{"id":23715,"date":"2021-03-25T14:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T21:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000019257"},"modified":"2023-03-19T22:53:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T05:53:20","slug":"justin-larose-found-a-new-start-making-recycled-skateboard-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/in-the-studio\/justin-larose-found-a-new-start-making-recycled-skateboard-art","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Recycled skateboard art gave Justin LaRose a new start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>In the Studio is a monthly multimedia series that highlights local artists and makers, in their element, doing what they do best. To contact us, email Visuals Editor Thomas R. Cordova at <a href=\"mailto:thomas@lbpost.com\">thomas@lbpost.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"In the studio with recycled skateboard woodworker Justin LaRose\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CENBgXUfzDs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There are two things Justin LaRose can expect every morning when he steps\u2014springs, more like it\u2014into his workshop in North Long Beach.<\/p>\n<p>First, the excited mews of a chunky, round black cat named Grizzly who, LaRose will tell you, is the true owner of the shop. And, second, that this is the cleanest his cement floor will look after the next nine\u2014maybe 10\u2014hours he\u2019ll be holed up inside. Wood flakes\u2014they just get everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>Surrounded by all the tools he could possibly need\u2014table saws, hand saws, lathes, sanders\u2014LaRose makes his wood art out of old, broken skateboard decks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a skater, you can totally tell how it was broken,\u201d the 41-year-old said. \u201cIf you land too far forward or back, you&#8217;ll have breaks at the truck marks\u2026If you had a real bad day, and you just start axing your board on the curb, there will be X marks on the side of the board. It all has a very real story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For LaRose, though, bad days are hard for him to come by. Which, he said, \u201cis nuts,\u201d because for most of his life, LaRose felt like he would never amount to anything.<\/p>\n<p>The computer science major dropped out of college his freshman year at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts. He said it was too expensive to go back, and so he resolved to live the rest of his days going from whatever job would give him a paycheck.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would just work to skate, and that was always my thing. I just really loved skateboarding,\u201d the Marlborough, Massachusetts native said.<\/p>\n<p>When he came to Long Beach in October 2003, LaRose\u2019s first job was working as a barista at Portfolio Coffee, where he met his wife, Kristin. She was a customer at the time, then later his manager. They\u2019ve been married for nearly 11 years.<\/p>\n<p>He then did some retail work at Quicksilver. For a while he\u2019d worked with a manufacturing company building trade show booths. Then, a coffee roasting gig. For fun, he\u2019d refurbish antique furniture.<\/p>\n<p>Though the paychecks always came through, LaRose described his jobs as dead end. Nothing ever invigorated or challenged him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was a cog in the works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But when his mother died, LaRose sunk into a deep depression. He was so low, he said, that even skateboarding wasn\u2019t bringing him the same unshakable joy it had always provided. After a nudge from his wife to find something, anything creative, to do, LaRose found himself in his garage, surrounded by old woodworking tools he had accrued from yard sales and decided to chop up an old skateboard he had lying around.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI made a block out of it. And literally, that block was like gold to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He made a pendant for his wife, first. Then a coffee handle. But the cogs in his brain started to turn. What else could he make out of skateboard decks? Turns out, you can make almost anything.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10000040903\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10000040903\" style=\"width: 1110px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-10000040903\" src=\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/23105645\/0322-LaRose-0-1110x741.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1110\" height=\"741\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10000040903\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Justin LaRose holds up a bat that he made out of broken skateboards in his wood shop in Long Beach Monday, March 22, 2021. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Chefs&#8217; knives, cutting boards, coffee handles, tools, pizza peels and shovels. Shift knobs. Door knobs. Lots of knobs. Even an 11-foot conference table.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s almost nothing, LaRose said, he won\u2019t consider trying to make out of used skateboard decks. Except for gun parts. Don\u2019t ask, he said, not happening.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSkateboards don\u2019t belong on guns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>When LaRose felt like he was starting to get a handle on his crafting, he began posting his work on social media, namely Instagram. Seven years ago, this was pre-algorithm. His work started to catch some traction and he landed his first commission from South Korea\u2014an espresso handle.<\/p>\n<p>Then, ex-pro skater, Mikey Ray, commissioned LaRose for a small pocketknife. Ray shared the piece on his own channels which garnered LaRose more attention. It was then, he said, he knew he could make a career out of this.<\/p>\n<p>Machine manufacturing company Grizzly (yes, that\u2019s what his cat is named after) thought so too and offered LaRose all the tools he could need, which helped refine his art, putting it on another level entirely.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10000040900\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10000040900\" style=\"width: 1110px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-10000040900\" src=\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/23105636\/0305-LaRose-6-1110x702.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1110\" height=\"702\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10000040900\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Justin LaRose holds his shop cat, Grizzly, while at the shop in Long Beach Monday, March 22, 2021. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He got into the game at a good time, too. Though Japanese artist Haroshi is arguably the most renowned artist in this realm\u2014his iconic middle finger statue made of skateboard decks outside of Huf headquarters was<a href=\"https:\/\/arrestedmotion.com\/2020\/06\/blm-haroshi-x-huf\/\"> defaced into a fist<\/a> last year during the anti-police brutality protests\u2014LaRose said when he started seven years ago, no one else was really doing what he was. He found a niche in coffee and espresso wares, chefs\u2019 tools, and practical, handheld objects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow there\u2019s dudes making ninja swords. There\u2019s dudes making toilet seats, making anything out of skateboards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s rare for people to find a career that ignites passion. Even rarer, still, that they find one that fuses all of their passions together. Skateboarding, woodworking, even his love for coffee, have all been blended into one beautiful craft through recycled skateboard art. And for LaRose, he said it&#8217;s kind of hard to get over.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s literally like being at a skatepark every day, being able to play, explore my creativity,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I\u2019ll never get tired of this. Legitimately, I feel like I\u2019ve just cracked the iceberg.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can you make out of recycled skateboard decks? Turns out, nearly anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":71511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32100],"tags":[175],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[8767],"class_list":["post-23715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-studio","tag-in-the-studio","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72573,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23715\/revisions\/72573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23715"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=23715"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}