John Van Hamersveld

John Van Hamersveld designed the poster for the 1966 surf­ing movie “End­less Sum­mer” from his kitchen table in Dana Point, Cal­i­for­nia 50 years ago. It has gone on to become an inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized icon of South­ern California’s surf­ing scene.

What was it like grow­ing up in the South Bay?
At 14 years old I grew up with two older boys, one was Phil Becker (a famous surf­board shaper) and the other is Jared Eaton (brother of Mike Eaton, Eaton Surf­boards). They would take me on surf­ing trips to the Palos Verdes Cove to surf, with adven­tures to the Por­tuguese Bend club by bicy­cle to swim in the pool in 1955.

It was all about a sim­ple lifestyle scene between the rich kids and poor kids in Palos Verdes and the beach cities at the ocean’s edge. I drove a Volk­swa­gen in high school with surf racks. Brands of surf­boards changed 18 times from 1954 to 1964. Surfers at the time seemed as if they were the “Mysto-Man,” dif­fer­ent, dis­tant – a non-conformist and seen as a beat by most. The only prob­lem with the beach cities was you had to go some­where else where the waves were big like Tres­tles, La Jolla, Mal­ibu, or Rincon.

When did you get your first surf­board?
My first surf­board was from Dale Velzy. He trans­formed the old into the new mod­ern surf­board and formed a label called Velzy & Jacobs Surf­boards. When I was 17 years old, I met Bing Copeland and rode his surf­boards. He made a great shape for beach surf in the South Bay.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
It was tricky at first. It was the bal­ance – this surf­ing thing wasn’t easy. From the ocean side of the world, it took about a year and a half to get into the iner­tia and flow of the wave and what you could, or couldn’t control.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
Velzy was like an instant father fig­ure to all the kids at the time. I met Lance Car­son in the Mal­ibu scene. His father and my father worked at Northrop Avi­a­tion in Hawthorne on the early Fight­ing Wing Air­plane project together. After meet­ing Lance, came Kemp Aaberg and oth­ers. They lived in the Pacific Pal­isades – that was so much like Palos Verdes. Mal­ibu was where the bet­ter story started, like Gid­get. The place was so ideal, where style was every­thing and surfers showed off their surf tricks. Each pose was like a trade­mark that each surfer had devel­oped. Miki Dora was every­thing, the ulti­mate poser. He set the tone of the moves. It was just a per­fect place – like a free beach club.

Where were you edu­cated in art?

First came the art edu­ca­tion from my tal­ented mother, father, and grand­fa­ther. Then it was the Art Cen­ter School (now Art Cen­ter Col­lege of Design). I went on to Chouinard (renamed CalArts) and taught there for 7 years. I loved that scene. I was a part of it for 21 years as a stu­dent and as a professor-type.

What was work­ing at Surfer Mag­a­zine like in the early days?

I was in Dana Point where I lived and worked at Surfer Mag­a­zine. I was still a stu­dent and a surfer at 22 years old. John Sev­er­son was a whole entity as a surfer. He was 7 years older than me. And Rick Grif­fin was 10 years younger.

The begin­ning of an indus­try grew out of the ‘50s with a new wave of mod­ern surfers, rid­ing on balsa, and then the foam surf­boards. It started with Bob Sim­mons, Grubby Clark and Hobie Alter as they all made prod­ucts for surf­ing. And then Hol­ly­wood and the media jumped in with their pseudo surf cul­ture and that made it so plas­tic and con­fus­ing. The sim­ple nature of early surf­ing and where the folk­lore had begun,all had become too com­pli­cated and expen­sive by the ‘60s.

The surf indus­try was sup­ported by media. It’s movies and mag­a­zines grew into a three-headed mon­ster and the crowds got too big. The beach club idea dis­ap­peared, leav­ing us sit­ting in it’s pol­lu­tion. What does all of this mean? With the hous­ing mar­ket exposed, every­one wanted a cheap house with a view of the ocean.

Explain how the iconic image for The End­less Sum­mer came about?
The End­less Sum­mer poster was designed in my night class at the Art Cen­ter, between my job at Surfer Mag­a­zine, on my kitchen table with ser­vices I could find in Santa Ana. Com­bined with my skill in draw­ing and ren­der­ing typog­ra­phy, I crafted my paste-up mechan­i­cal for silkscreen­ing. This was one of the first posters in day-glo ink for the era – all printed in a local garage.

Who was your favorite musi­cal act/personality you’ve got­ten to work with?
Early Jag­ger… and the Exile album! Dylan… Pat Gar­ret and the Billy The Kid album (that’s the song Knockin’ on Heav­ens Door). Most of my con­tacts were with man­agers and pro­duc­ers, not record label art direc­tors – they did every­thing them­selves. It was like being a wolf liv­ing in the woods. You could meet the tal­ent in the woods before they went to town to drink in the saloon with the gamblers!

Who/what inspires you?
My mother showed me an Art In Amer­ica Mag­a­zine with an arti­cle on Mil­ton Glaser and Sey­mour Chwast and their newly cre­ated Push Pin Stu­dio when I was 13 years old. I went to the Art Cen­ter School at 19 years old, and designed the “The End­less Sum­mer Poster” at 22 years old. It was a hit then and now. That was inspiring.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
Psy­chol­ogy – learn­ing about myself and the pos­si­bil­i­ties. One’s self is made up of all of your expe­ri­ences and you don’t know them really – they just sit there, unknown to your­self. What psy­chol­ogy does is cre­ate insights as a part of the ther­apy to under­stand your poten­tial. To “think out­side the box” as an expres­sion, like under­stand­ing change and how to cope with the chang­ing world around you. Day by day, month after month and year after year – like who am I becoming?

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
Hard to answer. But one regret is how fast time trav­els and you can’t do enough while time is pass­ing so quickly. Like stand­ing still one day as you watch the how fast the clouds move through the day to-night and that day is gone. Life is short.

What are you most proud of?
That I have lived and sur­vived the Six­ties and Sev­en­ties. Every­one entered the drugs, sex and rock n’ roll with their eyes wide open. Who would ever know all those times were so short-lived – with you or with­out you. I sur­vived with a vision of the future! I really miss Rick Grif­fin as a draw­ing part­ner and as a friend.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
The iner­tia that pushes the wave trav­els across the open sea to your local beach is amaz­ing as a force. Also, under­stand­ing the momen­tum that pushes one while you stand and roll with the reac­tion to the changes. I mar­vel over the coor­di­na­tion of the sun, moon and the tide tables that define the per­fect moment – where one can have time in both big and small surf. The surf is a sys­tem that you become one with while you live by the ocean.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
The ironic!

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
I’ve learned a lot about Shaun Tom­son by draw­ing and design­ing the “Bustin Down The Door” movie from last year. All I see in the media is Kel­lly Slater. I have spent some time with Don­avon Franken­re­iter, who seems to have an inter­est­ing rela­tion­ship of surf and rock.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board?
None. But I lived in Mal­ibu on my com­pound stu­dio in Ramirez Canyon near Par­adise Cove with a quiver of 15 surf­boards, and some pad­dle boards too. I surfed for 12 years there and real­ized that it was all pol­luted. I got sick of the place with the rich and famous who had their head in the sky. And I would get sick and fall into con­fu­sion about why I was so sick so often. I stopped surf­ing in 1991, end­ing my career as a surfer. There is a dif­fer­ent SUN now! And the ocean doesn’t have a gov­ern­ment to take care of it.

Here is an exam­ple of how pol­lu­tion works in Jamaica, and how the peo­ple liv­ing on the island hill­sides look down at the ocean’s beaches. Pee and shit and all of “it” is a jun­gle that goes down the hill when it rains. The oceans are pol­luted off the edges of the beaches, until the tides take “it” somewhere.

What’s your favorite meal?
I’m always on a diet, so I am always sur­rounded in a world of carbs. So I have to keep every­thing simple.

What are you lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Bud­dha Lounge, Ahmad Jamal, Dylan, Van Mor­ri­son, and Leonard Cohen.

What’s next for JVH?
Every­thing one can think of doing.

More infor­ma­tion about John Van Hamersveld can be found at www.johnvanhamersveld.com. He is cur­rently fin­ish­ing a coffee-table book of his life and art, “Post Future,” due in 2010.