Today on AirTalk: SoCal History: Skateboarding
LAist/Airtalk with Larry Mantle
3/9/26
SoCal History: A look at the origins of skateboard design
Southern California is the birthplace of a plethora of American inventions and innovations, chief among them: the humble skateboard. Four wheels, a plank of wood, and some metal bits to tie it all together, and boom: you have a mode of transportation that’s relatively easy to learn but incredibly tough to master. Skateboarding and skateboard culture began in Southern California back in the 1950s, and took hold of the cultural zeitgeist later in the century. Now, a new exhibit at the Craft in America Center in Mid City is exploring the creative, innovative, and sometimes wonky designs that have blessed Southern California’s sidewalks for decades. Joining Larry this morning for more on this exhibit and the history of skateboard design are Todd Huber, skateboard historian and founder of the International Skateboarding Hall of Fame, and Emily Zaiden, Director and lead curator of the Craft in America Center, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit arts organization founded in 2004 focused on original handcrafted work.
The Vehicles of Expression: The Craft of the Skateboard exhibition is running from March 14 through May 30 at the Craft In America Center in Mid City. More information is available here.
Craft in America announces skateboard exhibition, Vehicles of Expression
Woodworking Network
By Dakota Smith
March 6, 2026
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Craft in America, a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization founded in 2004 to promote original handcrafted work, is hosting Vehicles of Expression: The Craft of the Skateboard. The exhibit will be one of the first museum exhibitions in the U.S. to focus on the crafted innovations of skateboards, starting with their inception in Southern California and ranging to contemporary, irreverent expressions from artists across the nation.
Beginning March 14 through May 30, Abe Dubin, skateboarder and multimedia artist, will address the “why” that fuels skateboard innovation and how the melding of imagination with physical objects (and the altering thereof) is the essence of skateboarding.
Where other exhibitions have focused on deck art and visual culture of skateboarding, Vehicles of Expression focuses on the historical development of the skateboard as a constructed object; from rough-and-ready, homemade inventions with lumber, nails, and repurposed wheels, to contemporary high-tech, ecologically-conscious uses of materials, and ultimately, performative and conceptual works that perpetuate its mischievousness and spirit of continual exploration.
From its very inception the skateboard has been the product of MacGyvering things together, drawing from hockey, roller skating, surfing and go carts. This exhibition will be one of the very first to substantively present skateboards as material culture and as handcrafted objects of artistic expression. In terms of design, material, and construction, skateboards are some of the most common, widespread crafted objects in our world, yet they have generally been overlooked by museums. Skateboards can be artfully made and used for equally artful performative acts. Intended to show wear and tear as badges of pride, these carefully crafted objects exist in a state of potential ephemerality. This show will expand definitions of craft, art, and performance by looking at this beloved and familiar object. Arguably one of LA’s biggest cultural exports, the show will focus on the artistry and history of the handmade, handshaped skateboard.
Some skateboards are made to be cherished simply as gorgeous objects and others made for artful performance—stunts of deconstruction and midair transformation engineered into the boards—in each case, departing radically from the the sport’s competitive aspect.
With skating’s spirit of undaunted exploration and ingenuity, the exhibition celebrates its diversity of approaches—being both trickster and diplomat. Intended to show wear and tear as badges of pride, these carefully crafted objects exist in a state of potential ephemerality. This show will expand definitions of craft, art, and performance by presenting multiple vantage points on this well loved and ubiquitous object.
If you would like to attend, send an email to rsvp@craftinamerica.org
Original article here.