From repurposed wheels to shag carpet, a new exhibit looks at the origins of skateboards

Spectrum 1 News
By Tara Lynn Wagner
April 10, 2026

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Before they were a 3-and-a-half billion-dollar global industry, skateboards started with the humblest beginnings.

“They’re definitely tiny,” Emily Zaiden said, looking at two small handmade skateboards from the mid-1900s.

Zaiden is the director and curator of the Craft in America Center. Their current exhibit, “Vehicles of Expression: The Craft of the Skateboard,” sees skateboarding as a craft story — one driven not initially by artisans but by kids using repurposed wheels.

“[They] were detached from roller skates and attached to planks of all kinds,” Zaiden said. “Any kind of discarded wood, everything from old furniture that people would break down, and then nail those roller skate wheels onto them.”

Using so many nails.

“Beautifully spaced as far as those nails,” she said. “So there’s some craftsmanship involved in that, certainly.”

Over time, the wheels evolved from metal to clay to urethane. The shape and use of boards changed as Southern California became the epicenter of skateboard manufacturing and culture.

But what never changed, Zaiden explained, is the way skateboards were used as a way to showcase one’s personal identity.

“The idea of decorating the surface of a skateboard is something that was there all along,” she said. “It was this extra canvas, essentially, for expression.”

One from the 1960s, for instance, is actually covered in shag carpet. Zaiden can’t help but laugh.

“The creativity, the humor, the outlandishness and just total fun of what you can do with a skateboard,” she said. “And that was what we really wanted to highlight with the show: the range of creativity.”

Mark X Farina is one artist involved in the exhibit, which, in addition to skateboards past and present, also includes conceptual works of art.

“I think growing up, other than comic books, skateboards were my first intro into seeing art and art that was nontraditional,” he said.

Farina, a longtime resident of SoCal, actually grew up skateboarding in Western Pennsylvania.

“We would just find the largest hill we could and try to survive going down it,” he said with a laugh. “One of my first skateboards had California Dreaming cut out of the grip tape. It was destiny, maybe, that I made it out here to California to live.”

Farina still rides between his home and his art studio on the west side, where he creates what he calls unrideable pieces — attaching wheels to found, often natural materials like palm fronds or coconuts, even tribal art and taxidermy.

He’s not just fascinated by skateboards as objects, but also by the world around them.

“Looking at that culture and looking at the art that came from the streets and into skateboarding is really inspirational,” Farina said.

The free exhibit is open to the public, and Zaiden loves hearing from visitors about their own memories, which they happily share, caught in the nostalgia of the display, which includes many pieces on loan from the Skateboard Hall of Fame in Simi Valley.

What You Need To Know
“Vehicles of Expression: The Craft of the Skateboard,” currently on exhibit at the Craft in America Center, sees skateboarding as a craft story that began with kids using repurposed roller skate wheels

Over time, the wheels evolved from metal to clay to urethane, and the shape and use of boards changed as Southern California became the epicenter of skateboard manufacturing

Besides an array of vintage skateboards, many on loan from the Skateboard Hall of Fame, the exhibit also includes conceptual works of art inspired by skateboards and the culture around them

“Vehicles of Expression: The Craft of the Skateboard” runs through May 30

Original article here.