarders knew who I was. And now I get to do stuff with them, it’s a trip.”
As if the night couldn’t get any more legendary, Tony Alva appears from a cluster of skaters to give Craig Stecyk a hug in front of his artwork. With the iconic photo of Alva looming overhead, instead of an elephant in the room, there’s a leopard in the room.
“It’s the original classic photo that Stecyk took of me in Hawaii,” said Alva. “Then Lance [Mountain] superimposed the leopard onto a modern version. The leopard was actually shot by my buddy Freckles, he was on a big game safari hunt in Africa and essentially it was something he brought back from his hunting spree.”
Without much of a pause Alva scans the room and points to each wall and the art work.
Greyson Fletcher performs a frontside blunt at Red Bull Origin in Venice
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
“I like the photos Ganzer has of Topanga from back in the day. Brings back some really cool memories seeing the old single fin surfboard leaning up against the Volkswagen bus. That’s pretty nostalgic for me and I think Olson’s stuff has gotten way better. I really appreciate where he’s evolved with his art.
Spinning around a full 180, Alva points over to Stacey Peralta’s wall.
“It's really interesting to see Stacey Peralta doing paintings. I never knew he was even doing shit like that. Seeing the super surfer wheels that he painted, brings back memories of us being kids just wanting a set of those wheels so bad.
We wanted to know exactly what it meant to him to be at Artful Dodgers back here in Venice.
“For me it’s great, being back in Venice being among my contemporaries and so many of my peers and you know, not drinking, smoking weed or chasing chicks around. You know in those days I was always kinda knocked off the beam by those activities and to really just be here, and be here for my boys and to be able to focus is a big deal for me.”
We couldn’t help but notice another legendary photographer smiling at the moment with us.
“Skateboarding is a small family,” says Reda Gionvonni. “Whether you’re younger or older you’re in it. So you’re around these people at one point or another and you cross paths. I mean Tony Alva is here and Andy Anderson is here and they’re talking to each other. A young kid ripping right now and Tony Alva in the same room. It’s rad.”
Artful Dodgers brought together the skate community and made sure we all play our role in celebrating and preserving the Origin of skateboarding.
“Skateboarding, man,” Steve Olson collects his thoughts before cracking a smile. “ It's a community and there’s a lot of mother f’ers here representing our community.”
Cody Chapman performs a frontside air at Red Bull Origin in Venice
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
The Artful Dodgers art show was the perfect cap to a day defined by community and everything that makes skateboarding great. The Origin story of skateboarding was preserved and celebrated by Artful Dodgers and as if things couldn’t get more exciting, skaters went home knowing the next day would be filled with more events – including the main event that was yet to be revealed.
The early morning marine layer gave way to the scores of skateboarders gathering near the Venice walls, the site of our Wallride obstacle challenge. Several kicker style ramps are laid upon the giant Venice wall, where the City of Los Angeles is etched in stone daring skaters to get as close as they can.
Jamie Foy kicked things off blasting a frontside 180 heel over the spray painted DogTown cross, Vincent Alveraz defied the gap with a switch wallride then the legend himself, Christian Hosoi joined in on the demolition. But it was skaters like Shawn Hale and Cody Chapman who stole the show, blasting beyond the City of Los Angeles markings and skating the quarter to wall turned outledge. Shawn Hale’s switch nosegrind 180 capped the contest before arguably the biggest event of Red Bull Origin made its debut.
When the main event began and two large kicker ramps, spray painted like the old Venice contests made their appearance, skaters dropped in and started flying.
Jereme Knibbs performs a backside nosegrind at Red Bull Origin in Venice
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
Christiana Means and Dashawn Jordan broke in the ramp with their respective treflips, Roman Pabich blasted skyward with a kickflip indy and the hype of the crowd rose with him. Before long the day’s surprise event pulled in, as Gary Rogers and Christian Hosoi pulled into the contest with a pick-up truck turned funbox. Parking between the two ramps, skaters now had a flatbar and a ledge to skate over the trucks cab, with a new quarter ramp to fly higher than ever. Alex Midler and Ryan Decenzo flipped into their tricks, Lucas Rabelo 270’d into a switch back tail, then Yuri Facchini pulled off a hardflip back lip over the bed of the truck. Alex Midler pulled off the ender, with a back 360 over the truck where you could literally hear the crowd hold their breath as the board left and returned to his toes.
The Origin of skating was transported to 2024, where the hype of skating ramps and car gaps and funboxes felt like something we’d be recording on Hi8. The crowds of skaters ooohed and awed, clapped till their hands hurt and cried out to their friends like only skaters can do. There’s a spirit of skateboarding enduring in Dogtown and Red Bull Origin set out to connect the skate community with its history in the most authentic way possible – skateboarding with your friends. We hope you enjoyed Red Bull Origin and can’t wait to celebrate with you all next year.
