Virginia Beach event combines art, surfing

VIRGINIA BEACH

Swim trunks on, paintbrush in hand, Bob Langston stood on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk on Sunday and regarded the ocean.

Out on their boards, competitive surfers zoomed down crests of seawater. Langston painted a wide swath of bright blue on his canvas and captured a surfer catching the first waves of summer.

“I’m a surfer, too, so it’s like my whole element,” Langston said of the Surf Art Expo, where he and about 45 other artists showcased their hang-ten-inspired art.

“It’s what I love to do, you know?” he said.

About 235 surfers from across the country flocked this weekend to the eighth annual Steel Pier Classic, a surfing competition that honors the Beach’s original steel pier surfing spot and officially kicks off the season. It continues today between 1st and 5th streets.

The event is about more than just catching a good wave, said Mary Knight, president of the Virginia Longboard Federation.

That’s why, behind the surfers, artists are invited to showcase their work.

“That’s what this whole weekend is about: the art of surfing,” she said.

Down on the beach, Virginia Beach high school students are showing and selling their art, too. The collection comes from 10 high schools and includes a life-size papier-mâché mermaid, a crab sculpture made of seashells and a painting of a dog on a surfboard.

Participation is growing every year, said Ernie Sawyer, an assistant principal at Bayside High. Students get to keep any profits; about 400 participated this year, compared with 40 a few years ago.

“It’s been overwhelming,” Sawyer said.

All kinds of art also are welcome among the professional artists, so tents are full of Hawaiian bone carvings, mosaics made of storm-door glass and tooled leather decorated with sea turtles.

Langston hung his tiki mask caricatures alongside bright seascapes. He lives in Virginia Beach and has been surfing since he was 16.

“It’s just one of those things where you get hooked into the lifestyle and culture,” he said.

Michelle Abbitt said it’s easy to be inspired by the ocean when she lives five blocks from the beach. She uses seashells and other materials to make her own tiles for surf-themed mosaics.

“That’s my colors, that’s what I’ve loved,” she said. “It’s kind of funny since I went to high school in Missouri.”

Cindy Lackore said she got hooked on glass art after years of watercolor portraits. She turns her tiny glass crabs, oysters and seashells into pendants.

One of them, shaped like a shark’s tooth, has a drip of red glass like blood. It’s been popular with the surfers, she said laughing.

“I was trying to be gnarly,” she said. Elisabeth Hulette, (757) 222-5216, elisabeth.hulette@pilotonline.com