Two waves by two of surfing’s most celebrated artists will be unveiled in the Beach Cities in the coming weeks. Next Wednesday, Manhattan Village Mall will unveil a wave sculpture by Chris Barela. The former Hermosa Beach pro surfer’s other local installations include the life size bronze sculptures of Bob and Bill Meistrell at Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach and lifeguard Tim Kelly at the Hermosa Beach pier.
Next month, the Hermosa Beach Murals Project will unveil a mural by John Van Hamersveld on the side of the Underground Pub and Grill, at 14th Street and Hermosa Avenue. The Palos Verdes artist is best known for his Endless Summer surf movie poster and his album covers for the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Mainstreet,” the Beach Boys’ “Made in California” and Jefferson Airplane’s “Crown of Creation.” Van Hamersveld’s 1966 Endless Summer and his 1968 Jimi Hendrix Experience concert posters are in the New York Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.
Yin Yang Wave
Chris Barela’s “Yin Yang Wave” is six-foot long, two-foot tall, barreling bronze wave. Like a Mobius strip, it appears the same from every angle.
“I had a hard time imagining how to design it because I didn’t want people to have to view it from just one side. It will be right in the middle of the mall, in front of the Apple store. Then, I remembered a ring I designed about 10 years ago that looks like a wave peeling away, no matter what angle you view it from.”
“Inside the barrel will be a nozzle of frothy water, like what you see when you get barreled surfing,” he said.
“I grew up in Redondo, moved to Hermosa when I was a teen and was partners in the Fire Line Surf shop in Manhattan Beach,” Barela said. “So, I’m really excited to have public art in all three beach cities.”
He received the commission from Manhattan Village assistant general manager Monica Horton Frey. “Monica commissioned me about 15 years ago to do a sculpture for her mall in Medford, Oregon. It has a dozen two- to three-foot-long salmon climbing a waterfall,” he said.
Most of Barela’s sculptures are of sea life and he initially thought that would be the subject of his Manhattan Village sculpture.
“I went with a wave instead because growing up in the South Bay, we surfed. Every day we dreamed about getting barreled. I really wanted to bring in the movement and power of that for people to experience with this piece,” he said.
Barela sculpted the wave at his home studio in Puako on the Big Island of Hawaii, where he and his wife Phoebe also own a gallery.
Barela will also be honored this Saturday with induction into the Hermosa Beach Surfer’s Walk of Fame. Prior to becoming a sculptor, Barela competed on the professional surfing tour. (See related story Page 1).
The mural that was meant to be
John Van Hamersveld was commissioned by the Hermosa Beach Murals Project committee to create a mural celebrating the city’s surfing history last December after the committee read about the Palos Verdes artist in Easy Reader/Beach magazine. Then the commission was withdrawn. Fortunately, before Van Hamersveld was made aware of that fact, the committee reconsidered its decision.
Van Hamersveld is not only world renowned, but also a product of the South Bay surf culture the mural is to evoke. The first time he surfed was on a kookbox at the Palos Verdes Cove. His first surfboard was a Velzy Jacobs that he got in 1955 when he turned 14. He learned to surf in front of the Torrance Beach lifeguard tower manned by John McFarlane, a 2014 Hermosa Beach Surfer’s Walk of Fame inductee. When he entered El Segundo High he began surfing at 22nd Street in Hermosa with Dewey Weber, Henry Ford and the other Double Deuce Danglers immortalized by pioneer surf photographer Leroy Grannis.
After high school, fellow Palos Verdes artist Rick Griffin, creator of Surfer Magazine’s Murph the Surf cartoon, introduced Van Hamersveld to the magazine’s founder John Severson, who made him the magazine’s art director. There, Van Hamersveld met Endless Summer filmmaker Bruce Brown, leading to his design of the poster that became a cultural icon.
Even the proposed mural’s location seems meant for the artist. It’s across the street from the old Foster Freeze on Hermosa Avenue, where the surfers of his generation hung out.
The mural is to be the fifth in a series of 10 on buildings throughout the downtown. The first four are representational. By contrast, Van Hamersveld’s idea is a wild, almost psychedelic wave exploding across the 75-foot-long-wall that runs up 14th Street, from Hermosa Avenue to Bay Street.
The mural committee, most of whom, like Van Hamersveld, are in their 70s, wasn’t comfortable with the abstract style and was adamant that the mural uniquely reflect Hermosa Beach. Van Hamersveld’s suggestion that they he put a stamp in the corner of the Hermosa Beach City seal was not well received.
After several contentious meetings, the committee decided to seek out another artist. But before they told this to Van Hamersveld, he submitted a more developed rendering of his exploding wave. With stunning simplicity it tells the entire history of California surfboards, which began in Hermosa Beach in the ‘30s with the heavy, hollow kookboxes built by Hermosa dentist Doc Ball and fellow members of the Palos Verdes Surf Club. The pioneer era was followed by Hermosa shapers Dale Velzy, Hap Jacobs and Greg Noll making the first balsa and then the first foam longboards during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s “Golden Era of Surfing.” The longboard era then gave way to today’s shortboard era, lead by shapers such as this year’s Hermosa Surfer’s Walk of Fame inductee Dennis Jarvis.
Van Hamersveld communicated these three decisive eras with three simple silhouettes. In the foreground is the silhouette of a surfer standing next to a shortboard. Behind the shortboarder is a longboarder standing next to a long board. Behind the longboarder, receding into the past like a fading memory, is a surfer next to a towering kookbox.
The Van Hamersveld mural is expected to be unveiled early next month.
For more information, visit HermosaMurals.org and JohnVanHamersveld.com.
