What are some sacrifices you’ve made to pursue your dream?
A lot of time that you don’t get back. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it’s nice out and everyone else is skating and I’m finishing art work for shows. Art requires time that’s not going to wait for weather or care that it’s nice or crummy out. And if you work 8 hours on a painting and it sucks and you need to restart, you don’t get the time back.
Also, personal relationships. It’s not like I don’t have friends, but sometimes you need to be alone for a while to achieve what you want. There’s some isolation.
Some sacrifices are having to get comfortable with talking to strangers when I’m an anxious introvert. Sometimes I also get creepy people at my table who are there to flirt and not buy anything. You just have to be nice and put up with it.
I haven’t had a normal summer ever in my adult life. Never known what it’s like to just have a summer where I’m not living in front of a computer. I never had a winter where I’m not constantly checking forecasts and calling people all over the world, figuring out what’s going on with all our crews.
[B]eing so driven in snowboarding took a lot away from every other part of my life and the relationships I have with other people. . . .I think it’s funny that even my dad thinks because I’m a snowboarder it’s all fun and games. Or someone who says, Oh, yeah, you’ve got it easy, you just go snowboard, do whatever you want. But it’s not that at all. You really have to give a piece of yourself every time you do it. And when you’re moving around constantly, it’s hard to build relationships.
It just depends on what you want out of life and it can take a lot out of you. But you learn a lot from it.
[Time is one of my biggest sacrifices.] With any artist it’s kind of like, if they could live in their studio they probably would. It’s not like work because you want to create.To create, you have to do a lot of labor. I made those [points at canvases in studio] but I don’t like the size anymore. So now I’ve got to make new canvases which means I’ve got to go out and buy some more wood. I also don’t know what I’m going to do with those canvases, I’ve got to figure that out. That still happens to me to this day.