My old friend Evil Tom sent me this link which he subtitled “Why adults should not portray teenagers in their art.” “Fledgling” – All of us feel, or have felt, the awful and wonderful growth of this pre-teen skateboarder. Small wings on his back, he wants to fly yet is not ready to soar. Is he slouching to defy, to define himself, or to bear the weight of wings getting larger every day? Installed in downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin, this life size standing bronze figure reminds us young citizens need community support. Well, at least his heart is in the right place, although I’m worried about his heart on. I’m bummed out at our Wisconsin readers. This tip came from a guy living in Michigan!

If the current crop of serious artists who also happen to be skaters continues grow, the art historians are going to have to invent a new term for this type of art. Is there a term for postmodern examination of a specific act and the related, revered artifact, shared by one large tribe? (Feel free to call it Kilwagism, if you need to.) Cynthia Connolly is curating a show called Skateboard Side Effects at a place called Artisphere in Alringtopn Virginia. The image above is Richard Vosseller’s ‘Physical Manipulations of Structural Surfaces – A Homage to Skating.’ A videotape of a closed session is on display in the gallery. No word on what else is there, but admission is free. If any of our East Coast readers attend, give us an update. UPDATE: Pictures up on Born Ugly. Art by Tim Bearse, Rick Charnoski and Coan Buddy Nichols, Sean Greene, Richard Vossler, Lia Halloran, Ben Ashworth, and Mickael B. And yes, that ramp structure is actually skateable. UPDATE 2: Added video of the art being (gasp!) skated. [Photo: Jay Westcott] – Thanks to Kelly Robertson for the tip.

Darío Escobar is an artist born and living in Guatemala. He’s made a habit of deconstructing sports equipment, and has a fondness for skateboarding. The top image is a 2000 piece made from silver, tin, and aluminum applied to a skateboard. One of the coolest things on his official site actually happens to be a pair of inline skates. – Thanks to Boy Ipoh for the tip

This mirrored discoboard is almost a year old. I spotted it over at YoBeat’s coverage of an old art show benefit for the Eugene skatepark. No word on who the artist was. It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Eugene. There’s a sobering infographic on the Skaters for Eugene Skateparks web site. There’s about $370,000 in the kitty, but they’re still 400k in the hole. Eugene’s ABC affiliate has a video about the state of the union from last August on their web site. For some reason it takes a few minutes to load after the pre-roll commercial.

We’ve seen wine corks before, and now we have tires. I wasn’t going to post this but I really liked the video at the end of the post. Something about the sound quality made me pay attention. This setup is so loose that he looks like he’s riding one of those caster snakeboards, and riding it well. Good stuff, check it out on Kraffftwork.com. There’s some fun things on there, get off your high horse and enjoy it. – Holy cow. I just came back to this . This guy is a genius. Check out the chair board. – Thanks to OCD (ha ha I mean Kyle) for the tip.

There is going to be a photography exhibit and release party for the new book ‘Full Bleed’ this Saturday, October 2nd, at BAR, formerly PS 14. a book documenting the past 30 years of New York City skateboarding through they eyes of a camera lens of the best photographers in the skateboarding world, including Giovanni Reda, Jessica Bard, Ivory Serra, Tobin Yelland, Miki Vuckovich, Thomas Campbell, Larry Clark, Ed Templeton, Jerry Hsu, Atiba Jefferson, Bryce Knights, Angela Boatwright, Athena Currey, Kenneth Cappello, Charlie Samuels, Andy Kessler, Mike O’Meally, Sammy Glucksman, and Allen Ying. If you want to get the book now, get it the best place for New York City skateboarding, Shut.

And I’m not talking about a D&D monster. After seeing last week’s algebra ramp, Greg Baller sent this link over at the Death Science blog. There is absolutely no further information available about this art piece except for the rumor that it was skated before it flipped over. I swear someone once sent me a picture of a Thrasher tail light made by the folks at Death Science, but I can’t find it. – Thanks to Greg Baller for the tip.

The recycled skateboard material arms race is heating up. People use them to make art, pens, wallets, stools, lamps, office dividers, shoes, and yes, jewelry. There isn’t much being done with used wheels. I believe someone is using manufacturing wheels with recycled post consumer urethane, I’ll have to hunt that down. In the meantime, here’s a video from Portland’s own Maple XO, featuring Lindsay Jo’s earrings made from recycled skateboard wheels.

Andrew Lewicki is at it again. In addition to gold plated grind rails and walnut launch ramps, he’s made a thing called y=x². The formula is approximated in the transition of the ramp, and you’ll notice the stairs to the deck can’t actually help you get anywhere. I admire his work conceptually, but I have to think he’s playing to an extremely limited subset of both the art world and the skateboarding world. Still, it tickles a part of my brain just knowing that someone goes through the trouble and expense to actually construct these items. Then again it tickles a different part of my brain thinking about the fact that all that wood has been wasted approximating a structure that can’t be skated. – Thanks to Kelly Robertson for the tip. [Source: MROD]

But they seem pretty clever. I’ve never seen the show America’s Got Talent or even the UK version that I have to assume exists and the original idea was licensed form was licensed from. That’s OK, one good “homage” deserves another. From this clip, it’s apparent that a group of frat boys got together to make their own version of BMG, and it looks surprisingly good.These frat guys are called Defying Gravity. They’re ex-frat guys actually, I guess they dropped out of school to be on the show. I hope it works out for you guys, but you need a new name. I guess it’s at this point that I’m going to need to add some sort of “circus” category, seeing as how this isn’t the first time we’ve had skateboarding mentioned in conjunction with the circus. Defying Gravity takes on a bit of skateboarding in this segment that reminds me a little bit of some of those fingerboarding videos where they skate on turntables with fixed obstacles. – Thanks to Seth Levy for the tip.