For those who don’t know, where have you been staying during this quarantine and how has it been treating you?
I was living in Brooklyn for the past six years or so after I moved out of San Francisco, but around the end of last year my girlfriend and I moved down to south Florida. We both grew up down here and she started working with her family’s business and they needed her down here so we went for it! It was feeling like it was time for us to leave New York in a way any way, this was pre coronavirus. It’s just a harder existence up there regardless, I feel terrible for everyone up there currently. We bought our first home a few months ago and we’ve been doing a bunch of work on it so we’re staying with my girls parents on a small island town until we finish the renovations. The pandemic definitely slowed that process down, but that’s okay it’s been alright down here. All the family is healthy and I feel very fortunate to be able to say that. We’re all trying to keep busy and respect each other’s personal space. I think that’s important to be able to maintain that balance still.
You’ve been making custom hats for a while, how do you get creative and come up with the ideas for each of them?
Yeah it’s probably been like eight or nine years making hats. I really sucked at it for about half of those years honestly, but I got it down now. I can make the fuck out of a hat. Which kinda led me to using all the weird materials. One thing led to the next and it just got funnier and funnier like oh shit I wonder if this material could work. Could I actually sew a flour tortilla or actually sew a fried egg, or just say fuck it and deep fry a hat. It’s been hilarious. That’s a key in all of it. But I also have been making private label hats for many other brands and designers. Been really exciting to work with and be trusted by entities I respect.
Has spending so much time inside helped or hurt your creative process?
Well realistically, and I’m not sure what this says about me, but my life hasn’t changed all that much in respects to my time inside. I guess I’m an introvert or homebody? I’m definitely not skating every waking moment anymore like I did for most of my life. Still skating but in a different way. But I mean I have mostly worked for myself the past few years and had a big home studio in Brooklyn. And my girlfriend and I don’t really go out to bars or anything. Kinda just worked from home, cooked at home mostly and just chilled. But yeah I’ve been crazy busy during this time. I offered a couple of my art hats on sale for the first time publicly over the internet and the orders piled in, which I am so grateful for. Truly a dream come true.
What’s your process like for making the hats and how long does it take?
Well I’m writing this in the middle of an art hat failure, which I have to try and rectify today. They are all different, I have a couple right now that are kinda transformative ones that will take a couple weeks to develop but then there’s others that I can make in like 30 minutes. They all have weird tricks that enable the material to be sewn and behave like fabric. It’s all trial and error, I guess I’ve been failing a lot more lately on them and not posting as much which has been frustrating, but also a good thing in a way that I guess I’m pushing what’s possible with them and learning new techniques and stuff. Got some fun new ones coming up soon no doubt.
It’s awesome that you’ve been making face masks too. I saw they sold out and you only sold them for $1 because the platform wouldn’t allow you to charge $0. Did you do them all on your own or did you have some help from other people on this?
Yeah! Really stoked that I was able to figure out how to make them. Very gratifying feeling to be able to do something like that for people. My girlfriend and her mom helped cut a lot of the elastic strings for the ear loops, that was a huge help. Because the heat press settings are super sensitive I have to do them in large batches of each step, assembly line style. Each fold of the face mask the material gets thicker and needs to be adjusted and the margin of adjustment between sealing and burning is so small that it takes some time to get it right and then be able to move through the whole batch. I wanted to give this first batch of 1,250 for free, but the big cartel won’t allow you to charge $0 cause they need their processing fees. So I charged $1 for shipping. Basically the break down is I’m in on the project for about $1,000-$1,200 out of pocket materials and then shipping costs around $1.20 per five mask package and big cartel charges a fee. So each $1 order probably costs me like $2.50, so unfortunately there is a financial limit to me being able to sustain offering the masks at a loss. I’ve been very happy that I’m able to do it, it’s just I can’t do it this way forever and hopefully we don’t need masks forever.I think for the next batch I’ll probably just up the shipping cost to $2.50 to try and break even with it and still be able to get them to people for as cheap as I possibly can offer them without hurting myself. Also they just take a really long time to make. 1,250 masks that sold out in an hour has taken me about a month to make. I do have enough materials still to make 5-6 thousand more though, so I’m going to keep at it and offer them as long as people need them.
I saw that your hats were recently featured in the short film called THE MIDAS HAT. Did you make those hats custom for the film or did they pick which ones they wanted from your collection?
Yeah oh my god so stoked on how that came out. Colin Read really is a genius in his field. Can’t wait to watch his full length feature film and hopefully help work on it in some way whenever that happens. He’s the real deal for sure. Colin and I had worked on a short film for Falcon Bowse a year earlier called the bower bird and we have been friends through skating for a long time before that. I think I was still in the beginnings of the art hats but I had a stock of 20-30 and we started bouncing the ideas off each other and it just grew loosely into that story. We mostly used the hats I had made previously, unrelated to the film, but there was a couple I made to fill in gaps and transitions. Super fun time, can’t thank everyone involved enough. So stoked it’s out in the world now.
Have you been getting out to skate at all during this quarantine?
Yeah actually! Like I said were lucky we’re in a smallish island town and there’s not a ton of people around outside so my girlfriend rollerblades and I skateboard around the neighborhood almost everyday. We wear masks and if there’s anyone else out we cross the street or whatever. We never get close to anyone. Definitely lucky to be able to have the opportunity to be outside right now. We’re trying to be respectful of that though, physically and digitally. Not trying to bum anyone out that literally can only stand on their board in their living room right now. Heart goes out to you. Hang in there you’ll be back out soon I’m sure.
What else have you been up to?
Well I just started a small garden. Tomatoes and squash, kohlrabi and herbs. Pretty stoked to watch it start growing. Working on our house renovations a bit each day. Just bouncing back and forth from working on hats and masks and exercising and making food. Watching some good shows and movies, listening to podcasts as I’m sure most of us are. Trying to just stay happy, healthy and do whatever I possibly can to be a help or be a positive influence on society.
Thanks a lot Brian.
Thank you guys for the opportunity for me to talk about some of the fun/dumb stuff I’ve been doing. Hope all’s well with you and yours.
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