Dave Nelson | SecretPenguin Blog

Skateboarders are truly my favorite artists.
There’s a reason that everyone at SecretPenguin has backgrounds in skateboarding. I originally met Cody Peterson (Art Director), Jason Sawyer (Developer), Bryan Findell (Visual Effects Producer) and our intern Eric Baughman all through skateboarding.

I constantly see amazing creativity among skateboarders.
I think from always looking at their landscape differently to find new creative ways to skateboard, it trains their brains to look at everything a bit differently.

Last Year, SecretPenguin and BBB Skateshop put on a show titled,
“NE Skateboard Artists“.

We had artists from all across Nebraska show their work…

Brant VanBoening from Silo, Scott Blake from Barcode Art, Derek Pressnall from Tilly and The Wall, Steve Walsh, Kevin Wilkins from The Skateboard Mag, Steve Andel’s Photography, David Giesbrecht (local skateboard photographer), Kevin Harris, a few graffiti and street artists, and a ton more. Conchance performed at the end of the night (I used to take him and his friends to skate spots when he was 11!).

Most of these guys, like myself, have always produced artwork, but have rarely shown their work in shows or galleries. I really enjoyed seeing it all in one place.

Steve Andel has some more photos from the event on his Facebook.

Skateboarders are truly my favorite artists.

Last week I went to the International Christian Skateboard Conference to give a talk about Design and Branding for skateboard ministries (I’ll post more about that in my next post). The whole event was great. Big thanks to Uli & Toni Frallicciardi, Joe Ferraro, Nico Sankovic and everyone that put it on. (Photo above from SkateBible.com)

The weekend went super fast, so I’ll just post some photos from it all…

Flew into Texas for a connecting flight, and met up with some friends. Josh Harmony, Shane Fox, Richard Mulder and Christian Hosoi entertaining little Elijah Mulder.

We were all invited to Alan “Ollie” Gelfand‘s private skatepark, OllieWood. The above video is Jud Farmboy Heald, Christian Hosoi and Lance Mountain playing follow the leader.

The first night I roomed with Jud and Zac Archuleta (Congrats on going pro, Zac!). It was nice catching up with Jud again. We traveled together for years with Manna Skateboards and then with Untitled Skateboards. Jud also built my miniramp in our backyard in one day!

I met up with Josiah Gatlyn and his girlfriend, Andrea Montoya at the Foolishness premiere.

Brian Sumner and Brandon Wall‘s film, Foolishness premiere was really fun. I was happy to be able to do the Skate Bible logo.

After the premiere, was an art show that I had a piece in. Above is Jesse Fellers imitating my monster behind him.

Lance Mountain had a bunch of amazing paintings in the show. This one was one of my favorites.

Lance imitating his Heel Bruise shirt.

Here’s a pair of Toms I designed for an auction.

We ate at this diner a lot of late nights. Pictured above is Christian Hosoi, me, Dave Reasbeck, Lance Mountain, Josh Harmony and Zac Archuleta.

Island Water Sports had a big event by the beach. We skated the miniramp, Josh Harmony played music and Zac Archuleta spoke.

Rob and Sopheak Dolman, Jesse Fellers and I went around the corner to eat at a delicious coal fire pizza place. This is a picture of a picture screen on Rob and Sopheak’s camera. It was super fun to see Rob again. We used to travel together all the time for Manna Skateboards.

We watched a UFC fight at Uli’s friend, Jason’s house. Jason works at Crispin Porter and Bogusky. They make amazing ads, and Jason makes amazing iced tea. Thanks for having us in your home, sir!

The last night Zac and I roomed with Josh Harmony. It was cool to hear Josh’s love for music and that he enjoyed a lot of Omaha bands. Then at 3:30am, the fire alarm went off. Here’s a few of us in front of the firetruck (me, Shane Fox, Brian Sumner, Jeremy Hendrix, Zac Archuleta, Josh Harmony and Evan Kuzava). 15 minutes later, I left for the airport.

Thanks again for everyone that put on the event and participated. It was a great time!

We’re excited to be sponsoring this upcoming art show of underground Omaha artists. I was always the most inspired by underground art… skateboard graphics, street art, etc.

Mighty, Jeff King, Powell, Miss Cake and special guests: Andrew Hershey and Amy Morin.
Feb 7-22 at the gallery at Bancroft Street Market (10th and Bancroft)

Opening Reception: Sat, Feb 7. 7-10pm

Open Forum: Wed, Feb 18. 7-9pm

It’s been incredibly busy lately. Here’s a few things we’ve done…

BBB LTD and REZO’s artist series release party was July 19th. I designed the seal that goes on the tail for the artists to sign and number. Check out more photos from the event.

The same night as the release for the artist series boards, was the Munny show put on by Trocadero at the Bemis Underground. Unfortunately, I had to bounce back and forth between places, but still had a great time. I was honored to be in this show. Thanks Alice!

My friends from Siren Skateboards and Reliance Skateboards were passing through, so they stayed at our house. We stopped by our studio on the way to get Ted and Wally’s Ice Cream and played Paddle Battle… we’ll post the battle soon.

August 15-17 was BarCamp Omaha (BarCamp is an ad-hoc technology gathering for people to share and learn in an open environment). SecretPenguin helped sponsor the event.
Check out more photos here.

August 17th was the Peace Center USA Benefit Concert with a ton of great bands. I just made it at the end for a little bit of Bear Country, Orenda Fink and Baby Walrus. Peace Center is an initiative that will provide fast, easy, and free access to confidential treatment for veterans and their loved ones who suffer from PTSD and related issues. We helped with the website, PeaceCenterUSA.org

This past Friday, we hosted the Omaha Craft Mafia’s Trunk Show. They are all soo sooo talented. You have to check them out and support them!

And on Saturday night, we went to The Faint show at Sokol. They put on an amazing show.
I just found some old photos from when we met up with them in Lawrence, KS at a house show when I was on a tour with Joe Hammeke, Dennis Busenitz and Old Dirty Al for a Kansas article in Thrasher Skateboard Mag a loooong time ago. There were about 10-20 people there and they had red garden lights. Quite a bit different than their shows now!

Here’s a photo of my cat from yesterday. I thought he looked cute.
See ya!

When we opened our studio in our new location, we made a decision to try and support artists in everything we did. We decided this because we value design, and wanted our studio to represent that. We wanted to attract clients that valued design as well.

There’s not really one set way on how to support designers, but one way we decided to do this was to hire an artist to build custom furniture and/or buy authentic. We got Eames molded plastic rocking chairs for the front. And then hired dKISER design.construct to work with us on the desks, shelves and coffee table. And next we plan on bringing back the SecretPenguin label and collaborate with other artists on different products and clothing (hopefully by Fall time).

Doug from dKISER, just finished our custom runners for our Eames Rockers so they match the rest of the wood in our studio. And he also added lights to the bottom of our coffee table. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I’ve been with Doug’s service and work.

There’s so many things that make this world beautiful, and design plays a big part in the aesthetics. So please keep supporting good design and the arts!

On my way home, I saw that someone added a new “Love” to the Spread The Love piece!

I love it! I’d be psyched if people keep adding to it.

Here’s a sneak peak of the 1st of many artist series boards for BBB, LTD.

REZO, an Omaha-based graffiti artist that’s been a long time part of the local skateboard scene designed the first one. Todd Fink is doing the next one, check out his video part in H-Street Lick from 1993 (his section is at 8:41). This was one of the first skateboard videos I owned.

Anyways, I finished up the the seal that will go on the tail of each board, with room for the artist to sign and number. And the first one should be out this next month.

Scout Dry Goods in Dundee is having a design contest for a limited edition re-usable scout bag. You can vote through March 27 – April 6. So hurry and vote!

There are some really good ones! I really like the ones from Miss Cake.

Here’s ours…

A while back, I put up some characters on a building.

I drove by the other day and noticed “Love” was gone. I thought maybe someone broke it off, but it looks like it got unscrewed and was stolen. Or when they were painting over the graffiti, the workers started to take down the characters and stopped for some reason.

Anyways, I kinda like the idea of people taking artwork home for themselves. I think I’m going to make more and hide them around town and post clues on here. And if anyone finds them and wants to take one home, feel free to unscrew it and steal it.

If you do decide to steal one, you have to send me a photo or a link to a photo of what you did with it :)