Surf Photo Friday – Get Stoked on Lady Shapers

Surf Photo Friday - Get Stoked on Lady Shapers | Words and Photos by Margaret Seelie As a kid, my bedroom in Ohio was plastered with Roxy ads depicting chicks in bikinis shredding on shortboards. When I arrived on the West Coast in 2009, I was twenty-seven, and ready to start surfing. After wrestling with the Pacific for a few months on a rented foam board, I couldn't fathom how the shortboarders of my youth surfed those tiny boards. I started watching longboarders finesse across the faces of waist-high waves, and for the first time I knew what kind of surfer I wanted to be. Looping the film Dear & Yonder almost constantly in my apartment in San Francisco I also discovered surfboard shaping. I started checking out boards, finding shapers I liked, and asking surf shops if they carried any boards that were shaped by women. It wasn't until 2013 that I saw one of Ashley Lloyd Thompson's surfboards at Mollusk Surf Shop. Looking up at that towering turquoise board, it was the most immaculate surfboard I had ever seen, and I wanted to know everything about it. A few months later, I had the good fortune of running into Ashley at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz. She was carrying one of her boards down the beach, and I stopped her to gush about how much I love "Ashley's boards" (not recognizing her). She took my compliments graciously, introduced herself, and invited me to check out her shaping room sometime. Since then, she has been showing me how she shapes, and she introduced me to Tom from Screwball Industries who sometimes lets me watch him glass boards. I google "female surfboard shaper" often, which is how I recently found Teena McIlveen, an inspiring glasser in Australia. Teena goes by the moniker, The Lady of Many Colours, because she mixes psychedelic tints into her resins that create awesome tie-dye patterns on the boards she glasses. I imagine there are more women out there in the surfboard industry, and I look forward to the day when I look up "women making surfboards" and hundreds of names appear. Until then, please join me in getting stoked on lady shapers! Photos courtesy of Margaret Seelie Thank you for dropping by for another installment of Surf Photo Friday. Have a great weekend everyone ...and as always, thank you for your support of Jettygirl. Also, a special thank you to Margaret for allowing us to share her story and photos for this week's feature.
Previous Surf Photo Fridays | The Session That Changed Everything | Justine Dupont and Pauline Ado in California | Role Models, Why They Still Matter | Surfing New Jersey's Polar Vortex Swells with the K Twins | Mele Saili and Hayden Lane, Cardiff Reef | Jill Manos Surfs the Freezing Water of Nova Scotia, Canada | Malia Ward, Chris Ward, & a Surf Photographer's Second Worst Nightmare | Chloe Buckley & the Tiny Five Hundred Dollar Wave | A Special Surf Session with Ashley Lloyd Thompson, Julie Cox, Alex Thompson, Chris Cuevas & Sheri Crummer | Kelly Nicely & the Pelican Session | Mary Osborne & Her Beloved 9'10" Cooperfish Single Fin | Kelia Moniz, Megan Godinez, Geodee Clark & Bruna Schmitz | Kamalehua Keohokapu | Claire Bevilacqua | Lulu Erkeneff | Alexa Frantz |Rebecca Woods | Silvana Lima | Alessa Quizon
Additional Resources: Margaret Seelie on Flickr Margaret Seelie's writings Margaret Seelie on Instagram - @travel_pants Margaret Seelie on Facebook Margaret Seelie on Twitter Ashley Lloyd Surfboards Ashley Lloyd on Instagram Ashley Lloyd Thompson on Facebook The Shapes - official band site The Shapes on Instagram
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