Creating Waves

Surfing provides inspiration, a time for reflection, personal challenge and sheer exhilaration. This is especially true in NZ, where we have an affinity with the sea, and a disproportionately high number of artists, writers and musicians surf. Aaron Topp explores the role surfing plays in the creative lives of a selection of leading NZ artists.

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'To put yourself at the mercy of something as awe-inspiring as the ocean is to accept your place in the world.' Surfing is a seductive mistress, providing inspiration, a time for reflection, personal challenge and sheer exhilaration. this is especially true in NZ, where we have an affinity with the sea, and a disproportionately high number of artists, writers and musicians surf. Aaron topp, himself a surfer, explores this close relationship, and the role surfing and the sea plays in the creative lives of a selection of leading musicians, painters, sculptors, poets and fellow writers. In a series of perceptive and revealing personal profiles, he discovers that, as we suspected, while surfers may function in normal society, in reality they're a few steps removed. Putting yourself at the mercy of something as awe-inspiring as the ocean is to accept your place in the world, and while there's great risk and skill required, at the same time the rewards are such that these children of the sea do it again and again as it becomes their sanctuary, a time to meditate free of constraint.
Profiles include SurfAid founder Dr Dave Jenkins, film directors Damon Meade, Andrew Forrester and Andrew McAlpine, carvers Jess Santorik and Aaron Kereopa, sculptor Nick toa, musicians Fran Kora and Ian King, photographers Daisy Day and Craig Levers and artists Justin Summerton, Ben Galbraith, Ken thomas, tony Ogle, Daryn McBride and many others, providing a fascinating cross-section of contemporary artists.