Show the world how much you hate surfing!
Several nights heretofore, the master surf-ceramicist Damion
Fuller held court, surrounded by dozens of his elaborate creations,
urns, plates and paintings, at the relaunch of a once
down-at-heel beachside hotel now turned into the sort of lightly
flamboyant joint a man would take his lover for meaningless and
exhausting sexing deep under the influence of pills and
liquor.
range, on display at sexy Barrys Hotel in Bondi. Photo: Mark
Wiesmayr/@marksurfsbig
Damion Fuller is a wildly regarded actor in the surf game.
He leveraged a degree in Industrial Design into a career that
encompasses accumulating surfboards from the late seventies and
early eighties (“They’re hydrodynamic, functional pieces of art”),
building accessories for Mambo, back when it was the hub of the
anti-surrealist art movement in the nineties, who then convinced
his old boss at Mambo, Dare Jennings, to turn his next label Deus
Ex Machina into a surf-moto brand in the spirit of Bruce Brown’s
Endless Summer/On Any Sunday combo.
After, he split for California, for a gig at Nixon, shifted back
to Australia five years later for a job at Electric and, later,
after he moved the fam to an off the grid farm on the north coast,
created the label Aloha to Zen with his wife Fern. The pair make
surf themed homewares, the pillows are wild, and spent three years
learning the art of ceramics.
And it’s here Fuller has reached his zenith, I think, of beauty
and creation. His calling. The urgent need to bring meaning to life
and to resurrect a little gentility in surf culture.
“There’s a lot that can go wrong in the pottery game,” says
Fuller, his tongue darting in and out of his mouth, licking at his
moustache like a pink lizard. “Which is why you love it, right,
because it’s a completely uncontrollable medium. Once you apply
heat to mud and chemicals anything can happen.
“And, as an industrial designer I love that. I love the fact
it’s a combination of the chemicals and I love the
three-dimensional form. It became the perfect vehicle for me to
express my love of that golden era of surf culture. I’m just trying
to really find a little voice in there that speaks to me.”
I tell Fuller that I was thrilled he was open to the idea of the
I Hate Surfing capsule, which will also feature clothes from The
Critical Slide Society. A follow-up to our I Don’t Need Life I’m
High capsule.
Fuller has made an I Hate Surfing ashtray
and an oversized mug.
I ask him to describe the process.
“Well, the ashtray was easy. That’s called googling ‘Chunky
Glass Seventies Ashtrays’. I knew very much as soon as you said I
Hate Surfing but with a joyous edge, I knew what shape it was gonna
look like. It had to belong in a sex den in a SoHo apartment in New
York with carpeted walls. I
immediately knew the size we wanted to do and it needed to have a
big thick wall and it needed to really dominate your coffee
table.
Fuller.
“So I played around with a few different shapes and methods of
construction and in the end we’ve settled on a wheel-thrown piece.
It’s about two kilos worth of clay to begin with. We throw that out
and form it and fire it.”
And the truck-stop diner
mugs?
“I knew I didn’t want a coffee cup. I knew we wanted a truck
stop diner mug, something with a big handle that holds a proper 14
ounces of of percolated diner coffee or whiskey.”
goes. Photo: Mark Wiesmayr/@marksurfsbig
We ain’t taking a cut of these beautiful creations to keep ‘em
down to an affordable price and this link will take you straight to
Fuller’s site.
Eighty-five apiece, Australian shekels.
He’ll pack and send ’em anywhere in the world. Free to ship in
Australia, thirty-five dollars, Australian, to Europe and the
US.
A little wait too ‘cause he’s gotta
make ‘em at his little off-the-grid studio.
So bespoke!
