People always ask us the story of how Two Crows came to be our logo. There is a long story and a short one. We usually tell the shortest one possible just to spare any boredom. Here is the long story if you are interested.
It was 2005, I was living at Sunset beach in the house where Turtle had his shop in the movie North Shore. I was making a lot of art trying to get a t-shirt thing going with a few fellow artists. My grandpa got the news he has the cancer and wasn't going to be around too much longer. I headed back to Santa Cruz to spend some quality time before he went on to greener pastures. He had some serious wisdom. Smartest man I know. So being 23 and not the smartest man, I asked for the Cliff Notes on life. "What's some words of wisdom?"
"Carpe Diem" he replied.
Classic. My mom woke me up every morning for school with the saying. I thought it was her way of being smart, but it was bred into her as well. The next question: "What would you come back as?"
"A crow, I always liked them" he said in his humble voice.
Days later we said our goodbyes and I was off to Hawaii knowing that was it. Life cycles.
The inflight magazine on Hawaiian Airlines has a section called Native Intelligence. A section of the magazine that examines indigenous aspects of the Hawaiian Islands. What do you know, a piece on the 'Alala. The Hawaiian Crow. Almost extinct with less than 52 (at the time) in the wild. I ripped out the page and took it home. Over the next few weeks I did some research and made about 6 paintings using the silhouette of the crow and its scarcity as the theme. A few of those pieces are still around somewhere.
During this time our t-shirt company needed a logo, we hadn't come up with anything solid yet so I got some stickers and a screen made of the crow. The guy who made the stickers asked if we wanted to print up a few laminets to put them into surfboards. No extra charge. Awesome. This is all over six months or so.
"Nah, too many bird logos"
"I like our other logo"
No one liked it.
No worries, I am always down for a collaboration and if the others are not feeling it, no need to press.
Too many cooks in the kitchen.
One crow ended up on a longboard I shaped but that was it for a good three years. No crows no nothing.
Fast forward to three years ago working as a production sander out in the Sugar Mill. As a board builder I was always trying to get my friend Carl to come to Hawaii and see what was going on with the surf and board building scene. Carl and I had made our first boards together in my parents garage as groms and soon both went to work at the local surfboard factory. Him a shaper, me a polisher.
He came out with all the boards I told him too. Short board, mini gun, and a 7'6 gun. Ooops. It was flat.
"Lets make a longboard, it's going to be small all week" I say.
"I don't know, I don't have any tools, I ah... I don-"
"Fuck it, Carl don't be a pussy. Joe's got a shaping room and we glass it at Charlie's. Blanks are in Wahiawa. We can do it in a day or two. Easy"
"All right" Carl says dissapointed he had no chance to argue against my eagerness.
We pick up a blank and head to Joe's. A little shaping room under his house at V-Land. Carl had never meet him, but Joe is super cool and easy going. I had worked with him for years. Droping Carl off at the shaping room and take off for a surf. Its raining upon return and we got to get the blank to Waialua. He sits in back of my old truck and holds on tight.
In the glassing room Carl wanted it clear. Yah right. I get to glass a board. I am going to do whatever I want. It's Carls board he can't get that mad, I think to myself. I sneak in some color and get to it. I had only glassed 60 boards at this time but had spent countless hours watching and learning from the masters. Laminating the deck we ran out cloth. This is when Carl started tripping. I told him we would Freestyle some pieces together. The board ended up coming out killer. Grey, red and black. Patches style. We put a white splooge on it and wrote his name in pen the script.
"Charlie do we still got those crow logos somewhere?"
"I don't throw away anything"
Charlie comes back a minute later with a stack of crow laminents. We put two on the bottom.
"We should make more of these"
"I bet they would love this in Japan" Charlie says.
The rest of the trip was spent surfing and cruzing. I was putting on my first art show in Haleiwa in a vacent retail space. We thought the board was pretty cool so we put it in the show to see peoples reaction. All positive. On the way to the airport we decided Carl should come back out if we could drum up some work. No problem. We knew we were onto something we just didn't know what it was yet. I sold all my boards on Craigslist. I told each person they could buy this one or get a brand new one for the same price. My thinking was we just needed to get glassing more and see where it takes us. No one took the offer thank goodness, but I did get a few friends and roomates to give me some cash. Carl flew back out 3 weeks later and we did the first batch of boards. Driving him to the airport after 2 weeks and 9 boards later we discussed what we should call the collaboration.
"Murder" (the term for more than one crow)
Stupid.
"Red Rum"
Genaric.
"Fuck man we got to get this figured out by the time we get to the airport"
"Shit I'm thinking"
We see the sign. Airport up ahead.
"Lets just call it Two Crows. "
"Sounds good with me. As long as its not a shapers name I am down"
"Cool"
"K -den ill finish these and get some more orders... Lets do this"
Carl disappears in the doors and Two Crows Surfboards is born.
-nick
Two Crows Surfboards Blog... Life in the factory
