Pivot
The ink bites the fibers. I noticed the way the surfer hangs in a grey stasis while the rest of the world dissolves into a smudge of charcoal and newsprint. Two dollars buys a window of cotton and grit. I contend that this scrap of New York history mimics the cold Atlantic morning. The canvas feels like a starched bandage. But the grain of the newspaper font reminds me of 1964. I think the black and white palette strips away the lies of a postcard. It is just the man and the wood and the gravity. I noticed one customer on a retail site complained that the material is a plastic-weave fabric rather than traditional paper. This is a blessing. It means the humidity of a bathroom or a kitchen will not wilt the surfer into a soggy mess. Another buyer mentioned the print has a sheen like a wet tooth. I find that the light catches the white space and turns the wall into a mirror of the 1912 shoreline. The way I figure, the artist chose this layout to mirror the chaos of the city against the silence of the water.
How to display your ocean: Find a frame of oak or pine. Press the canvas flat under a heavy dictionary for three days. Avoid tape and glue. Use a clip made of steel. Hang it where the morning sun hits the surfer's shoulder.
New York surf culture did not start with a trend. It started with the 1938 Hurricane. The storm reshaped the sandbars and it carved out the paths for the swells that still hit the coast today. This was eighty-eight years ago. I noticed the typography on the poster mimics the New York Herald Tribune style of the mid-century. It is a ghost of a headline. Duke Kahanamoku brought the board to the Long Beach shoreline over a century ago in 1912. The waves there have teeth. I could be wrong, but the salt in the air back then smelled like progress. Now the salt just smells like home. I noticed that the date on the print is a flicker of a memory. It tethers the room to a time when the subway cost a nickel and the ocean was a private secret. The surfer is a needle in the hay of the city. He is the only thing that is still. And the water is a promise of a beginning.
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