Our friend & colleague Karen Yung is spending a few months in New Zealand and Australia. Karen just recently made the jump from NZ to Byron Bay, Australia, where she came across Sea Surfboards. Wow. Up until just now there was a special place in my heart for Gato Heroi boards. That special place just got a little crowded. It took all of a few seconds on the Sea Surfboards site to fall in love. Based solely on what I’m seeing online I think I have a new favorite line of boards.

A few months ago I came across an artist going by “Droog79, ” a surfer and skater living in Brighton, U.K. It was instant love. Cad and I went back and forth a bit on what we wanted….but eventually reached out to Ed “Droog79″ Milsom and commissioned a piece (our first time doing this).

In looking through his work I’d noticed a surfboard he decorated, which led us to having our piece inked on an old skate deck. It wasn’t too long before the piece was done and shipped…via the slow boat. I think they rowed it across the Atlantic (and took frequent pee breaks). Note to selves: next time pony up for faster shipping. It was all I could do to not peek on Ed’s blog after seeing “Skate of the Art” in his RSS. The piece did finally arrive, and when it did Caddie was literally hopping up and down as the postman took a deck-sized package out of his truck. We are loving it.

Check out Droog’s site, he has some great pieces for sale. The range is pretty impressive.

Thanks to QualityPeoples for being the first I saw to spread the word on Droog.

Apologies for the title. I’ve had that stuck in my head for months now, had to share.

[Print by Shepard Fairey]

We’re suddenly busy the weekend of the 28th. There’s a fun-looking event over at Patagonia Santa Monica. I’m a pretty hopeless Patagoniac, so I’ll be there. Also that weekend, Shelter Surf Shop is having a party to celebrate its new location. We’ve been meaning to check out Shelter for a while, the 29th might have to be the night.

Flyer artwork by Geoff McFetridge