When one of my best buds, Mike LaVecchia, asked me to be a partner at Grain Surfboards, I was excited to mix my love for both woodworking and surfing in such a direct way. He had figured out a way to meld the two with his boat building experience. With the closing of Clark Foam by the EPA, Grain was quickly picked up by the wave of press around environmentally-friendly approaches to manufacturing and I was excited to jump in. I began thinking of ways that I could continue to explore my art within Grain and woodburning was the perfect medium. It went so well with the traditional look of the wood boards, it was completely environmentally sounds as it used no medium other than the wood itself, and maybe a little electricity or propane. I had only thought of it as great way to get art onto the boards, but little did I know it would become my medium of choice for the next decade.
