Ashley Lloyd

Ash­ley Lloyd is a Cal­i­for­nia surfer/shaper /musician who was recently fea­tured in Tiffany Campbell’s film, “Dear & Yon­der.” She is equally tal­ented and skill­ful with a board, planer, or gui­tar. We caught up with Ash­ley to find out more.

What was life like grow­ing up?
Look­ing back, I had a pretty mag­i­cal child­hood. I attribute much of my love for the beach to my mother, Elaine, who thought that the beach was the per­fect play­ground for kids. Even though I was born inland—the San Fer­nando Valley!—my mother loved the beach. Since I was six days old, she began tak­ing me down to her favorite spot—Paradise Cove in Mal­ibu. This is where I learned how to make cas­tles in the sand, skirts out of sea­weed, hats out of lob­ster tails, where I col­lected rocks with stripes and holes to bring to my mom, where I fol­lowed my older brother, Tim, into the ocean and, even­tu­ally, where I learned to pad­dle on a surfboard.

When we got well into surf­ing, we started head­ing to Mal­ibu Point. As soon as we were old enough, in the sum­mer­time our mom would drop us off at Mal­ibu before she began her work day and picked us up after her day was done. I dis­tinctly remem­ber her famous whis­tle that would call us out of the water.

My dad worked a lot as a fine artist in the matte room depart­ment at Dis­ney Stu­dios in Bur­bank. I loved it when my dad would bring his work home, and I’d watch him cre­ate paint­ings that would replace the blue screen in the next Dis­ney film.

As soon as I was old enough to drive, and had enough gas in the tank, I was headed to the beach. I was pretty obsessed with surf­ing when I was grow­ing up.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young girl?
Tim, the Han­na­mans (fam­ily friends), our neigh­bor Heather Salzer, the life­guards at Par­adise Cove, my folks, Josh Far­berow, Dane Peter­son, Danny Ter­ampi, Carla Row­land, Brit­tany Leonard, Pinoi Makalena, Maka Pua, Diane Sanders, Cori Schu­macher, my peers at the ‘Bu and beyond. I admire a lot of peo­ple and am sure I’m leav­ing some good ones out.

When did you get your first surf­board?
I was about seven or nine or something.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
Ecstatic—I still remem­ber it. I was on a Zuma Jay twin fin on the inside of Third Point, Malibu.

Where did your inter­est in shap­ing come from?
From surf­ing, I guess. I always thought it would be cool to shape a surf­board, but didn’t nec­es­sar­ily real­ize that it was a pos­si­bil­ity for me to be a shaper. My silver-haired, kind-spirited and solemn surf­ing pal from Mal­ibu, Danny Tarampi, one day asked me if I’d be inter­ested in learn­ing the art of shap­ing. “Yes, I would.” So he intro­duced it to me.

When I lived in Santa Bar­bara, I had a group of friends that lived at this under­ground place in between the 101 Free­way and the Mil­pas on-ramp called “The Wilder­ness”. The place is now gone and replaced with another lane on the free­way, but my mem­o­ries remain. I was for­tu­nate enough to be allowed to use the shap­ing room that was there. While I was learn­ing how to mow foam, I could hear the sounds of skate­board wheels rac­ing around like the struc­ture of a mol­e­cule in the pool they had built in the back­yard to skate in. The men who lived there also knew a lot about mak­ing a surf­board and would occa­sion­ally pop their heads in give me short bits of advice.

It took me for­ever to make my first board, but after I had shaped it, I knew that I wanted to stick with it. I some­how con­vinced my mom to let me build a shap­ing room off the side of her house, which wasn’t too far away. I learned how to shape and glass, make mis­takes and learned how to fix them. It was all very inter­est­ing to me.

What is your process when cre­at­ing a new board design?
I like to think of what the pur­pose for the board is, where it will be rid­den, who will be rid­ing it and in what kind of con­di­tions. Then, I put it all together with tem­plates and thought and heart and things.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?
Most recently, I was in New Zealand. I was there for four months with the love of my life, Alex. He was in NZ to do research and begin a doc­u­men­tary he’s mak­ing on the Merino wool indus­try. This brought us to some amaz­ing parts of the coun­try. Patag­o­nia was kind enough to gift us with their 4R wet­suits to help keep us warm through­out our trav­els. Their win­ter waters were surely the cold­est that I had ever felt (or would have felt if I wasn’t wear­ing gloves, hood and booties). We found a lot of uncrowded waves and kind-hearted Kiwis. We lived simply—limited to what fit com­fort­ably in the van we were liv­ing in along with our surf­boards and gui­tars all inside.

When we weren’t camp­ing on remote beaches, we vis­ited with great friends, includ­ing “the Kings of New Zealand.” Chris King had a library of infor­ma­tion right up our alley, con­sist­ing of blues music his­tory and every clas­sic surf-oriented read you could think of. I learned more about Cal­i­for­nia surf his­tory while I was at the Kings’ house in North Cor­re­man­del Penin­sula than grow­ing up surf­ing Malibu!

It was a great trip.

What is it that makes you such a nice per­son? What code do you live by?
Oh, golly … thanks for call­ing me nice. I’ve been truly blessed in my life. I’m not always nice—and I’ve had my share of hard­ships and challenges—but if there was a code that I try to live by, it would be “put love first before all things”. The inten­tions that you put out seem to be what return to you in this world.

When I’m a turd, I don’t feel good about it. You might as well give your best to sit­u­a­tions that come, because that’s all any­one can ask for—to do your best. So, do your best to be nice.

What inspires you?
Joy, enthu­si­asm, art. There’s inspi­ra­tion in any­thing if you look for it … even crummy things.

Who do you admire?
Zeuf and Frosty Hesson—I am for­tu­nate enough to live next door to these amaz­ing peo­ple who are wise and lov­ing. They are my fam­ily. Alex Thompson—he’s my heart’s joy. Jesus. Gandhi. Duke Elling­ton. Norah Jones. Bob Dylan. Martha Bene­dict. Chris Thomp­son. Peo­ple with strength and com­pas­sion. Peo­ple that are true to their hearts. Peo­ple who are will­ing to learn.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
We are no greater than any­thing because we are all part of each other.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
Yep, imme­di­ately after awful hap­pens, you regret and wish it hadn’t hap­pened, that you would have han­dled some­thing dif­fer­ently. But then you wouldn’t have learned what you did from it, and be built into the per­son you are. So in hind­sight, no. No regrets.

What are you most proud of?
We had some friends vis­it­ing and I got to jam music with their seven year old boy and nine year old girl the other night. I think they liked it, and I was proud to have some instru­ments for them to play. The next day, we walked down to the beach and got to explore a bit. It was cool to watch them light up with excite­ment. I was hon­ored to be a part of that.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
I don’t know that I can say that surf­ing has changed my life because I have almost always known it … or at least since my ego has devel­oped. At one point, I felt that my world relied on surf­ing; it felt like the most impor­tant thing to me because it was my sanc­tu­ary, my place of let­ting go or focus­ing, mak­ing friends, being immersed in nature. Surf­ing has been there for me as my life changes.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Hap­pi­ness itself. It’s in every­thing. I seem to be most happy when I’m laugh­ing with Alex.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
There are so many good surfers out there, aren’t there? Peo­ple keep going back fur­ther and bring­ing the good stuff that works back—or even equip­ment that didn’t work all that great—and fig­ur­ing out how to make it better.

What is cur­rently your favorite board?
This cus­tom board I made for Zeuf. I keep steal­ing it from her, so I guess I should make myself one. It’s a 9’5″ square tail with wide point fur­ther back. It’s yummy.

Your favorite surf spot?
Can’t tell you … not because it’s a secret or some­thing; I love so many waves for dif­fer­ent reasons.

What’s your favorite meal?
Sour­dough toast with coconut oil along with a salad with lots of good­ies in it. That’s my go-to favorite meal right now.

Tell us about your music.
I love to write songs, play and sing. I have an album out called the Ser­e­nata Road Record­ings that is avail­able on iTunes. One of my bands’ names is “The Ash­ley Lloyd Sit­u­a­tion”. We play mostly songs that I wrote.

I’m really stoked on my other band that has been devel­op­ing called The Herd of Tur­tles. We haven’t actu­ally played a gig yet, but we’ve been mak­ing some fun noise.

What causes/ projects/ orga­ni­za­tions do you sup­port?
Being con­scious and think­ing that our actions as an indi­vid­ual and a soci­ety have an impact on the world.

Try not to use unnec­es­sary plas­tics, take care of this envi­ron­ment so that it can con­tinue to take care of you, don’t shop at Wal­mart, love your neigh­bor, don’t abuse things, take up smil­ing as a hobby, recy­cle, don’t dump your kitty lit­ter into the ocean because it makes otters go men­tal, sup­port edu­ca­tion, quit smok­ing, spend qual­ity time with the peo­ple, get exer­cise, take time to med­i­tate, buy art, use your tal­ents, read, don’t always trust Fox News, do the right thing for the well-being of this planet.

http://www.algalita.org/

http://www.keep-a-breast.org/

What are you most grate­ful for?

All of the won­der­ful peo­ple that have come into my life. I’m grate­ful to feel gratefulness.

What’s next for Ash­ley Lloyd?
Record a new album with Alex Thomp­son. Write more songs. Shape more boards. Appreciate surf­ing. Have a good atti­tude. Spread joy.

Find out more about Ash­ley Lloyd here. Pho­tos 1, 3, + 7 by Jere­miah Kille, Pho­tos 2 + 6, Nikky Brooks. Photo 5 by Maria Cerda.