Original art created by surf legend Corky Carroll will be showcased in his first public solo exhibit, “The Colors of Cool,” to premiere at the Dana Bay Gallery in Dana Point, California, Friday and Saturday, October 10-11.
Carroll, a five-time U.S. and three-time world champion surfer in the 1960s and 1970s who grew up about 40 miles north in Surfside, now lives and paints in Ixtapa, Mexico.
He will attend both Friday and Saturday to meet and greet surf, art, and surf art fans, and tell the stories behind each of the more than a dozen paintings on display and available for sale.
All of Carroll’s original paintings illustrating this story will be among them (except the first).
Dana Bay Gallery is located at 24682 Del Prado Ave. #100, Dana Point, ZIP 92629. The phone is (949) 276-7597.
A few days before opening night, while visiting friends and fellow artists in Fallbrook, Carroll spoke with this reporter (whom he met in 1996) and provided an exclusive preview.
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
Stephen K. Peeples: I’m with Corky Carroll, five-time US champion surfer and Blue Mango Surf proprietor, singer-songwriter, Miller Lite All-Star, a surfer in Bruce Brown’s epic The Endless Summer, and now surf artist. You’ve got a show coming up in Dana Point, “The Colors of Cool,” with some of your latest artworks. Tell us a little bit about what people can expect in that show.
Corky Carroll: I’m excited! I’ve done a couple of private art exhibitions before, but this is my first open-to-the-public solo art show. For me, it’s a big deal. I’m stoked!
It’s going to be at the Dana Bay Gallery in Dana Point, California. It’s open on Friday night, October 10, from 5 o’clock to 8 o’clock, and all day Saturday, October 11, from noon to 6 p.m. I’ll be there both times. The exhibit’s open for a couple of weeks, but that’s the opening.
I’ll be there Friday, the 10th from 5 to 8, and Saturday, the 11th from noon to 6. I painted a whole bunch of new paintings for it, so there’ll be plenty on hand. Come on out, and say hi, talk story, buy a painting.
Stephen: Yeah, sounds good. Now, when did you get started with the artwork? I can say I commissioned a piece a couple years ago when you were just getting started.
I can just say that the progression of your art has been remarkable since that piece. It’s really, really cool. Tell us a little bit about how you got started and how it developed.
Corky: It’s a little bit of a long story.
Stephen: Well, we have a minute. Go ahead.
Corky: I started doing art when I was in high school. Not real seriously. I had an art teacher that surfed. He got me into doing watercolors, and I did a bunch. I would stretch out my paper, and draw everything, and get into it. [But] I was so into surfing that it never took hold.
From 1976 to 1986, I worked for Surfer Magazine. We moved into a new building that had a whole bunch of empty office spaces in the back. I’d always dug airbrush. I used an empty office space in the back and set up a little airbrush studio. They’re messy, and you’ve got to be inside because of the wind and stuff. [laughs] I put plastic on the walls and stuff. I bought an airbrush and a compressor. I started doing combo airbrush and India ink paintings, little islands of palm trees or bright colors. They were pretty cool. I started selling them in a gallery that was in Dana Point Harbor at the time. It did pretty well with them.
Then I left Surfer Magazine to do a clothing line and some other things. I stopped doing it because I didn’t have any place to do it. No art until the early 2000s, when I moved to Mexico. I built a house on the beach down there and was taking people in on their vacations. It was an all-inclusive surf package. Come surf with Corky. Yay! I’d feed them, and drink them, surf them, story them, and bring them home.
One of my early guests was an artist, and he left me an acrylic set. I’d never painted with acrylics before. What the heck? I went out and bought a couple of canvases and did a couple. They were fun, so I just started doing it – silly waves, and palm trees, and geckos, and frogs, and dogs, and stuff. People liked them. I put them on the walls, and people would buy them. That’s crazy!
Stephen: What a concept.
Corky: They weren’t really good, but they were fun. They were colorful. I did quite a few of them.
Then my body started giving out on me. It started about 10 years ago. My back has always been bad. I took a bad wipeout. Actually, way back in 1965, at Pipeline, I hit the bottom sitting down, and it herniated a disc in my lower back. It was okay. It always bothered me, but I got by with it.
Then again, in 1997, I was surfing in Kauai at Hanalei. That real big wave just compressed me right in my head, a 20-foot wave, and really screwed up my back. It herniated my L5 discs 3/4 of an inch out of my back. They had to tow me home on a backboard. It was a nightmare. It also ruptured both my hernias at the same time.
I was in the hospital for a little bit, and it put me down for nine months. I couldn’t surf. I couldn’t do anything. I just sat on the couch, and ate, and watched TV, and gained 45 pounds. Those things never go away either. They made a permanent home on me. They invited friends over.
About 10 years ago, my back got bad enough that I couldn’t pop up anymore. I didn’t want to quit surfing, so I switched to a standup paddleboard. First, a little reluctantly; I wasn’t a big fan of them at the time. My friends could attest. After a little bit, I figured out that they were really bitchen. I liked it. They’re real powerful. Dig that paddle in the water and wham, man, you can turn. They even nose ride. I got down to riding smaller ones and was really into it.
Then things started going really south. About the time COVID started, I developed AFib. I ran out of breath really easy. Heart gets going too fast. It slowed me down to eventually one wave a day.
I told my heart doctor about it, and he went, “Well, you can keep surfing if you want, but make sure you have all your affairs in order because one of these days you’re not coming back.”
Stephen: Oh, nice. Well, what a way to go, right?
Corky: Not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. … My wife wasn’t really cool on that…
Stephen: I’m sure she wasn’t thrilled to hear that.
Corky: Not at all. It was just like, “You’re not surfing anymore.” “I guess I’m not surfing anymore.”
Stephen: How about a paddleboard or prone?
Corky: No, I couldn’t do it.
Stephen: Just the breathing and the stamina.
Corky: Once I couldn’t surf, it was really hard for me to do my surf packages because people wanted me to surf with them. I could actually coach them better from the beach because I could watch them surf and then give them coaching later. Only a small portion of our guests actually wanted surf lessons. They just wanted to come down, surf, and do the whole thing. A lot of them said, “It’s just not the same. You’re not surfing with us.”
We sold our house on the beach, and we moved into town in Ixtapa by Zihuatanejo.
I’m freaking out, because what am I going to do for a living now? That was how we made our living.
My wife Raquel goes, “Why don’t you try to sell more of your paintings?” I went, “Well, I don’t think we’re going to be able to make a living on selling my paintings.” She goes, “Well, yeah. I don’t know. People like them. Try.”
I posted a few on my Facebook page, and darn, people started buying them! Maybe I can make this work. I hadn’t been really serious about the paintings up until that time. I thought, “If I’m going to go for this, I’m going to go for this.”
First of all, I really like it. When I wake up in the morning, I’m all ready to jump into a canvas and paint just like I was when I surfed. I’m really stoked doing it. It consumed me. If you know anybody that knows me, they can tell you I get real focused and single-minded. When I get into something, I focus on that, and I don’t pay attention to anything else. It’s a single-minded thing.
I just focused on the paintings, and I started painting all day, every day. I would post them on Facebook and Instagram. They started selling fairly well. Over the course of the last little bit over three years now since I started doing that, I’ve sold quite a few paintings.
Stephen: That’s stunning, man.
Corky: It’s a lot of painting. They’re evolving. When you’re doing a painting a day, and you’re paying attention, you can develop. The paintings have evolved over the last few years. I’m pretty stoked with where it’s going. I got a long way to go. There are so many great surf artists. I don’t really consider myself a surf artist. I consider myself a wave artist.
Stephen: A wave artist.
Corky: If I can’t ride waves, I paint them. Pretty much all my paintings have waves in them. It’s the waves, and then I develop scenes around them. Places I’ve been. Places I haven’t been but know about and just places I dream up. They’re different scenes with waves. They’re not all with waves. I’ve done a few. I like desert scenes, and I’ve done some desert paintings that I thought were really bitchen, but nobody bought them. They don’t look to me for desert paintings, even though I think my desert paintings are bitchin’.
Stephen: Maybe if you paint a surf ranch in the lower right corner or something. They’re building surf ranches out in the desert now.
Corky: Actually, I’ve done a couple desert scenes that have waves in the back. Waves peeling off in the background. Those sell. Anyway, I’ve dedicated pretty much full-time to developing the paintings. Over the last few years, they’ve gained in popularity. They’re not real expensive. They’re fairly reasonable. So people figured, “That’s a pretty good deal.”
Stephen: Would it be impolitic to ask what the range is? The price range is from what to what…
Corky: Depending on size. They start, a small one, around $400. If you get a big one, more like $4,000. Depending on how big they are. I’m just really stoked on doing it. I love doing it.
I was at Villa Concorde in Fallbrook, a friend of mine, Jerome Gastaldi, a famous artist, who has an art retreat here, and we’re friends. We surfed together. We played tennis together. Saw some of my work a few years ago and invited me to come up. He helps me out and mentors me on the business end of it.
Stephen: Well, that’s pretty critical.
Corky: This fella that owns Dana Bay Gallery was down talking to him one day. I was painting. “Wow, those are cool!” One thing led to another. The owner goes, “I’d like to put some of your paintings in my gallery.” I went, “Oh, cool. Great!” He goes, “Let’s do an exhibition. Let’s introduce Corky Carroll to the general public as an artist.”
It almost reminds me of when I was first playing music. I met you when you were at Rhino Records, and I was on the Cowabunga! Surf Box collection [1996].
When I was first playing music, I was still surfing then. I was still on the Pro Tour then. I know people would come to see me just to see how bad I sucked. “He can’t be any good. Let’s go see him, and laugh at him, and throw shit.”
I know probably people are going to come [to the art show] and go, “He can’t be any good. Let’s go see how bad those paintings are.” That’s okay. Come on out. I think maybe I’ll change your mind.
Stephen: Hey, we came down to see you at Captain Jack’s [in Sunset Beach, near where Carroll grew up, in 1996]. You were pretty good, doing a solo guitar-singer thing.
Corky: There was that focus after. When I first started playing, I could play pretty good. My singing wasn’t all that hot. After doing it and doing it and doing it, I eventually got okay.
Stephen: I want to go back to your mentors because you haven’t been painting in a vacuum. You have had some real artists providing guidance to you. It’s good on the business, but also, artistically, how to compose, how to use different mediums, and stuff like that. Are those things that you’re picking up from your mentors there?
Corky: Oh, absolutely. I haven’t had any really formal training other than just learning the watercolors in high school. I’m learning this on the fly.
I figure I was like the kook paddling out, trying to get tips from the guys that are sitting in the lineup.
I’m lucky I have some friends that are some of the real good surf artists. Well, first of all, Jerome Gastaldi is a surfer and a real famous artist-artist. He helps me. Then Wade Koniakowsky is a really good friend. He lives near here [Fallbrook, where Corky’s visiting] in Carlsbad. He’ll come out, and paint with me when I’m here, and has shown me some stuff. Rob Havasey and Davey Miller have given me some advice.
A few of the other guys. I’m spacing at the moment. I’m old. I’m forgetting stuff.
A lot of the other guys, too, will send me a message, going, “I really like that new painting. You ought to try to put a little shadow under the white water.” Or do this, do an angle. I’ve had some great tips from the good guys. The guys in the surf art community are really cool guys. Nobody’s like, “Get out of here, you kook!” They’re all, “Welcome.”
Stephen: Yeah, there isn’t a localism thing going on with it.
Corky: Not a bit. They’ve all been really encouraging and supportive. It’s really helped me a lot. I’m not afraid to go, “Help!” I’ll be glad to take all the help I can get.
Stephen: Oh, definitely. You’re still writing columns for the OC Register, right?
Corky: The Orange County Register, yeah. Thirty-three years now I’ve been running for them. I think I’m a senior columnist.
Stephen: Well, congratulations. I was just reading on your blog the pre-Gidget story that you posted [on his Blue Mango Surf website]. That’s always fascinating to me because most [surfers’] experience is post-Gidget, post-Beach Party movies, post-Beach Boys. The time before that is really mysterious, and off in the ether, and very sepia-toned history. It’s great to be able to get a first-person, I-was-there take on what was going on then.
Corky: Well, the Gidget movie made a huge, huge, huge impact in the surf world. It was like an asteroid hitting the earth because before that, it was pretty bohemian. You almost knew everybody else. I always said you could go up the coast, and you’d meet somebody, and they’d always invite you to stay with them. No matter where you went, you had a place to stay. I mean, it wasn’t everybody, but it was a pretty tight-knit community.
Stephen: You’re talking about a period before localism really took hold, right?
Corky: Totally.
Stephen: …Where you could go to different beaches. You could go up to Malibu, or go down to South Bay, or wherever, and hang out with those guys. They wouldn’t give you crap because you weren’t from their neighborhood.
Corky: They were glad to see us. “Dang, wow, how have you been? Come stay at our house.” It was really cool. Then when Gidget came out in, what was that 1959, everybody started surfing. It became what they called a fad at the time. People were just coming out of the woodwork. Guys would buy woodies, and have a half a board, and stick it in the back with the fin sticking out so they could cruise around and pick up chicks. [laughs] It was a deal. A lot of people went, “That’s hokey. Surfers aren’t really like that.” I’m going, “I know.” That’s really cool. What was the premise? A bunch of guys hanging out at the beach, surfing, having parties at night, making out with chicks in the back of their cars, not working. That was a lifestyle that I could buy into. [laughs]
Stephen: What’s not to like?
Corky: I’m good with that. I want to be Moondoggie. [laughs]
It opened up the floodgates to people surfing. Then the Beach Boys came out. Well, that was actually a little later. The beach movies, I meant. Beach Party, Ride the Wild Surf, and all of that. Frankie and Annette. We all loved Annette. She was the boob-ed Mouseketeer.
Stephen: Well, you were at the perfect age for all of that to be happening. You were post-adolescent. Not quite a man.
Corky: An impressionable, innocent young boy. Could be molded. [laughs]
Stephen: What a great time to be in the scene. There was really nobody who preceded you who wrote the book. You were writing your own book as you went along.
Corky: [laughs] It was an adventure, I’ll tell you that. Growing up on the beach in the early ’60s and through that whole period when it went from bop to acid rock. Not just music. Everything.
Stephen: Well, I love the story about when you were a kid. … You weren’t [old enough] to drive yet, so you’d take the bus to other spots, or you’d tell your mom that you were going over to Steve’s place to surf with him. You’d go over to his place, and he lived right on the beach. He wouldn’t come out and surf, so you were out there surfing by yourself half the time.
Corky: Well, my mom didn’t want me to surf by myself. I was young. When I first learned to surf, it was before I learned to swim. If I fell off and the water was over my head, I had this technique. I would sink to the bottom, and spring off, and come up, and get a breath of air, and sink. Did this leapfrog thing until I got into shallow enough water to walk. Drove her crazy. She didn’t even want to look.
Our house was right on the beach. She could see me doing this. “He’s drowning. He’s drowning.” This time, somebody helped. There’s nobody around to help. She goes, “You always have to surf with somebody else.” I had a friend who lived up the street, Steve Rowe, and he was a little bit older than me, but he surfed. I’d come home from school. I surfed every day, no matter what, wind, rain, sleet. The only thing I didn’t surf in was the fog, because I didn’t like that.
I’d come home and I go, “I’m going surfing.” She goes, “Who’s going with you?” I’m like, “I’m going to go with Steve. He’s getting his trunks on. I’m going to go up and surf by his house.” She’d go, “Okay.”
I’d go surf in front of Steve’s house, but no Steve. “Steve, let’s go surfing!” He goes, “It’s blowing out and terrible.” I go, “Yeah, but look, there’s a little peak over there. You could [make] a turn. There’s a left.” “You go out, and if you get a good one, I’ll come out,’ [he’d say]. Two hours till it got dark. Steve would never come out. I’d come home and mom would go, “How was it?” “We had a great time. You should see the wave Steve got, man. He got this cool nose ride.” [laughs]
Stephen: She bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Corky: Yeah, my poor mom. If she only knew.
Stephen: We would be remiss if we didn’t look forward to next summer. It’s the 60th anniversary of the wide release of The Endless Summer next summer. What do you think about that 60 years on?
Corky: Well, time flies. I was just figuring the other day, I rode my first wave in 1955. It’s been 70 years. [laughs]
Stephen: Wow.
Corky: I remember we took The Endless Summer on tour in 1964. It came out as a 16-millimeter film. Bruce would go around, and narrate it, and play a little tape recorder with the soundtrack. We went to the East Coast. Nine of us in a mobile home, Hobie and Hobie’s wife, Phil Edwards, Phil’s wife, Bruce and Bruce’s wife, and Mike Hynson, Joey Cabell, and myself. We showed the movie and did surfing exhibitions, and 40,000 people would show up at the beach to watch us surf. It’d be like one foot. People would wade out in the water, and we’d have to go in between them and stuff. That’s the original release of The Endless Summer. They’ve been having The Endless Summer anniversary this and that and everything for the last year and a half.
Stephen: It’s a two-year window from ’64.
Corky: It’s going to keep going forever. It’s the endless Endless Summer anniversary.
Stephen: The sun will never set on The Endless Summer. [That’s the working title of a book this writer plans to publish in 2026.]
Corky: Never. Next year will be the 60th anniversary of when they blew it up to 35 millimeter and put it in theaters.
Stephen: Exactly. It went worldwide and took the whole phenomenon international.
Corky: Amazing success. It really did a number.
Stephen: Well, Corky, back to your art and the art show that’s coming up. One of my favorites of your recent is, I think it’s Far Lesser Antilles. It has a little, tiny, white sailboat on the left side. You’ve put that up a few times. I’m surprised that didn’t [sell] like that.
Corky: That’s actually going to be in the show. That’s one of my favorite ones. That was one I put on Facebook a couple of times, and nobody picked it up. I figured I really like this one. It’s going to be in the show at the Gallery Dana Bay.
Stephen: Do you have a number affixed to that one by chance, or a price range, or make an offer, or what?
Corky: No, they’ll have a price on them. I’m not sure. The gallery is setting the price. I don’t have any idea what. I don’t think it’s going to be $10,000 though. [laughs] Believe me, my paintings are very reasonable. People are always going, “You don’t sell them for enough. You really should be selling for this or that or the other thing.” One that I’ll sell for $400 or $500, “You really should be getting a grand or $1,500 for that.”
I have a math thing. I go, “Well, if I put them for $400 and I sell 10 of them, I’d rather do that than sell five of them at $600, or sell three of them at $800, or sell one of them or none at $1,000. One, I like to paint, and two, I’ll make more money. Three, more paintings will be on more people’s walls, so more people will see them. I like it that people have the paintings on their walls. It’s like there’s a little bit of me in their house.
Stephen: That’s right. Every time I walk by the one that you did for me, it’s a personal connection.
Corky: They’re like my kids. They have new homes and I have a list that I’ve kept of who bought every painting and the whole deal. I do feel a personal connection because I love those little paintings.
Stephen: Well, on behalf of all of the folks who’ve bought your paintings, we’ll take really good care of them, Corky, and make sure that they always have good homes. We’ll pass them on to our kids as well.
Corky: Well, paintings last forever. It’s a good investment. I’m not going to be around forever. These things could gain in value. [laughs]
Stephen: Well, I didn’t want to go there. [laughs]
Corky: When I was first doing it on my posts on Facebook, I go, “This is going to be a great investment because I’m old.” A couple of my friends go, “That’s really a crummy way.”
Stephen: That’s not a good marketing hook.
Corky: Not going to be marketing like that: “I’m going to die. Buy these paintings. They’re going to be worth so much money.” [laughs]
Stephen: Corky, thanks again for spending a couple of minutes with us and previewing the show. Looking forward to seeing you down there. We should definitely invite everyone to come, and check out the artwork, and meet you, and have a good time.
Corky: Please come out, and see me, and say hi. I’d love to meet you if I don’t know you. If I do know you, I’d love to see you again.
Stephen: Sounds good. Cowabunga!
Corky: Cowabunga, dude!
If you see any painting above you’d like to purchase, contact the Dana Bay Gallery at (949) 276-7597.
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
Grammy nominee and Santa Clarita journalist Stephen K. Peeples was raised by career newspaper journalists and music-lovers in suburban Chicago, small-town Neenah, Wisconsin, North Miami, Florida, and Los Angeles. He first surfed at Sunny Isles on Miami Beach in 1963, age 11, and never lost the stoke. His Grammy nomination was for co-producing the “Monterey International Pop Festival” box set with Geoff Gans, and Lou Adler the exec producer (Rhino/MIPF, 1992). • An L.A.-area resident since mid-1968, Peeples was the original, award-winning writer-producer of “The Lost Lennon Tapes” radio series for Westwood One from 1988-1990; he had written and produced hundreds of WW1 programs in the preceding five years. • His first music industry gig was as an Associate Editor (Radio, West Coast Country) at Cash Box magazine in Hollywood in May 1975. He went on to be a Media Relations editorial director/PR executive for Capitol Records (1977-1980), Elektra/Asylum Records (1980-1983), and Rhino Entertainment (1992-1998). • Moving online, he was Rhino’s first web editor (1996-1998), then elevated to content editor of Warner Music Group websites (1998-2001). • Based in the Santa Clarita Valley just north of L.A., Peeples was the award-winning Online Editor for The Signal newspaper’s website from 2007-2011, and wrote-hosted-co-produced SCVTV’s WAVE-nominated “House Blend” local music TV show from 2010-2015 (archived online and still airing in reruns). • He was SVP/New Media for Rare Cool Stuff Unltd. from 2010-2016 and a News Editor at SCVTV’s SCVNews.com from 2017-2021. Peeples semi-retired in April 2021 to work on book projects and mine his memorabilia archives, but continues to post occasionally. • For more info and original stories, visit https://stephenkpeeples.com/. For exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews, subscribe to Peeples’ YouTube channel.
Article: Surf Legend Corky Carroll’s First Solo Art Show Opens at Dana Bay Gallery Oct. 10
Author: Stephen K. Peeples
Category: News and Reviews
Article Source: StephenKPeeples.com
