Deep in the salty-aired Outer Sunset district of San Francisco is the headquarters of Iris Skateboards. It’s a skater’s heaven, with a garage built out into a full workshop, decks by the hundreds are stacked everywhere and a bowl resides in the backyard. What started as a skateboard company where old recycled boards are cut and formed together to make a new board, Iris and the man behind it, George Rocha, is expanding into much more than skateboards.

Australian artist Melissa Grisancich is one of the talented artists that RVCA has been working with for some time now. Her work, which is all handmade on recycled material — usually canvas or wood — evokes characteristics of old circus posters mixed with the aesthetics of traditional tattoo, but with a modern romantic twist to it. 

Bay Area-native and Oakland-based artist Cannon Dill likes to let his work speak for itself. He is a coffee-drinking, soft-speaking, and hand-rolled cigarette smoking jack of all trades. He can sew, draw, screen print, paint, graffiti, and is starting to think about trying his hand at filmmaking in the somewhat near future.

This is no place for slip-on Vans. Parking is a bitch in the Mission District of the city, where artist Kindah Khalidy has her studio. Waiting in the lobby of her building she looks up and smiles. Then, after following her up the stairs to a space on the second floor, she opens the door and walks in.

Walking into Handlebar Cafe in downtown Santa Barbara with Converse high tops half hidden by cuffed blue jeans, and a brown t-shirt, no one, including the blonde with the latte would be able to tell that climber, surfer, former north shore lifeguard, flight attendant, Patagonia staff photographer, and all around waterman Jeff Johnson was standing in line with them.

Javier grew up drawing, with early aspirations to be a tattoo artist, “I would redraw different tattoos and observe them and their different styles.”

TUCKED AWAY IN A CORNER OF ISLA VISTA, CALIF., IN ONE OF THE MOST PARTY-HEAVY SQUARE MILES ALONG THE COAST, SITS A LITTLE BLUE HOUSE. FOAM PARTICLES OFTEN LAY SCATTERED ACROSS THE DRIVEWAY AND A SLIGHT STENCH OF RESIN STAGNANTLY LINGERS IN THE AIR. THIS IS THE PLACE THAT SURFBOARD SHAPER COOPER HAMILTON CALLS HOME, AND IT’S ALSO WHERE HIS SURFBOARD COMPANY, YAFAA SURFBOARDS, OPERATES.