KORUA & Album - Drawing Parallels Part 3

Album Surf x Korua Shapes presents “Drawing Parallels”, a three part short film series about a creative collaboration, drawing the parallels between surf and snow.

After maintaining a healthy online friendship for a while – based on mutual inspiration and admiration for each others brands and aligned values of aesthetics, craftsmanship, and standing sideways – we finally linked up with Matt Parker (Founder, Album Surf) and his sons Jack and Max on a stormy day in Brighton, Utah early in 2022. (Side note: Jack and Max are both absolute shredders). Chairlift banter that day led to brainstorming ideas further down the line, and we eventually landed on the idea of a creative collaboration, where Matt would create a series of custom artwork on Korua snowboards, and Aaron Schwartz (Creative Director, Korua Shapes) would run the same program on Album surfboards. Instead of producing a batch of printed graphics, these boards would become an offering in highly limited quantities, each board being 100% one-of-a-kind, something of an art collectors item, partially to be sold online, and some to be kept for our own enjoyment on snow and in the water, with the whole project documented by the talented Matt Kleiner. Somewhere in the back of our heads the intent was also to find any excuse to meet up in places we could both surf and snowboard together.

Part Three // October 2023
Aaron joined Matt and the Album family for another meet-up in San Clemente, CA in October of 2023 to extend the series by another few shapes, on which both of them would drawn / paint on, this time around joining creative forces on the same surface. The boards were then passed onto surfers Koa Smith and Victor Bernardo to take to the waters, finally bringing these unique works of art into their intended habitat.

“May You Never Find Your Perfect Shape” is a statement Korua has used on each of their snowboards since 2014 and in a way it perfectly reflects the entire process of this project – no wave is ever the same, neither is any turn drawn in snow, and no stroke of a brush or line with a pen is. With this series we celebrate the appreciation we have for imperfection and the results that come from making things by hand, creating unique pieces of functional art that only live once.

Credits
Director, Cinematographer, Editor – Matt Kleiner

Starring – Matt Parker, Aaron Schwartz, Victor Bernardo, Jack Freestone, Alex Smith, Koa Smith, Nicholas Wolken

Music – Zomes, Freddie C and Lorie Vambe