Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Your backstage pass to the world of surfing, hosted by MC and commentator Terry “Tappa” Teece. From pro surfers and legends of the sport to shapers, innovators and anyone with an epic story and a love for the ocean—The Green Room dives deep. Expect tales of epic wins, brutal wipeouts, and behind-the-scenes moments from life in and out of the water. Whether you’re chasing waves or just some inspiration, this podcast will leave you stoked to paddle out.
00;00;07;19 - 00;00;29;09
Tappa
Welcome to the Green Room. Your backstage pass to the world of surfing. I'm your host, surf emcee and commentator, Terry Tapper diving into epic winds, crashing fouls and wild stories with surfing's biggest names, as well as the legends working behind the scenes to keep that state alive. A big shout out to our sponsor for this episode. The official break out with their new Jersey lager.
00;00;29;11 - 00;00;48;21
Tappa
So wax up, paddle out and join us in the green room with a surf chat. Never, guys flat. Well, folks, welcome to the green room. And I spoke with this black Richard Harvey last week, and I couldn't cover all the amazing things he's done in his life in one podcast. So this is Richard Harvey Part two, and it's photography and art.
00;00;48;22 - 00;01;07;12
Tappa
The man's got an amazing history. Now to me, surfing like surfing a wave is like art because, you know, the wave is the is the canvas and then you paint the art. You can do it whatever you want. So it's time to check out the pictures and the art involved with surfing and everything else with Richard Harvey. Welcome back.
00;01;07;12 - 00;01;07;23
Tappa
Richard.
00;01;08;00 - 00;01;10;06
Richard
Hey, thanks. Nice to have you back, Mike.
00;01;10;07 - 00;01;37;03
Tappa
You've done a lot in your life. First of in the Pipe Masters. First to surf Padang. Padang. But I've got since we've last met. Or had someone pull up something. I got to mention this one more almight Robert Wolf. I don't know if you know Robert Wolf of your region. Yeah, well, Wolf, he reckons he might have seen Padang Padang first because he said he got this way of it earlier when some black named Richard smoked him and he lost his board and he had to swim and swim and swim, and he ended up Dan.
00;01;37;05 - 00;01;38;19
Tappa
But ang Padang.
00;01;38;21 - 00;01;59;19
Richard
Well, that beach is actually between the lower two. And the Padang point is called, Padang Beach. Yeah. And that's one of the things that I found when I was surfing down there, really big waves. But that's that's where you'd come in until that thing, rather than try to get in through the cave. But for me, in 74.
00;01;59;20 - 00;02;07;28
Richard
Yeah. Paddling down, that whole bit of the coastline, it wasn't only Padang, it was all those other breaks that are down there, like,
00;02;08;01 - 00;02;09;02
Tappa
Impossibles being.
00;02;09;03 - 00;02;12;26
Richard
Impossibles being in dreamland. And I've just. All of.
00;02;12;26 - 00;02;15;14
Tappa
It. I must have been Wonderland.
00;02;15;17 - 00;02;38;00
Richard
Well, I went back a few years later and we drive down there because the rides were all in there, and there was one place in dreamland that had like a big pillar, and the pillar was connected by an archway that had a big circle of these prehistoric palms all the way around it. And I went out and sat on this pinnacle of like, it was like a column.
00;02;38;05 - 00;02;57;12
Richard
Yeah. And it looked straight up the line up of Dreamland, just straight up the line. And then I went back there years later, and I was telling one of the guys about it, and he went, this there's a bit of a pointy rock there. So the whole thing, it all collapsed in the mean time. So that was like a little vision in my mind.
00;02;57;12 - 00;03;00;15
Tappa
I like you, a little guru sitting out watching this. Yeah.
00;03;00;21 - 00;03;01;20
Richard
That's incredible.
00;03;01;28 - 00;03;10;17
Tappa
That's amazing mate. Well, like now, I said to my art, my intro that, like, surfing is art. What do you think about that? Do you think surfing is art?
00;03;10;19 - 00;03;35;23
Richard
Well, it is an art form. Definitely. It's a creative thing. When you're surfing, obviously the track you leave is just disappears and it's gone. And we look at waves, we look at the shape of lives and, for me as a surfer was really started off with a cartoonist, called Rick Griffin that used to do a cartoon in American Surfer called mercy.
00;03;35;25 - 00;03;37;26
Tappa
I mean, if the surf is the surface.
00;03;37;26 - 00;03;56;01
Richard
Yeah, yeah. And that's every kid that grew up used to draw cartoons of Murphy and shapes of lives on their textbooks and things like that. And I guess that's where the start of, and surfing really, really began for me anyway.
00;03;56;03 - 00;04;08;15
Tappa
And photography is a kind of art. My, when did you really sort of saying some if it tography might. And it's amazing that the image that you've got. Where did you start with photography? Did you start as a young like or.
00;04;08;17 - 00;04;43;21
Richard
I was always, a creative person before I, was surfing or I had, started on a big yellow surfer plane and painted two big white feet on the front of it. That was probably one of my very first paint jobs, but, always interested in the creative things. And even before I, started working in a surfboard industry, I worked for a film company doing film editing and matching in doing animation and writing soundtracks and putting all of that sort of stuff together.
00;04;43;24 - 00;05;03;17
Richard
And I just went at all creative stuff. You learn a formula if you're going, okay, what do I want? What's my end result of something, whether it's a piece of art or a photograph? And then you go, how do I go about getting that particular thing? And sometimes with the photography, it's just a matter of having a camera with you.
00;05;03;19 - 00;05;20;02
Richard
And at that time, you had to have a camera, you had to have film or whatever it was that we were shooting with slides. There was no digital. There was no mobile phone cameras. Whereas now everybody's got I got a phone, you know, I take photos of everything.
00;05;20;02 - 00;05;25;16
Tappa
And even the cameras. Now you just basically hold the button down and you'll eventually get a shot out of so many.
00;05;25;18 - 00;05;49;12
Richard
I try it and I always thought, well, and photography is all about composition. It's always about what do I want in that particular frame? Do I want that telegraph poles sitting in there, or do I want, you know, a picture of that? And then after a while you learn about light and, you know, shadows. And then in art, it's the same sort of thing.
00;05;49;12 - 00;06;01;19
Richard
There's formulas and composition and I, I started painting seriously probably about 30 years ago, although I'd done a bit of art and cartooning.
00;06;01;19 - 00;06;04;03
Tappa
And any, any formal education, you.
00;06;04;03 - 00;06;10;04
Richard
Know, I went to technical college to learn how to do lettering.
00;06;10;06 - 00;06;11;15
Tappa
Sign right and go on the thing.
00;06;11;15 - 00;06;23;19
Richard
Well, it was a songwriting thing, but what really motivated me was when I was a kid in Sydney, I used to be a mile boy, and I'd walk past the big department stores and I'd have all the, handwritten signs.
00;06;23;24 - 00;06;25;16
Tappa
Like on the paint, on the windows or.
00;06;25;17 - 00;06;46;12
Richard
On the windows, even the little tickets that were against, product that was for sale. And I was always intrigued because it had really beautiful wide down strikes and light up strikes and down up strikes. And I like I liked the feel and the rhythm and the flow. And I guess that's what I like about surfing too, is the rhythm.
00;06;46;12 - 00;06;47;12
Richard
And the flow.
00;06;47;15 - 00;07;07;08
Tappa
Was in my demo. And Mark, well, she did that. I won a couple of boards for me, amazing artist Mark, and he actually, I did two gigs at, what, a record store in at Burley. Yes. And he gets the old, signwriting tools and does the owl painting on the windows. It's on writing on the windows, the old fashioned things he did.
00;07;07;08 - 00;07;14;13
Richard
I, a painting on the back of an old leather jacket that I had of my, one of my logos, which is the fist with the lightning bolts.
00;07;14;13 - 00;07;15;20
Tappa
Coming out of it. Yeah.
00;07;15;22 - 00;07;31;09
Richard
On the back. Incredible. And then not only the fist sort of coming up out of the middle, but then there was two wives, a left on the right, sort of peeling off through the middle and out of the foam in the what in the water coming up. The fist comes up with a lot in involved in a great piece of art.
00;07;31;11 - 00;07;56;03
Richard
Yeah. And, I just think, you know, he's a creative person. And when you have a formula of how to create something, you use that same formula, whether shaping a surfboard, whether it's taking a photograph or whether it's a painting, and then it's just a matter of learning the tools, like learning how to use a plane or a, you know, surf form and those sort of things, or whether it's using a brush.
00;07;56;06 - 00;07;58;04
Tappa
What was your first camera, mate?
00;07;58;06 - 00;08;02;29
Richard
It, your, my first camera was a Nikon, and I've always had Nikon's all the way around.
00;08;02;29 - 00;08;05;02
Tappa
So you're a Nikon man, not a canon man.
00;08;05;05 - 00;08;27;00
Richard
Or has always been an old man. And I had the old black and white film, negatives that I, and I used to use that I took to Bali and even when I was in France, and I found a photo the other day, and what we used to do was with our film, we'd take 5 or 6 photographs and then I might want to shoot color Slide.
00;08;27;01 - 00;08;43;09
Richard
So what we do is we wander back in with the latest stills sticking out of the little cartridge, and then when you go and put the black and white film back in again, you load it in, put your hand over the lens so no light was coming through it. And then you click on 5 or 6 photos or so.
00;08;43;09 - 00;08;44;25
Tappa
You wouldn't get the exercise it.
00;08;44;25 - 00;09;03;22
Richard
So you wouldn't get those photos with us. But what happened? I found this photo of a of a girl and I'd taken a photo photograph in France. And then another photograph of Dick and Carmel Hill in Bali overlapped, and they were sort of melted together in like a really big, wide negative vein.
00;09;03;22 - 00;09;04;07
Tappa
Amazing.
00;09;04;07 - 00;09;27;08
Richard
And it's just there they are accidents. Yeah, but it was a guy, a friend of mine, Craig Foreman in California, and he used to type, double exposures of surfing. And what you do is you hold the, the button down to take the photograph, but you don't really want. So then you just take one photograph over that, over the top of the next one.
00;09;27;13 - 00;09;27;26
Tappa
All right.
00;09;27;26 - 00;09;53;14
Richard
And then these photos of me surfing in really hollow waves, doing an arch into a barrel, you know, with two shots together, you know, and. Well, yeah. And so people that are creative, it doesn't matter whether you're, you know, what you're using, what formula, whether it's film or art or whatever, photography, people are just learning more or more all the time.
00;09;53;14 - 00;09;57;18
Richard
So the skills are expanding out and getting getting better and better.
00;09;57;21 - 00;10;10;24
Tappa
Yeah, there's so much more with the digital world. But, my, when you're a photographer, when you go to photography, if you, if you go to like a fiver for all that black and white or color or is it whatever you think on on the time.
00;10;10;26 - 00;10;39;25
Richard
I, I think depending on the subject, one of the things that you see in old movies, black and white movies is that, was shadow shadow light and shadow and shadow creates a depth, which gives you an impression of that. It's more three dimensional, whereas color gives you a different aspect of something. People these days are more into color because it's it's brought lively and all of that.
00;10;39;27 - 00;11;08;26
Richard
But shadow gives you depth. So when you light things, whether it's black and white, or in color, lighting is really critical. And you'll often see lighting in movies, how it's, you know, faces are lit from the side to define features. But some of the all black and white movies are all about lighting. And so when you learn about lighting, then you can incorporate the benefits of color and the benefits of of light as well.
00;11;08;26 - 00;11;19;14
Richard
And light and shadow creates a depth in the color. So not only do you have tones, but you have depth as well. And there are things that I try to use in my painting as well.
00;11;19;17 - 00;11;43;04
Tappa
I mean, now with that, that light and shadow, now you've got when you take a fight. I like when you're looking at a fight and like, because there's a certain thing that I know most people have got, I've got an eye for photography. Some is better than others. When you take a fight, I do. You know that you've got that image or is it sometimes you've got to say to light, I like, do you know when you see something going off?
00;11;43;04 - 00;11;44;03
Tappa
That's it.
00;11;44;06 - 00;12;13;06
Richard
We used to buy these books or these, Kodak film in a row, and you'd want it onto your on a camera and take off 24 photos and you get a little yellow cartridge and an envelope, and you'd stick the cartridge in the envelope, send it off to Kodak wherever it was in California, like 14 days. And then come back and and the formula was you'd get one good photo out of ten.
00;12;13;08 - 00;12;31;01
Tappa
Well, that's what I heard. This rock band once they, they wanted to and I can't say the exact rock band. Probably someone out there can tell us who it was, but they got a photographer, a very famous geographer, and said, no, here's a roll of 24. We want you to get an album cover for us out of 24 shots.
00;12;31;05 - 00;12;38;18
Tappa
Yeah, just the old fashioned way. And and it's a lot different to what we're using digital. You actually got to think about your what you're doing there more.
00;12;38;21 - 00;13;07;12
Richard
Well it didn't really know what you're getting back. Yeah. And in particular I didn't take a lot of surfing photos but I took a lot of photos of the scenery around surfing. I took a lot of skate photos where things were a little bit more controlled, whereas surfing photos and you had to have a, an understanding of as a someone comes off the top and going to hit the top, if you want them to hit the top and then push the button, the actions gone.
00;13;07;12 - 00;13;27;13
Richard
So you've got to sort of think about the action and go click, click as you're hitting the hitting the buttons. But when someone sitting around, you've got time to sort of look around and maybe move the camera a little bit to the right and a little bit to the left, or up and down and frame it in the, in the camera itself.
00;13;27;15 - 00;13;40;09
Richard
So, I like black and white, but probably more, more color orientated these days, but with the knowledge of what light and shadow does.
00;13;40;11 - 00;13;52;17
Tappa
What do you reckon makes a good fight? I what do you think is the thing that really makes a fight a good fight? I whether it be surfing or whether it be still action or anything.
00;13;52;19 - 00;14;21;18
Richard
Art and photography has to give you an emotion. And so if you put a painting on a wall every time you walk past it, it's got to give you something. And the same thing with a photograph. It's got to actually, trigger something in you. And it's different for everybody. And people say, you know, art's in the eye of the beholder, but good art has elements in it that can be multi-dimensional.
00;14;21;22 - 00;14;47;23
Richard
They can be, emotional. They can be historical. They can be, creative. They could be all of these things. And the more of these things you get into a photograph, that's what makes it really good. But if you just took a photograph of us sitting here, for instance, the emotion is probably more about what we talking about and a bit of background and things like that.
00;14;47;23 - 00;15;06;23
Richard
But when you're surfing, it's the emotion of the moving of the water, the spray being thrown back to make you feel like I want to do that. I want to be there. I want to be a part of that. I want to get that feeling. And that was the whole thing about surfing. It was all about the feeling.
00;15;06;26 - 00;15;11;06
Tappa
And sometimes it's just a beautiful piece of water, isn't it? Just like it can be.
00;15;11;09 - 00;15;36;19
Richard
And, there's so many good photographs out there now, and even some of the really old, historical stuff from Russia in the 1890s. It was all black and white. And then they take it into these new, digital formats where they go, oh, we'll do one picture with the red filter, one picture with the yellow filter, one picture with the blue filter of the same black and white.
00;15;36;19 - 00;15;49;27
Richard
And then put them all together and turn an old black and white historical photo into a. It's nearly like it's hand painted, like the old postcards used to be black and white photographs, but they'd be all hand washed and.
00;15;50;03 - 00;15;51;09
Tappa
Untouched,
00;15;51;12 - 00;15;54;00
Richard
To just to create an emotion.
00;15;54;03 - 00;16;02;24
Tappa
What is the favorite photo you've ever taken? Right. Was it a surfing shot or was it a, landscape shot or something like that?
00;16;02;26 - 00;16;26;19
Richard
I have, probably, 2 or 3. Yeah. One of them was, I was on a trip with, Tony Ellington over in the Mentor Bridge, and we'd pulled into this little bay. I can't even remember where it was, but the villages all came down and were sitting on the water's edge with us, and they were sharing a soft drink with them.
00;16;26;21 - 00;16;54;23
Richard
Well, negotiating for coconuts and all of that. And they were a bunch of young girls that came along and sat down, and they all had these incredible straw hats that they'd woven, and they all had, barley or not barley, but, but take shirts on and they were sort of all in these, this little group and the straw hats were all fringed out with light filtering through it.
00;16;54;25 - 00;17;12;15
Richard
And that's one of my, one of my favorite photos of, of people. And then, there some Skype photos that I took back in 75 or 76, somewhere around there in California. And we talked a bit about the sky thing last.
00;17;12;16 - 00;17;16;17
Tappa
Year and, they're amazing. So that's that was a first off, really.
00;17;16;17 - 00;17;40;06
Richard
And one of them is one of the guys is on this, Skype or a guy called Lonnie Toft, and he's got a skateboard that is really wide. It's like, two skateboards joined together into one in a one piece with four sets of trucks on it. And he's come up off the edge of the pole, and he's come up all the way up and hit right up onto the edge of the coping, onto one wheel.
00;17;40;08 - 00;17;53;17
Richard
And I used to do all of that, and there was no helmets, there was no gloves, there was no knee pads. There was a time before any of that came through. And that's another one of my really famous, not famous, but one of my one that I really like.
00;17;53;17 - 00;18;05;02
Tappa
So one we play in seven wheels had. That's amazing. Right now, with your art might. So you started painting at a fairly young age as well. Like you're painting.
00;18;05;04 - 00;18;33;01
Richard
I used to mess around with a little bit. I didn't know a lot about it. And then when I was working at Billabong on computers, I went, I want to be creative. And so I thought, well, look, a lot of time I've done about 50 paintings. I'll start to understand how a brush works, the consistency of the paint, how to put the brush marks down and then work on subject matter and all of that sort of stuff.
00;18;33;01 - 00;19;02;22
Richard
So some of the things that I started off on were just copies of, surfing pictures and things like that, you know, to get the feel and the rhythm and the flow and get a bit of my creative stuff in it. And then I started to play around with things like, I did one of hockey, which was, like a, a collage, half a collage of cut outs of tracks, magazine, interviews.
00;19;02;24 - 00;19;28;22
Richard
And then there was a painting of hockey doing a big one of his big famous slices, putting those things together and those, those things. So I think every time I do something, I go, I'm learning. I'm learning about how to put things together, and then I'll say something else and that'll trigger something else in my mind and I'll go like, oh, I want to try that, and I'll say something else and I'll, I want to try that.
00;19;28;24 - 00;19;57;23
Richard
One of my things that I've always done is with my paintings in particular, I started off with just lines and color panels and things, and then I started to soften off the, the lines and sort of try to get the shapes right. But one of the areas that I, that I really like painting is when people come up to me and I say, oh, can you do me a painting of Burley, for instance?
00;19;57;23 - 00;20;05;20
Richard
And I going, do you want to realistic or do you want a, imaginative or do you want it, you know, and they go, I'll leave it up to you.
00;20;05;21 - 00;20;09;04
Tappa
So that's on really well it's good.
00;20;09;06 - 00;20;48;21
Richard
And I mean, I've done a lot of realistic paintings of Burley, which is my home town, but one that I really like is a style of painting that I call, organic pop. And that's where I have, and if you can imagine this, it's it's an imagination. If you said to me, can you, draw me a picture of Burley and I'd get my pen down and I'd go, oh, it's got a headland, some pine trees and, you know, a bit of a beach around here and some waves running down there, or the clouds out on the horizon, and the sun's coming up and the rays are coming out, you know, all
00;20;48;21 - 00;21;07;20
Richard
of that. And then I'd go, in my imagination, I wouldn't do it as if I was standing on the beach. I'd do it as if I'm up in the air. And it's like if I was telling you, just look, I've just told you what the is like in your imagination. You get a picture of what early is like.
00;21;07;23 - 00;21;47;23
Richard
So in this particular style, it's, it's a style that's really derived of an ancient formula called, dreaming, which the indigenous people is where they tell stories of, ehm, you tracks and waterfalls and, songlines of all the different things that have gone on in their, in their past. And so what I do is in my dreaming or in my imagination, I paint what I imagine this would look like if I was floating up in the air over the top of it, and I might paint burley in these organic shapes.
00;21;47;23 - 00;21;58;09
Richard
And I do all different things. I've done the Bells and Crescent Head, Burley and Stradbroke and all sorts of places. It's a really a style that I really enjoy doing.
00;21;58;09 - 00;22;01;04
Tappa
So landscapes are one of your favorite things to do?
00;22;01;07 - 00;22;31;04
Richard
I do like landscapes. I find that, if you do, an action style, the the body form is really critical. But when you do a landscape, especially in this dreaming style that I this organic pop style that I have, it's, it's very, easy to, twist it as a painting up here, up on the behind you sitting here.
00;22;31;08 - 00;22;46;01
Richard
Yeah. And it's of a guy doing a, an s turn and a cut back and you can see that the shapes are all sort of organic, nice, soft, curvy shapes. The rhythm and the flow is there, and it creates a feeling of action, a little.
00;22;46;01 - 00;22;47;02
Tappa
Speed in that.
00;22;47;02 - 00;23;13;14
Richard
And speed and emotion. And it's a little twin thing that he's just and it's and it's soft and simple. The color makes you feel good. The, the smoothness makes you feel relaxed and comfortable. And I like painting, not that style, although I use the, you know, different styles of things. And, and some of my portraits are of laying down a little bit that I've really enjoyed to my.
00;23;13;16 - 00;23;24;06
Tappa
I love Keith Richards behind you there. How did Keith Richards come about? That's that's a bloody ripper, that one. And I think any Rolling Stones fan would kill to have that.
00;23;24;08 - 00;23;46;09
Richard
Well, I saw a photo of Keith. Excuse me. I saw a photo of Keith and I. I mean, we all know how wrinkly he is and all the rest of it. And then I'd started doing some brushwork with something or other, and it often happens that, well, I, that I'll start doing a big fat, fat brush and I might do 4 or 5 little bits of it and I go, oh, that would really work with that.
00;23;46;09 - 00;24;15;26
Richard
And then it just, you know, things develop. I'll start off and just one thing leads to another. And, you know, the color and the rest of it are just some of them work, some of them don't. If they don't work well, you just get a big wide brush and paint blood all over it and start again. But some of the portraits, obviously, I use photographic references and things like that to, to make sure that people know what it's about, because otherwise, you know, what's the other one over here?
00;24;15;29 - 00;24;30;04
Richard
Writing the twins in it doesn't have a person in it. It doesn't have a face or a personality. It's just a figure. And and the mind sort of fills it all in again. You know, you filled in that. The sense of speed through it.
00;24;30;10 - 00;24;34;02
Tappa
Just. Ervin. It. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it it looks like going fast.
00;24;34;02 - 00;24;46;16
Richard
That is so all those different styles and people go, oh do you have a particular style and like I no I just like painting, you know, just like surfboards. I like shaping long and short.
00;24;46;18 - 00;24;59;29
Tappa
Yeah. And that's like surfing itself. Might like not one can to be honest. Like some of it is in the eye of the beholder. A surfers style and the way they surf. But there is no right or wrong in surfing, is there really? People just surf the way they surf.
00;25;00;09 - 00;25;28;28
Richard
And it's the same with boards. I was reading a comment the other day out and it was a comment made by Al Byrne, and he was saying how they all work, just some work better than others, which is the same with painting, you know, it's some people like it. I've put pieces into art shows and the paintings that sell in arches, vases of flowers and things like that, because of the people that are going to those types of shows.
00;25;29;01 - 00;25;51;18
Richard
Yes, I do surf. I which is, you know, surfers are pretty limited in their funds, most of them. So they don't have a lot of, you know, money for painting on the wall. I'd rather have a used surfboard instead, but I've got a big collection at home. I probably got about 40 or 50 paintings sitting in my collection at home still.
00;25;51;21 - 00;25;59;04
Richard
But out of those are probably or out of the, you know, a few hundred that I've done probably sell quite a few as well.
00;25;59;06 - 00;26;11;19
Tappa
That's that's great. Right now it's not only like what, what, what mediums do you work in? Because I know that, like you, obviously you've got paint there, but there's other mediums that you work in as well.
00;26;11;21 - 00;26;35;23
Richard
I find that some mediums work better than others. I used to work in a studio in the house, which didn't lend itself to oils because of the smell. So then I went to acrylics for a lot of a lot of art. But I've done a lot of, pastels. And the pastels are really good for portraits of people because they're softer.
00;26;35;25 - 00;26;58;16
Richard
And I smoothed down the features of people and just make a little bit sort of a, a little bit more user friendly. But I've done, pencil sketches. I've dropped in some photos of some, some sketches, some colored pencil work that I've done just recently for, Terry Baker.
00;26;58;18 - 00;27;00;05
Tappa
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00;27;00;05 - 00;27;18;00
Richard
And he when he's got a bit of a collection of stuff that is, he said he gives me a you know, a rundown of what he wants do. So I want to I want to do this a snapper and Greenmount with a bit of care in the foreground. And I'll, I'll drive down there and I'm going, well yeah I'd say snapper if you're a carer.
00;27;18;02 - 00;27;33;22
Richard
So I just went, okay, what do I imagine am I dreaming. I lift my self up in the air and like a long snapper, looks like this green mat looks like this. Cara looks like this. And then I sort of pencil all of those things and it came out really nice. You'll see it on the, you know, on the cut out.
00;27;33;26 - 00;27;37;10
Tappa
And I'll say you working with batik is a is that or is that career.
00;27;37;10 - 00;28;06;07
Richard
Take fabric is the basis for a lot of the art that I do. Obviously I don't want to cut up a whole pile of antique, fabrics, but I scan the fabrics and then use the pieces of scanned fabric and then use those, because one of the other things, too, is getting it on the right medium. And I saw a sign before with the one with the, painting I did with Aki, with the cut out of, tracks interviews.
00;28;06;09 - 00;28;25;16
Richard
If you just cut out the interview out of a tracks magazine and stick it down all the text from the other side, or comes through. Yeah. So you've got to scan it. So it's got a blank background, and then the text comes through nice and clean. Yeah. And it's the same with batiks and things like that. Just got to find the right formula to make it to make it work.
00;28;25;18 - 00;28;36;17
Richard
And then I use Photoshop and color change and, you know, tweak things. So I'm using a lot of mediums to, to get the results from the batiks as well.
00;28;36;21 - 00;28;41;10
Tappa
A very tech savvy mate for a man, if you're right, very tech savvy.
00;28;41;13 - 00;28;45;10
Richard
Well, I think that came about when I started working at Billabong. I,
00;28;45;17 - 00;28;46;11
Tappa
Had to be a spy.
00;28;46;12 - 00;28;56;29
Richard
I went, oh, we got to go on computers and we got to use this, and we got to do that. And I went, okay. And he, Doug Spong at the time said, I'm going to send you off to college.
00;28;57;01 - 00;28;58;05
Tappa
Oh, so you went to college?
00;28;58;05 - 00;28;59;10
Richard
I went back to college.
00;28;59;15 - 00;29;01;24
Tappa
What were you when you went to college at 50?
00;29;01;26 - 00;29;03;09
Richard
Oh, I went back to college.
00;29;03;09 - 00;29;05;15
Tappa
What are the youngsters? I was is all, like doing.
00;29;05;18 - 00;29;27;28
Richard
Well, it was, it was probably really interesting that, Photoshop in particular became one of my favorite little tools to use. And I did a lot of their catalogs and. Yeah, I used to do these little travel booklets which would have all their product in them and then then have stories in them, and I would write stories about things that I'd done and made up stories about.
00;29;28;00 - 00;29;51;12
Richard
I was early in the morning, and the goal I was catching and trying to go down south to thing, and he had all these nice big wooly parka, you know, that was just really comfortable. And that was like a little story that would go along with the product. You know, I used to do all of those things. So over the years, you take an interest in the things you do and I just get better as you apply yourself.
00;29;51;14 - 00;30;00;29
Tappa
Oh that's cool. It's like, you know, with all the technology. Yeah. But what is one of your favorite art pieces you've done?
00;30;01;01 - 00;30;32;06
Richard
Oh, art pieces. One of the a probably done three pieces that I really enjoyed. Oh, is standard and gallery years ago and they'd planted all of these golden Banksy is and the gold or Banksy is it all come out in flower with the just big honeycomb pieces sitting up gorgeous. So I'm up in the sand dunes at the back of ink area, up where the the new A car park is not sort of up on.
00;30;32;06 - 00;30;33;23
Tappa
The or the look at it is sort of.
00;30;33;26 - 00;30;35;06
Richard
Look down the bottom.
00;30;35;07 - 00;30;35;19
Tappa
Yeah, yeah.
00;30;35;19 - 00;31;07;26
Richard
And I'm taking a whole bunch of reference photos through there. And then I had this painting of it was a big, long, wide landscape, probably about 4 or 5ft long, 2 or 3ft high. And it was and Garry Point with the waves ripping down the point on one side and down the point on the other side a little bit on a beach break with all the trees in the sand dunes and in the foreground were all of these golden Banksy is with a big honeycomb eucalyptus flowers in there, and I went back about a year later and that old died.
00;31;07;28 - 00;31;29;25
Richard
But the painting was ended up being bought by a local doctor, and it used to be up in his surgery at Burley for years and years, and when he sold the surgery and all the buildings, he went, this is the only thing I'm taking with me. I'm taking that particular painting. The other couple, there was another one of Burley taken from down at Third Avenue.
00;31;29;25 - 00;31;49;13
Richard
That was a gift to my mum that, I really liked. It was soft and really captured the, the softness of Burley. And then there was another one of up from North Burley Headland looking through some alder. Banksy is again. Oh, probably one of my. They were my favorites.
00;31;49;13 - 00;31;52;10
Tappa
I think she is a beautiful, beautiful tree, beautiful plant.
00;31;52;10 - 00;32;07;10
Richard
All of my paintings have something of me in them, and so they all have an emotion in them or something that I've put into them. And so, I don't mind if I don't sell them, because it's like giving away part of something, so.
00;32;07;11 - 00;32;09;05
Tappa
Correct. Yeah.
00;32;09;08 - 00;32;31;24
Richard
There was one couple that came from Victoria and they went, we've got a house in Victoria that we come up and we holiday at Burley all the time, but, to have a painting of the color that's in Queensland, then in Victoria, it looks nearly cartoonish because of how brought the water is. And so they said, oh, we want it.
00;32;31;27 - 00;32;55;03
Richard
As if it's like, really subdued. And can you take all the high rise out of it? Oh, well, what it is, is what it is, but I can I can reduce it a lot. So what I did, I went down to Burley really early one morning and the sun was just coming up behind the headland and the, the sand looked like it was gold, them all the way through and the headland.
00;32;55;03 - 00;33;16;27
Richard
So I painted out all the aloha awesome camouflage, the behind all the, the pine trees. There was just a couple of lights holding up in the, in that building that used to be the swimming pool or still the swimming pool, but I was can consider it the swimming pool, too. And I got it and I took it down.
00;33;16;27 - 00;33;37;15
Richard
And that's been up in their house, down in, in Victoria, just in a nice old Federation sort of place. And it, it fit so people boy up for a whole different bunch of reasons. I buy art because it's emotional. I walk past like, oh, I love that. You know, that's got a really nice feel to it.
00;33;37;15 - 00;34;03;27
Richard
Or I'm looking for something that's this big and it's got these colors in it, and it's going to fit at the end of a hallway down through the thing. Or I go, I don't know what I want and okay, I'll leave it to you. So then what I do is I do 2 or 3 little sketches and I go, oh, this is, the fail, and I can do it this style or we could do it this style, depending on, you know, which way you want to go.
00;34;03;29 - 00;34;23;21
Richard
And then then it's a process of working through a piece of art, step by step. So the person gets what they want rather than something that I want. But sometimes I'll have all these paintings at home and someone comes in and goes, oh, I want that one, and I drive. Okay.
00;34;23;23 - 00;34;24;11
Tappa
Watch it.
00;34;24;13 - 00;34;25;18
Richard
For directions.
00;34;25;21 - 00;34;34;21
Tappa
Hey, I might, who are your favorite artists? Like, who are the artists you you like to look at or. And do you buy any, yourself?
00;34;34;23 - 00;35;06;28
Richard
I do have I have bought a few pieces of art. The art that I buy, is probably, smaller and softer. Not not surf stuff, but maybe, not portraits, but, scenery types of things that I really like the feel of. There's a couple of influences. Obviously, Andy Warhol has been a big influence because I've got a graphic design sort of background.
00;35;07;00 - 00;35;37;25
Richard
And then there was a character who was a graffiti artist that became really good, friends with Andy Warhol, called a fellow called Best Clyde, and he was, a graffiti artist, a street person. And his artwork is very abstract. And he used to come into Andy Warhol studio and do big splashes of paint across things. Andy Warhol was really intricate with, which is really an interesting parallel.
00;35;37;25 - 00;35;39;06
Richard
And I want to tell you about this.
00;35;39;08 - 00;35;39;23
Tappa
Yeah, yeah.
00;35;39;27 - 00;36;03;21
Richard
When I started to learn to shape, I had a lot of influences coming through and people would always go up production surfboards, you know, finish them off really clean and smooth and all of that. I when I came up to work with Dick, Dick Van Strollin, Dick Dick's boards always had a bit of roughness in the are always scratched or uneven or something like that.
00;36;03;21 - 00;36;28;09
Richard
And it was always wanted to say it's the form that's really particular, not the finish. And so in a lot of my art, like I, it's the form that's really important. But then I like to finish them off at the same time. So Dick's shaping has been an influence on me, not only in my shaping but also in my art, which has been really good.
00;36;28;11 - 00;36;34;16
Richard
And then there's all those famous artists like, Monet.
00;36;34;18 - 00;36;38;08
Tappa
Oh, got to stand up on the storm. He fights in the mud.
00;36;38;11 - 00;36;40;05
Richard
I was wondering if that was going to come true.
00;36;40;06 - 00;36;46;00
Tappa
Maybe he could have said the wrong thing. Might. We might begin hitting, in Monet. Yeah.
00;36;46;03 - 00;37;11;21
Richard
And then, Klimt that it just sold a a painting. He did a painting that was, was taken by the Germans during the Second World War that they ended up getting back to. The owners called a kiss. And there was another one just sold recently for, I don't know, 20, 30, 50, 60 million something absolutely ridiculous.
00;37;11;21 - 00;37;41;09
Richard
The second most expensive painting ever sold. And I look at the technique and it's nearly like, they paint lifes with patterns in it that you can see through, and it's like it's floating and it's just some amazing techniques. And I think a lot of these artists have got, skills and I think I'd particularly go, I've got to follow that line or I'm going to follow that line now.
00;37;41;10 - 00;37;46;11
Richard
Leckie, who was a guy that I did a lot of, life drawing with.
00;37;46;14 - 00;37;47;12
Tappa
Yeah.
00;37;47;14 - 00;38;02;12
Richard
I said to him, I think I might go back and study art at college. And he said, the best thing you will get from, going to art college is the people you meet. Oh, wait. Okay, I'll just meet a lot of people and and just keep doing what I'm doing.
00;38;02;12 - 00;38;05;15
Tappa
Now is doing a bit of that stuff with the, Reich's on the scene.
00;38;05;15 - 00;38;07;06
Richard
Is. I'm saying that's really interesting.
00;38;07;09 - 00;38;07;21
Tappa
Isn't it?
00;38;07;28 - 00;38;12;22
Richard
Yeah. And I've got another friend who does set up on the Sunny Coast as well. He does a whole bunch.
00;38;12;23 - 00;38;16;18
Tappa
It's a very temporary thing. You can take your feet off it, but it's sort of like a temporary.
00;38;16;18 - 00;38;18;25
Richard
Tide comes in and just washes it away.
00;38;18;25 - 00;38;25;27
Tappa
Yeah, but it's a brilliant. Oh, I love to watch it. I often say, yeah, more. I'm get the top of Miami Hill and someone's done it there. It's just, and.
00;38;25;27 - 00;38;47;18
Richard
I said to me the other day, I said, hell, how come there's no footprints? You're walking around writing everything. And he said, oh, I walk very lightly on hard sand. So there's all of these little techniques that people are discovering, even with writing patterns in the sand. So I think it's good. I, I enjoy looking at these patterns and things.
00;38;47;24 - 00;39;04;18
Richard
Here. So that's my go. Oh, that's really interesting. And then other so I'm going, what are you doing there. And then some of them, you'll see it and you'll have like the whole area and a wave will come up and wash it clean. And there'll be a wavy line. The one side will be clean, on the other side will be right.
00;39;04;18 - 00;39;07;05
Richard
And I'm going. It's a piece of art in itself.
00;39;07;05 - 00;39;14;02
Tappa
Yeah, yeah. Correct. That is yeah. There's an exhibition in Brisbane at my Banksy. I quite like his work as well. Banksy.
00;39;14;09 - 00;39;15;09
Richard
Very clever.
00;39;15;12 - 00;39;15;22
Tappa
Yeah.
00;39;15;22 - 00;39;29;23
Richard
He's, the guy with a, scarf. Average face, pretending he's throwing a grenade, but he's throwing of a bunch of roses or a bunch of flowers. And I think the the thing about it, it's just really clever. Clever art.
00;39;29;23 - 00;39;32;19
Tappa
Well, art can really say whatever you want. Kind it. That's the one thing.
00;39;32;20 - 00;40;00;21
Richard
That's the thing about the emotion. And it's got a it's got a trigger. Something with you. It doesn't matter whether it's a piece of graffiti out on a wall or whether it's a, a huge canvas. And there was a show that I tried to get to in London on my last trip over there, which was, in this particular gallery where I get paintings and I project moving images of the painting all around you.
00;40;00;21 - 00;40;16;04
Richard
So it's like you're walking into a 3D image of this painting with a boat moving through a storm, and there's wind and water and waves and everything all around you, and it's feeling like you're in the middle of it all. Just, amazing techniques. Yeah.
00;40;16;07 - 00;40;19;19
Tappa
That's really good. And might you paint your paint at home nicely?
00;40;19;19 - 00;40;27;17
Richard
So I've got a studio under the house. Yeah, but my surfboard studio is up and up in Miami. I don't want foam dust. It's built up.
00;40;27;17 - 00;40;39;25
Tappa
There and, now, of course, but. Yeah, but they're both artworks like that, you know, like, like some of the boards, like those ten channels that, that film asked us that they like artwork, too. They just amazing those things.
00;40;40;00 - 00;41;08;18
Richard
I just think of the amount of time just him grinding into channels. But, I say the, the guys that, you know, are doing channel boards here on the coast and they've got their techniques down there using, you know, grinders, flat grinders to take out, you know, edges and things of the channel. I still do it all by hand because I'm not shaping from a production point of view, shaping from a point of view of a like shaping.
00;41;08;20 - 00;41;27;19
Richard
Yeah. I just like creating a form. And I like looking at the smoothness of the line and the flow of the line and the transition between one shape and another. And I guess that's what, you know, reflects back into some of my, you're right. It's the flow of the line that becomes really particular.
00;41;27;21 - 00;41;35;10
Tappa
And what are you looking to do in the future? Just keep on keeping on. Is there anything else that you want to get into that in, in far as art or photography?
00;41;35;10 - 00;41;39;25
Richard
You guys or I would have loved to have learned to play the piano.
00;41;39;27 - 00;41;42;01
Tappa
You can still do it from my fingers.
00;41;42;01 - 00;42;05;16
Richard
I think from shaping, I think my fingers are a little bit stiff. And, I've been told that I need about 4 or 5 lifetimes to get through my list of, things that I want to do. But travel and catching up with your mates and enjoying your life. I mean, one day at a time. Yeah. And I make sure every day is full, and it doesn't matter what I'm doing as long as I'm doing something.
00;42;05;18 - 00;42;30;21
Richard
And I've got a in my studio, another house, I've got all these little bits and I'm going, that's really interesting. That's really interesting. And I'm now trying to put all those little bits together that turn into something. And I had somebody and I don't know who it was, and maybe somebody out there who's listening will know what it is, but they dropped off a piece of, square log about.
00;42;30;23 - 00;42;50;19
Richard
It's only about 12in long and had a giant big sort of cut out piece of it. Nothing was really heavy. And I went, what am I going to do with this? And then I had an old barley carving of one of those funny little figures that they used to do with, the straw hanging around a waist and a surfboard under there.
00;42;50;21 - 00;43;13;15
Richard
Anyway, I'll fill this little section with all this colored resin of, like, blue tint and then stuck this figure on it, and it's now become a doorstop. And it's just when it's wet, it it's like the guy standing with his board on the edge of something, a little black lava with this, all this blue. And I mean, some people might go, oh, that's out there, Richard.
00;43;13;17 - 00;43;25;02
Richard
And I'm going, but that's what art is. That's just to help. They're having a go at something and some of it works and some of it I just look at it and laugh at it. And, Oh yeah, that's that's pretty funny.
00;43;25;03 - 00;43;44;24
Tappa
How might that is? And, I tell you what, it it got an amazing collection of art, an amazing collection of surfboards, and an amazing life. But I'm sorry. Pleasure to have you here on the Green Room. It's been a great time, and I'm. I'm really glad you've got to share some of your stuff, the artwork and and your stories to everybody out there.
00;43;44;26 - 00;43;48;26
Tappa
But I'm looking forward to to maybe, maybe a couple of years. We'll do another one and say.
00;43;48;29 - 00;43;55;25
Richard
Yeah, no, it's been good. Nice chatting about it. Yeah. I hope it inspires people to get involved and do something with their life. And, well.
00;43;55;25 - 00;44;01;10
Tappa
You don't have to be like this. I suppose you don't really have to be exceptionally skilled to do. Do I tell.
00;44;01;11 - 00;44;02;07
Richard
You? Really? You can.
00;44;02;07 - 00;44;03;10
Tappa
Learn, you can learn.
00;44;03;10 - 00;44;04;19
Richard
You can learn.
00;44;04;22 - 00;44;06;24
Tappa
What would you give advice to someone who is.
00;44;06;24 - 00;44;31;21
Richard
Like, make a plan and then, find the tools that you need. And I often explain to people, if I was doing a trip from from the Gold Coast to Cairns, I'd go, okay, it's this long, I'm gonna need three petrol stops. I'm going to need some food to wait on the way. I'm going to need a road map.
00;44;31;23 - 00;44;48;29
Richard
And that's before I'd even left. So by making a plan, writing it down on a piece of paper and going, I want to do a painting. I want to do a painting of a rose. What does a rise look like? Okay, let me have a look at some roses to see what they look like. What are the colors of a rose?
00;44;48;29 - 00;45;09;08
Richard
How's the shadows? Create the depth between all the different petals. And then all of a sudden, you're making this plan, and it starts to formulate in your mind. And then once you've got this picture in your mind, then you learn how to use the tools. You learned how to drive a car to get from the Gold Coast to Cairns.
00;45;09;08 - 00;45;30;01
Richard
You lose. Learn to use, a paintbrush, which is not just, one style of paintbrush. There's all different shapes of paint brushes. You don't use the back of the brush, you use the front of the brush. You use paint that comes out of a tube that can be too thick, that you might have to put down with, a palette knife.
00;45;30;01 - 00;45;50;27
Richard
Or you can take it down so you can put on with a brush, or you can watercolor it and all of the learning of the techniques are important. It doesn't matter what you do. It's important what you do here. You've got to learn how to use marks and sand levels and you know, all the different things. And I'd come in here and go, I don't know how this works, but you learn.
00;45;51;02 - 00;45;58;22
Richard
And the thing is to make a stop and just going, I want to do this. How do I go about doing this like a star.
00;45;58;22 - 00;46;13;28
Tappa
Or so, like my dad used to say, if you stop learning, you stop living. That's right. Every day you should be learning something. Yep, yep. Doesn't matter how small it is. Actually, my, guitarist dad, he used to read one word out of the dictionary every day, and now it's meaning.
00;46;14;01 - 00;46;16;16
Richard
Imagine how many words you would know.
00;46;16;18 - 00;46;17;05
Tappa
You know, lost.
00;46;17;08 - 00;46;18;05
Richard
In a lifetime.
00;46;18;11 - 00;46;20;08
Tappa
Yeah. It'd be a great way to expand your vocabulary.
00;46;20;12 - 00;46;32;04
Richard
Oh, just just incredible. Yeah. And that's the thing we find now. Vocabulary. It's it's really limited. Can I might say go on, you know.
00;46;32;07 - 00;46;33;02
Tappa
Yeah, yeah.
00;46;33;07 - 00;46;46;24
Richard
But the English language is really colorful but without getting too overboard with it. But it's nice too. Nice to use. I've been writing a novel for about the last. The last ten.
00;46;46;24 - 00;46;49;26
Tappa
Years. Well, it's, fiction or nonfiction? Yes.
00;46;49;26 - 00;47;07;25
Richard
It's, a story of, fictional family for generations of a fictional family woven through historical events over, about 60 or 70 years. This historical family. Surfing family. So it's a surfing novel.
00;47;07;27 - 00;47;09;28
Tappa
And how far advanced in that?
00;47;10;00 - 00;47;11;17
Richard
About 600 pages.
00;47;11;17 - 00;47;13;01
Tappa
In 600 pages.
00;47;13;01 - 00;47;25;03
Richard
Well, I know I've got about probably another, my goal was to finish it by the end of this year, but I think I had probably about halfway through next year. I think I'll be pretty close to being finished now.
00;47;25;03 - 00;47;43;22
Tappa
This is something. Now, I didn't know you're a writer, but when you write, I know, like, if I write a song, it's just got to come to me and I'll do it. And the best songs I've ever written of taking me five, ten minutes, if that. What about when you. When you're writing a novel? Because it's. You can't write a novel in 5 or 10 minutes.
00;47;43;25 - 00;47;48;28
Tappa
When you go to write, do you just get, like, an urgent guy? Yep. Here, I got one.
00;47;49;01 - 00;48;09;08
Richard
That's it's been like that. And what I did was I wrote the first chapter in the last chapter. Yeah, at the beginning of the beginning of the writing. And then I went, okay. And this is the storyline of how was this guy here and why is it how did he get to the end of that thing? And then I'm filling in all the bits in between.
00;48;09;10 - 00;48;31;04
Richard
So as I'm filling in all the avenues of the the history that he that he travels through, he each family travels through, the First World War, the Second World War, Vietnam, 69, Summer of love, surfing, exotic destinations, all sorts of stuff like that.
00;48;31;05 - 00;48;34;08
Tappa
A lot of there's been a lot of stuff borrowed from reality in this vein.
00;48;34;11 - 00;48;41;14
Richard
Well, there is, and that's one of it. And and it's, it's a I won't say anything more about what it's called or.
00;48;41;16 - 00;48;42;10
Tappa
Yeah, yeah.
00;48;42;13 - 00;49;03;29
Richard
Otherwise it takes away from the end. But, the things that I've experienced in my lifetime and I write from an experience, I paint from an experience I, I try to convey something that I've felt into a painting or into a book or into a story or, you know, whatever it might be. So.
00;49;04;01 - 00;49;11;27
Tappa
I don't really looking for, didn't I? You a novelist? Oh, dear God, I can. We read in the intro. I gotta put novelist as well. I Richard, it's been a pleasure to.
00;49;11;27 - 00;49;12;28
Richard
Refresh us to.
00;49;12;28 - 00;49;14;04
Tappa
Be awesome. Thank you.
00;49;14;11 - 00;49;15;14
Richard
Terrific. Thanks.
00;49;15;14 - 00;49;32;03
Tappa
That's great. Thanks for tuning into the green room. Hey, folks, would you like to get your name in the Green Room podcast? Well, we are looking for sponsors, so if you want to get a sponsorship, check it out at Pod Fire. Lots of people can hear about your product on one of the best podcasts around the green room.
00;49;32;03 - 00;49;52;01
Tappa
So, check it out. Pod fire. Thanks for tuning into the green Room. A big thank you to our guests for sharing their stories and insights, and Pod Fire for bringing this podcast to life. Don't forget to subscribe, like, leave a review and share the green room with your friends. We'll catch you next time for more conversations with the Legends of Surf and beyond.
00;49;52;05 - 00;49;54;06
Tappa
Until then, catch you in the wise.