I stopped down to Westside Skates for the CA vs OH Round Two art show that featured some really great work by (above from left to right) local legend Gary Spear, Smelly Curb creator Donny Humes, Street Canoe-er Jay Croft, and everyones favorite nice guy Russ Pope.
Gary’s work included some boards with figures painted on them that had lights in the eyes. They looked demonic to me but only at first glance. He also had some oversized comics that told stories about the everyday people that I’m guessing Gary deals with in real life. The fact that the stories are probably based on real people makes them even more hilarious.
Donny Humes’ work ranged from cans attached to a skate deck, to a blown up ticket for skateboarding, to oversized black and white copies of photos. He’s been running the Smelly Curb zine since the 80s and from what I can tell it just went digital.
I’ve been exposed to the work of Jay Croft longer than any of the other fellas at this show since he’s a hometown guy originally from the Akron area. Jays pieces consisted primarily of the wood block figures that he’s been known for as well as a little guy that looked like it was made out of paper machae. I just realized that I did not take any pictures of Jay’s art so you’ll have to get by with what you see in the background above.
Russ Pope has a style that exposes brush strokes and carries through the different pieces that I’ve seen from him. This show was no different in that sense but regardless his pieces ranged from heads painted on cut wood slats to framed works to boxes and some canvases too.
On an aside, Russ was nice enough to sign my first skate helmet on the opposing side that he signed back in 1990 at Berea Triangle when he was there for a demo with Small Rooms Lazyboy tour. It was an odd moment realizing that the first signature occurred what felt like a handful of years ago but was actually 22 years ago! After I settled into the fact that I’m old (at least older than when I was 12) the idea popped into my head of how cool it was that after all those years we were all brought together again for a short night. Another point that Jay Croft brought up while we were talking about the demo that happened back in 1990 was that there were about a dozen people there at that demo who were also at the art show that night. Most of us didn’t know each other back then but as we rolled on through the years and the heard thinned out we all have come to know each other.
Well enough reminiscing about the good old days. This shows was a great time with some really fun and creative work by these four guys. Hopefully they can put together Part Three show sooner than later!