NIMBUS SURF CLUB

The oldest surf club in Italy. We were the invited guests of Piergiorgio Castellani, a 6th generation winemaker in the Tuscany region. I was travelling as the guest of Dwight Harrington, the first* surfer in Italy, and Piergiorgio had arranged a meeting here between Dwight and Allesandro Forte, the first Italian surfer. But that is another story…
When I learned this party would have live music, live art, and as much surf-stoke as this small but passionately sea-loving nation of people could muster, I couldn’t help but want to set up an easel myself and paint the scene. We first met Italian artist Vincenzo Ganadu painting this beautiful abstract on a nice clean mid-length single-fin. Then came a surprise reunion with Ricki Brotini, an artist I had admired since I met him in San Diego over 10 years earlier. Ricki was making recordings of earth’s gravitational properties beneath a wooden pyramid because Italian’s don’t mess around- they think deeply about life and the world- and contemplating, exploring, and understanding it is part of their cultural heritage. Despite the language barrier, I was at home here and before I knew it, Vincenzo and I were dueling brushes on a single large panel while Luca Battistini’s band wailed their music into the Italian night. After getting home I snuck in a reference to our live painting, the leaning panel on the ground on the left side of the painting is an approximation of the abstract results of our 45 minutes of paint-slinging.