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
Shop for your favorite brands in the Surf Store:
Sticky Bumps Cold Water Wax 6 Pack - Perfectly sticky under bare feet or booties. Comes in a pack of six. Cold water wax designed for 60F water temps and below.
More in the Store >>
* Like, tweet, post, pin, comment or whatever. Waves are meant to be shared.
This is awesome! I’ve never come across a female shaper and often wondered where they were. This is why I love JettyGirl. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your kind comments, WalterSalt! We’re hoping to add more stories on female shapers to the site soon. Thank you for your support!
I agree, WaterSalt Sky, I had a hard time finding info on lady shapers too, and I’m glad this piece was helpful. There is also a great conversation happening right now on the Jettygirl Facebook page about more ladies in the industry. Hopefully this is just the beginning, and we will be hearing much more about women making boards in the future 🙂