The Story Behind The Art You’ve Seen Your Entire Surfing Life

In some beige-painted, run-of-the-mill San Diego classroom in the 1980s, a young Andy Davis sat bored at his desk as the teacher “sounded like all the adults do on Charlie Brown,” Andy explained. “You know… ‘wa wa blah blah’.”

This was before the ubiquity of ADHD diagnoses, and Andy, sensing he was a little different than his classmates, sought a career in professional surfing until — as they do for so many of us — those dreams dried up.

Andy switched to art. His work has since been featured in street murals all over San Diego, exhibitions around the world, and what the entire surfing world has likely seen the most of — collaborations with brands like Billabong, Vans, Captain Fin Co., Penny Skateboards, Igloo Coolers, Birkenstocks, YETI, Nixon, Uluwatu Surf Villas, Patagonia Cardiff, and Sun Bum.

“I’m really lucky to have a lot of freedom unless I have a deadline,” Andy told Stab. “But I try to be physically in my studio every day, music on, working on a piece. I actually work on the Sub Bum campus in Encinitas and have my own space there and everything. Sub Bum has been so good to me and while I’m not an employee or anything, I work with the creative team quite often and this collaboration came naturally out of that.”

Andy also offered up-and-coming artists in Stab’s audience some words of wisdom, “More than anything it’s the Three P’s: Practice, patience, and passion. And it just takes a long, long time,” Andy explained. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. In this day and age, you’re probably gonna have to do different things to pay the bills as you work on your craft. But if you’re really obsessed with it and extremely dedicated and use your relationships and social media you’re just gonna do it. But I’ve been working on my art 30 years now and it just takes time, you just keep whittling away at it.”

Without a boss, Andy also ran us through the less sexy aspects of being an artist. “A lot of it too these days is normal work stuff — checking emails, looking at taxes, doing social media — even though I actually don’t have a computer, just my phone [laughs],” Andy said. “I know social media can be detrimental and for a long time I didn’t try to use it for exposure for my art but more as a scrapbook, but now I’m more into it. I think it’s a great way to share work and keep up with what my friends and artists are doing. I don’t really have anyone in charge of me, so I kinda have to hustle.”

For more Andy, enjoy the film above, the pics below, and this closing remark: “I try to slow myself down and let go of too much thought. Controlled chaos – that’s the fun element to me. I’ve been doing it for so long now that I’m not fearful of something that might not work—you can just keep going”: