Thursday 9 December 2010
A surfboard painted with sardines spinning around in a bait ball sold for R19,000 last night at the Wavescape Surfboard Art Auction.
The artwork by Osnat de Villiers, part of a Save Our Seas Foundation initiative that raised R120,000 for ocean charities such as NSRI and Shark Spotters, was auctioned by comedian Mark Sampson at trendy Café Depasco in Cape Town last night.
Depasco burst at the seams as lovers of art, surfers and environmentally-conscious guests gathered to scrutinize 12 surfboards up for auction at the event, which served as the launch of the Wavescape Surf Film Festival. Sampson worked the crowd and when a board reached the 10k threshold, the crowd would give it horns.
“In tight economic times, this amount was an impressive indication of how important people feel about the ocean and the role it plays in our lives,” said Steve Pike, director of Wavescape.
Co-director Chris Mason said: “There were some exciting bidding wars for a few of the boards as our auctioneer comedian Mark Sampson fuelled the competition between guests from Tableview and Tokai, creating just the right kind of anticipatory tension and fun needed to encourage people to buy these collectible surfboards.”
The 2010 exhibition featured fresh new talents Black Koki and 35ten73, from the Love and Hate crew who are making names for themselves on the South African art scene, the renowned beat poet and graffiti legend Ewok worked with underground talent Bones, Cape Argus cartoonist Chip Snaddon, ND Mazin (aka celebrated cartoonist Andy Mason), Durban artists Scott Robertson and Kim Longhurst, Ice 7 and Matthew Pinker.
The auction got off to an exciting start when the board created by the Ticket to Ride Foundation artist Claire Homewood and development surfer kids from Masiphumelele realized R6100 setting the tone for the evening. This money will be used to purchase boards for the foundation to further train young development surfers.
A recycled mini-surfboard reshaped from a broken board by surfer Conn Bertish from the My First Surfboard Project which turns broken boards into new boards for beginner surfers who can’t afford them, racked R11,000. This will go towards recycling broken surfboards that would usually end up in dumps and landfills.
The highest nail-biting bid of R19 000 went to Osnat de Villiers’ fascinating “Bait Ball” surfboard. De Villiers is a well-known artist who paints surfboards for board-shaper and big wave pioneer Pierre de Villiers. This was followed closely by a bid of R18 000 for a special hollow-wooden board shaped from Japanese cedar by artisan Patrick Burnett, painted by fine artist Kelly John Gough.
The Wavescape Surf Film Festival now opens with the ‘Wavescape Ticket to Ride Night’ at the Labia Cinema on Orange Street tonight (Thursday, December 9) at 20:30 with the screenings of seminal surf documentaries ‘Somewhere near Tapachula’ and ‘Surfing Favela’, and includes a raffle to win a brand new ‘Dumpster Diver’ surf board donated by top Cape Town shaper DVG as well as a host of prizes donated by Quiksilver. All proceeds raised will be donated to the Ticket to Ride Foundation.
Then tomorrow (Friday, December 10) there is an open-air free screening of the film ‘Scratching the Surface” on Clifton Fourth Beach after the sun goes down. The film includes cutting edge camera technology in use by pioneering surf filmmakers. Thousands of like-minded people gather on the beach with picnics from early in the evening to enjoy a long, languid summer evening. Indoor films will be screened at the Brass Bell in Kalk Bay from December 12 to 15 and at the Labia Theatre on Orange on December 9 and December 16 to 20.
For details call the infoline 079 0260 669 or www.wavescape.co.za.
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