Charlie Coatney exclusive on Subterráneo.
How skateboarding influences your art also... and
What's the connection between jazz and skateboarding for you?
I have always drawn pictures as a kid, emulating skateboard graphics in the confines of my room. Ed Templeton was my earliest real influence in art. If he did not introduce me to his world, I would most likely not do art, design, or photography at all. He would give me drawing pads and markers at his kitchen table and tell me to draw something. I was super intimidated and embarrassed, so I would always go home and try harder to draw or pick up paint and mess around. As for design and photography he would design skateboard graphics, magazine advertisements, which he would put in a binder type folder and show me. Each time I would see these I would think in my head, how he got the artwork to come out in this format. That’s when I picked up my first point and shoot camera, as well as trying to make art on the computer.
The connection between jazz music and skateboarding came at a very indecisive period for me, skateboarding was in a very strange state. When Jason Lee and Chris Pastras started Stereo Skateboards it really changed the way I looked at skateboarding, skateboard graphics, art, photography and music as a whole. The Video “A Visual Sound” is really what introduced me to jazz music. Next thing you know I was buying jazz records, not only for the music, but for the design aesthetic as well. Soon after I began to minimize everything I was doing at the time, and decided to take a more modern, minimalist, cleaner approach to just about everything I was doing in life. And the rest is history. .....
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Film photography by Charlie Coatney
