Steve Duque Makes Art from Broken Skateboards
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” is how the saying typically goes. In this case one man’s thrash is another man’s treasure.
Steve Duque takes broken skateboards and turns them into art and functional craft pieces. Bowls, tables, cutting boards, key-chains, magnets, magnets, earrings — there’s a plethora of options, and Steve tries it all.
In this video, Steve shares his process, how he sources the boards, and his philosophy of art. He also makes a bowl from start to finish. It’s a labor intensive process to go from broken skateboard to finished piece, but Steve loves it. Gathering boards, removing the grip tape, cutting, sanding, more cutting, more sanding. All of that work eventually lands in someone’s home as an object of appreciation, and not where it would have been if not for Steve, in a landfill.
There is a lifecycle inherent in his process. All of the material is free: to other’s it’s seen as waste — useless and broken. The community knows he collects these boards and uses them, so they happily provide him with all the material he could need and more. He then goes to work, transforming challenging material into his various creations. At craft fairs he sells his work where he meets more people, and they get introduced to his art and process. People’s responses are almost universally, “that’s cool.” It opens more folk’s eyes to the possibility of discarded objects all around us.
Steve’s passion, thoughtfulness, and creativity is inspiring. It’s the combination of all three that impresses upon people the value of his work.
