Skateboarding for social change
Issue #23
Philly artist Lauren Callahan designs decks with a feminist theme
By Liz Fine
Published: March 1st, 2005 | 4:15pm
Watching the guys glide around FDR Skatepark in Philadelphia, local skateboarder and deck designer Lauren Callahan acknowledges that women are still in the process of defining their place in the sport. The 22-year-old and her crew of female skateboarders are determined to change that by encouraging the other young girls who show up at FDR to ride the concrete.
“We meet so many 10- and 12-year-old girls that love to see us out there and want to learn,” Callahan said. “The most important thing we can do for them is welcome them into the world of skating.”
Callahan was introduced to skating in 2001 by her then-boyfriend and soon realized that she’d found another outlet for self-expression. Later, skating helped her come out as a lesbian and work through her social fears. “Skating was misogynistic, but it never felt homophobic,” she said. “Skaters, like punks, tend to be pretty tolerant or queer themselves.”
As a student at Philadelphia's Tyler School of Art, Callahan extends her passion for skateboarding to the boards she paints. Role model and fellow artist Sarah Yochitis taught Callahan the value of incorporating her art into her sport and promoting women’s issues, like breast cancer and HIV prevention. “Sarah did an installation at Love Park in Philly when they closed it down to skaters. She made about 30 headstones, and when we were setting those up, we took a lot of heat from some guys,” Callahan said. “She was doing something outside the boundary of what they felt was acceptable in their park.”
The lack of strong female representation in skateboarder publications like Thrasher further fueled Callahan’s feminist views. Her skateboard designs have depicted the comic book heroine Tank Girl, Candace Kucsulain, lead singer of the hardcore band Walls Of Jericho, and an abstract vagina motif. Through her art, Callahan urges other female skateboard enthusiasts to make the male-dominated skateboarding culture their own, be it athletically or aesthetically.
Callahan chooses the latter, approaching her career as an artist rather than as a pro-skater wannabe. “I’m looking forward to taking my deck art to a fine arts level,” she said.
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