Andrew Kidman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amyJVu34G3w

It’s outrageous that Coal Seam Gas companies are being given licenses by State Governments to explore and extract gas in Australia. Coal Seam Gas, already banned in France, is an extremely dangerous operation for every reason that is explained in this short film. Please watch and circulate this information where ever you can.

In the words of Nick Cave “One More Man Down”. One of the greatest New York surfers ever: Mike Macchiato tied the knot at City Hall to his beautiful lady Heidi Fitterling on the weekend. Mike wore a pink and white striped gingham bow tie to the celebration for his ladies. Congratulations mate! All style.

Four Dreamboards and one 6’5” channel bottom Widow Maker, shaped in early January and painted by Mark Sutherland. Mark taking stills from his animated film dream - hence the name of the boards. Mark noted during the painting of the boards that it was a similar process to when he painted the animation cells for dream in 1987 - blocking in say the colour brown and then moving onto the next board to block in the brown and so on. He said back in the day before computer animation there used to be rooms of people drawing and colouring animation cells, each working on their own animation part or colour and then moving them onto the next animator or colour master.

Before I shaped these boards I visited channel legend Alan Byrne on the Gold Coast at his factory. Alan was good enough to give me a one-on-one in cutting channels. Alan has been on the channel programme since 1978 when he witnessed Col Smith (Newcastle) ride a Jim Pollard original channel bottom at Sunset and Pipeline. Citing a later conversation with Pollard about the principals of channels as a turning point in his life. Alan still hand shapes all his boards from a blank. If you’re interested in one of his boards he can be contacted here.

http://www.byrningspears.com

The boards I saw at the factory waiting to be glassed were incredible.

Back in the shaping bay this week. First one in a while. 6 7 single fin.

This photo reminds me of a quote from the Dave Parmenter interview that features in
Lost in the Ether

“He came around to my shaping room and it was dark, but the door was open and he looked in there. He just went, “ohh, just to see that board like that again, the way you used to see it on the North Shore, looking in and seeing a board sitting there, a foil—you just don’t see this anymore,” he was just like ‘ohhh chicken skin’. And all the hairs were standing up on his arm…he was all emotional about it—just the love that he had for it, it really touched me.” - Dave Parmenter

Tracks was first publsihed in 1970 by Albert Falzon, David Elfick and Paul Witzig.

“The magazine they created was all surfing, leavened with a bit of cynicism, anti-Vietnam War polemic, dope, swearing, naked women with brown shopping bags over their heads, and recipes. Witzig says his inspiration came from Rolling Stone magazine, the Whole Earth Catalog and London Oz.” - Extract from the Sydney Morning Herald

Shown here a few tracks after an east coast snowstorm.

Thanks for taking the time to visit the new website. It’s been a mammoth exercise compiling my work for this project. Hopefully it gives you some kind of understanding of what I’m trying to articulate. I’ll continue to update this ‘News’ section, much like a Blog. I’m very close to finishing my latest film ‘Lost in the Ether’. The film will be released with a book so you can have a better understanding of the concepts and subjects that are featured within the film. Books and films are very different mediums, though I believe they compliment each other beautifully -  a book answers many of the questions that are left unanswered by a film.

On the music front: ‘The Windy Hills’ (the band I play in) are putting the finishing touches on their debut record due out in December.

It’s interesting times out there for creators of my ilk. Much of what I do these days has been devalued by the immediacy and free content that’s available on the Internet. It has become increasingly difficult to make a living as an independent artist. It poses many questions: How much do I give away? Will people continue to support what I do if they have to pay for it? One thing I have realised is the things that I produce have to be unique. They have to contain more information, information that can’t be found on the web. Hence the production of a book to be released with the new film. This is a lot more work for me and a massive production cost, as printing books is one of the most expensive ways of releasing information. But I believe in books - they can be beautiful. I believe in the time one allocates to sitting down and consuming something that is not on a computer. I believe in a person turning a page and showing it to a friend. I still believe in the smell of paper and the romance of books. Over the years I have tried to make things that I like for other people to enjoy. Have fun looking around andrewkidman.com and once again, thanks for your support in the past.
Sincerely, Andrew