Like the stuff Haroshi does: that’s sculpture. In that respect, maybe it is, but to me that’s never really fit because I think of a sculpture as a statue or abstract art. I wouldn’t really call them sculptures, necessarily, because with sculpting you’d have to form and shape with your hands and tools. It’s just recycling them into art, basically. What would you call what you do with these discarded boards? Sculptures? Now it’s an entirely different monster: I get so many boards from so many different people and I don’t know the stories behind them like I used to. It was just my way of not letting those memories go so quickly. Whether they’re hanging on the wall or sitting on the shelf they’ll just last a lot longer, of course, when it’s been skated to death! I wanted to give it a second life so I started taking the deck pieces home and would make art out of them. I knew what trick it was broken on, or it was one of my friends’ boards… I just hated that the boards were going to waste-there was so much history there. When someone bought a new one we would just throw the old one away, and it always bummed me out. How would you describe your work, and how did you get started?īasically I was working at a shop and we kept throwing broken boards away. (Don’t forget to tune in to BATB 11 Finals Night, streaming live tonight at 7PM PST!) Howard talked to us about who he’s rooting for in BATB, his concept for the winner’s trophy, and his philosophy behind making art from recycled skateboards.

And to think, most of us just throw these things away! That’s part of what makes it special-it’s a combination of tool, blank slate, and found art. From certain angles you can tell that Howard’s work was made from skateboards, but it isn’t obvious. Daniel Howard, aka Toy Box Monster, is based in Phoenix, Arizona, and has cultivated his own unique method for skate art. His art, made exclusively from discarded skateboards, is intricate and (literally) layered: Howard stacks pieces in his work creating depth, taking advantage of the concave to add subtle curvature to each piece. He needed a break.įor the eleventh Battle At The Berrics, we’ve invited a new artist to create a trophy for the champion. As you might expect, this routine isn’t exactly sustainable for a world-renowned artist who continually shows in galleries. Traditionally, the man responsible for the annual trophy has been the Japanese artist Haroshi, who would personally hand-deliver every piece (fresh off a trans-Pacific flight). Every year, a new handmade creation is handed to the winner, to be cherished as a reminder of all the hard work that went into his victory. One of the unique aspects of Battle At The Berrics is the champion’s trophy, made from recycled pieces of broken skateboards.

Skateboards by Devon Howard