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SCS Russ Pope Tosser Premium Pocket T-Shirt

SoCal Skateshop

SCS Russ Pope Tosser Premium Pocket T-Shirt

We are stoked to have local skateboard and skateboard industry legend Russ Pope offer to do a one-off t-shirt for the shop. Russ is a local here in Mission Viejo and on any given evening you might find him getting his nightly session here on our mini. A great humble man that has probably touched you one way or another throughout your skateboarding journey.. Here is a bio on Russ. Be sure to check out his site for updates on what is up to and where he might be showing his art.

ARTIST BIO

Russ Pope has been an artist since he was able to hold a pencil. He drew through many days at school when others were doing schoolwork. He drew comic book superheroes at home and invented characters that came to life with the touch of his pencil to paper. Art classes were the best part of high school. As a teen, art and skateboarding first collided when some of his art was used by skateboard companies. During these years, he worked and rode for SmallRoom Skateboards, traveled to skate spots around the US and worked in a skate shop in San Luis Obispo, California.

Since then, skateboarding and art have continued to sustain Russ's drive to create. During his college years, he ran SMA Skateboards, started Creature Skateboards and took art classes at night. Living in a redwood grove in a house heated only with a homemade wood-burning stove, Russ set up an easel in the kitchen and, in the winter, often had to paint by candle light when the power went out for days at a time.

In 1995, Russ moved back to San Luis Obispo and started Scarecrow Skateboards. The time Russ was able to spend painting was limited by his new business and family. As things settled, his garage was turned into an art studio and his paintings became larger, more vibrant and more free flowing. The pieces Russ created during these years show transition from a more controlled, symmetrical painting style to a looser style expressing motion and music.

Russ's commitment to skateboarding has continued for 20 years, so has his dedication to his art. After stints at Black Label, Duffs, and Myrtle Russ finds himself at Fallen Footwear. Russ's studio is now a different garage in Orange County, California filled with cans of rejected Home Depot paint, bottles of ink, and cans of spray paint. There are canvases and wooden boxes of all sizes. This garage is most alive late at night after his kids are in bed, when he puts on his headset and dances his paintbrush on the canvases. It is common to find him on his knees hunkering over a canvas on the floor while two dry simultaneously on easels and one is precariously balance against a folding chair. Russ seems to work best when he is adding bits and pieces to many canvases at one time. The movements of his body and his paintbrush show clearly how he thrives in the chaos of multiple projects and mounds of paint cans creating mazes on the floor.

When one looks at Russ's art, it is easy to see that his painting is as integral to his life and sanity as food, water, music, skateboarding and family. The rawness of his work can be felt by viewing the large brush strokes, thick lines and drippy backgrounds of many pieces. One senses music and movement through the application of color, image and brush strokes. Elements of culture, politics, animals and celebration pop out of the base of his art. It is easy to feel freedom, chaos and release when one views Russ's pieces as a body of work, these feelings are fundamental to his life and work. --J. Bostwick

Russ has shown his work both domestically and internationally in: San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, New York, Brooklyn, Miami, Austin, Washington DC, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, Vancouver, Whistler, Hawaii, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, and Japan.
 

Please Note: We do our best to provide as much detail about the products we sell. Sometimes Deck,Sticker and Shirt Colorways (background color/deck graphic color scheme) and wheel graphics can vary from the image displayed. If the items description needs clarification please feel free to give us call as we are here to help
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