A Wooden Surfboard Art Residency · New England
Hollow wooden surfboards, handmade from New England white pine. A proposed art residency and exhibition at the Art Complex Museum.
The Idea
Dr. Rich Blundell proposes a wooden surfboard residency at the Art Complex Museum.
Everyone needs a home. This project is a celebration of home through love of local trees, wood, water and an appreciation of creative craft.
Locally sourced New England white pine becomes hollow wooden surfboards, built in the open. Young people get their hands on the craft and see what patience and paying attention produces. Music from the region's emerging artists carries the stoke.
It is a homecoming, and a return with the elixir: a celebration of the beauty of wood, the places we come from, and positive vibes for the future.
The Build
Hollow wooden surfboards, built in the open at the museum, from rough-sawn plank to finished board. No factory, no molds, no shortcuts. Just a design, a stack of wood, and a plane.
Photos from Rich's recent builds. Tap any photo to see it full size.
The Boards
Who Could Be In It
None of these partnerships are in place yet. These are the people Rich hopes to talk with.
The ACM has expressed enthusiasm to host. Home of the residency: a place to build, show the work in progress, and gather the community.
Board building camps where students take part in real stages of the work, mentored by Rich. Duxbury High School's wood arts program is a natural first fit.
The emerging artists program could bring the soundtrack. Finished boards could go on display in Levitate shops.
A local landowner, land trust, or sawyer with a New England white pine to give the project. One tree, milled near where it grew.
Shape of the Residency
An intermittent residency across eight months (Fall 2026 through Summer 2027) paced by the drying of the wood and the school calendar. The tree is milled in the fall and left to season, so the work comes in short, intensive stays with months in between. Those gaps let the wood dry and leave room for the programming to be built properly rather than squeezed in.
Duxbury, Massachusetts.
In residence in stages, not full time.
Timed to the school year, so young people can take part.
A big opening and exhibition of the boards and the build at the ACM.
Proposed timeline
Find the tree. Mill the lumber and set it to season.
Design the board. Cut the frames.
Mill the seasoned wood for the build.
Build the rocker table and start building the boards.
Board building camps with young people.
A big opening and exhibition at the ACM.
Residency Boards
A white pine board built through the camps, with young people taking part in stages of the work, and auctioned as a fundraiser.
Fundraiser auctionA white pine Striper fish and a nine-footer, built by Rich to celebrate home habitat and the white pines. Offered to a patron.
Patron commissionBoards that could go to surf shops such as Levitate, bringing the project to coastal communities across New England.
Shop displayA board built for an artist whose music inspires the project. A thank-you in wood.
Music & stokeWhat It Celebrates
Local stoke. · Home habitat. · Coming home with the elixir. · Young hands learning craft. · The beauty of white pine. · The inspiration of music.
The future is beautiful or there isn't one. So let's make it.
Home Habitat
Every one of us has a home habitat. These are the pines, flats, and waters that shaped Rich.
The Builder
Rich is an ecologist, natural historian, and scientist-in-residence at the Maria Mitchell Association on Nantucket. Duxbury, Massachusetts is his home habitat, and he is a Cape Cod and Islands organism.
He has been building hollow wooden surfboards for twenty years. His designs and build-methods are used all over the world.
This is a concept and an invitation. No partnerships are in place yet. Let's talk about the residency, the boards, and how you might want to be part of it.