Vital Statistics
About Davey
When I was a little kid, I was an artist before I ever started surfing. I was a natural drummer and singer. When I started surfing, I just quit everything. It was like tunnel vision. From about 1969-1998 I didn't think about anything else. All my time was spent visualizing about surfing, and the inspriations that I originally had still stick with me today: Terry Fitzgerald, Barry Kanaiaupuni, Gerry Lopez, Bruce Raymond-the legend, Michael Peterson, Reno Abellira, and especially Michael Ho. Michael in the single-fin days...he's great now, but on a single fin...just something else. That is my whole school. I think my approach in surfing reflects that.
Competed on the ASP with many of his heroes
My first year in the islands, I was in the Pro class trials before it was the XCEL Pro. I had been visualizing surfing Sunset. I was ready to go there when I was 16, but I never made it until I was 20 because I was really poor. I finally got sponsors to send me over there and I won seven rounds first place. I made it to the semis and I got nervous. I wasn't really a competitor. I wasn't raised in the amateur ranks, say, like my friend Tommy Curren who grew up on the same beach. I watched him surf in the NSSAs and the amateur contests. So when he got in the professonal ranks he was honed as a competitor. I wasn't very good as a competitor except for at Sunset Beach. I'd say the highlight of my surfing probably was when Mark Richards, four-time world champ and also one of my idols, was quoted in a surf mag saying: "No one gets off the plane a rookie and surfs Sunset like that, no one." Those were his exact words. I guess I'm kind of bragging here but it was my moment, you know, and I am really proud of this.
Competing at Pipe
I used to enter the contests at Pipe and did my best there. I'd pay the entry fees just to surf in heats with no one out. I traded some artwork as trophies for one contest fee at Pipe, and actually won one of them back, That was a real rush.
Other Surfing Highlights
My biggest was living beachfront at Pipeline for 11 years of my life, behind Gerry Lopez for three of those years. Being able to surf anytime...when everyone else was getting tired. Before dark, I'd paddle out with Adam (12), and just surf with the boys out there. I really respect everyone who surfs well out there. I have great respect for surfers, young and old, and skaters too.
Favorite Wave
I got started at Sunset. I visualized surfing Sunset mostly, but once I started surfing Pipeline and locked into a couple waves at Backdoor, that was more like a drug. I have a highly addictive personality, as far as adrenaline goes, and when I stared getting hooked up with Backdoor Pipe, it became my whole deal. My life revolved around the tide, the wind, and the swell. My mind and everything were geared toward scoring Backdoor in between the moments when Dane Kealoha, Marvin Foster, and all the heavies were out there. Nowadays, it's a free-for-all. You can go out there be a little haole boy and lock into one. Back when I was paying dues as a minority in Hawaii, it was a lot heavier trying to do that. I became pretty good friends with Marvin. He really helped me a lot. Some of the other surfers figured out that I wasn't just some rich white-bread kid that came there to get his picture in a magazine. They noticed that when I went surfing that I never went with a crew of people, I never showed up at the beach with a bunch of boards on the top, I was always by myself. I never really hung in cliques of people. I just tried to be friends with everyone.
Painting "For Real"
I was a painter before I ever started surfing and I never stopped. I think everybody is an artist. In school, we all draw, and some of us just never stop and some of us have certain abilities to visualize real clearly. I'm real lucky that I visualize and want to paint subject matter that a lot of people want because they share that same desire with me. I want to see perfect surf with no one around and so that's what I paint. I paint a selfish subject. I don't paint people. I don't paint Woody's and longboards or beach blankets and bikinis. I'm not knocking that; that's great for some folks, but that is not what I paint. I do surf art but I do a lot of other art that is more like Pollack, more abstract stuff.
Wave Paintings
I call it simplistic, realistic, and kinda mystic. That might sound kinda corny, but I try to make it more like you would really see it. I don't do eight million different fish, sharks, whales, and dolphins all swimming around in the same piece of art with unrealistic lighting. I go more believable so you can travel through the piece, instead of being overwhelmed with everything in it. That is my approach.
Formal Training
A friend of my mother's helped me and taught me quite a bit when I was younger. When I moved to Hawaii I was mostly self-taught. One of the artists that helped me out was Chris Lundy. Chris is a good friend and he's a very good artist and well-schooled. He paid big bucks for all his schooling, he knows how to paint and how not to paint. He shared some real vital information with me about eight years ago that really helped my work, sort of catapulted it into the fine art realm - like using less airbrush and much more hand paintwork. More layers, more gloss, thicker, richer...it still has the same feel that it originally had, just more quality. Also Duncan Campbell, a very artistic and creative individual, and owner of Cafe Haleiwa. He and Jackie, his wife, were like family to me the whole time I was in Hawaii. I love them...they fed me. I mean, I was an artist.
Father, Artist, Musician
I wasn't gonna leave Hawaii. The only reason I did was because I didn't want my daughters going through the school systems there. And a few other reasons - because business is really good for me over here and it is my responsibility with my children now. Also I'm a jazz musician and there is no jazz culture in Hawaii, next to none. It's flourishing here. There is a real resurgence of jazz, bebop...Miles Davis-type music that I've listened to religously since I was 14. After 17, I didn't listen to anything but jazz. That was the catalyst that shaped my approach in the water. I don't hear rap, punk rock, or angry hard-driving music. I'm not a real radical or jerky surfer. It reflects in the way people do everything. The way they drive, surf, or the subjects they are painting. I think music is so much more powerful than people think. They just need to be more careful of what they listen to.
Tying It All Together
I'ts sort of a vicious circle. When I'm paddling out my mind is like a radio. I'm not thinking about who's on the beach or who's in the water taking photos. I surfed Pipeline, Kodak Reef, for all those years. So many people are like, "You got a cover shot!" Yeah, I was stoked that happened, but that was the furthest thing from my mind. I was just addicted to the adrenaline of surfing that beach. The music is in my head when I'm out there and I see these moments, like backlit Pipeline paddling out...the lip comes up and hides the sun and you got that lime-green thing going. I'd shut my eyes for a minute and stop it. I'd try to remember that image. It was heavy. I'd want to try to paint that color, or moment. It does kinda all tie in. When I'm painting for weeks and months - 'cause these paintings don't happen real fast - I listen to bebop-style music, or jazz, like Keith Jarrett. He's a pianist, his music just takes you out. He plays out and around the melody and lets the other musicians do it too. An important one, saxophone player Charles Lloyd, lives in Santa Barbara. He has written all the big-time jazz standards. After all these years of listening to this music while painting and then being a drummer, and playing with some really heavy musicians, I have the concept of jazz deeply ingrained in me, I've got tons of feel. The owner of DW drums, calls me "Mr. Feel." I think if anyone concentrates on something that deeply, it's gonna become a part of them. I think that people can do whatever they want in life. It's about listening.
Favorite Surfers Now
I love watching Brucey Irons surf, Tommy Curren, Tommy Carroll, Mark Occhilupo, Buttons...I wish Bruce Raymond was still doing it all.
Favorite People Painted For
Nat Young, Damien Hardman, Barton Lynch, Glen Winton, Cheyne Horan, Tommy Curren, BK, Billy Hamilton, Michael Ho, Margo Oberg, Brian Surratt, Eddie Rothman, Poto, the late Mark Foo, Allen Sario, Liam, Anthony Ruffo, the father of the Johnson brothers...and lots of people have my prints, like Munga, Pancho, Ross Williams, Robbie Page, Mark Occhilupo...I just finished a painting for Bob McKnight of Quksilver, Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard, Paul Naude of Billabong...Some jazz musicians include Mitch Forman, Ric Fierabracci, Brad Rabuchin, John Beasly, Adrian Rosen...I am proud to have painted for so many of my heroes. Jock Sutherland has my artwork. That is heavy to me. Gerry Lopez ordered an original from me...this guy is my childhood hero.
Personal Client Relationship
I paint because I love to paint. I also really enjoy painting for people. People bring me photographs of a certain beach with certain landmarks and things. We go and sketch a few things, decide on colors and arrive at a size and we paint a painting that fits exactly what they visualize. That way it's more, like you say, a personal thing.