RICK GRIFFIN ART SHOW A MUST

7-11-07
By Corky Carroll

My really good pal and one of the greatest artists of our time is being honored with an extremely long overdue retrospective running now through September 30th at the Laguna Art Museum.  There are no words that I could write to truly describe Rick the person and the incredible impact of his work as an artist.  I don’t write that well.  Not even close.  But I will do my best to tell you what I know.

Rick got his start in 1961 when SURFER magazine publisher and surf film producer John Severson was showing one of his early surf films at Palos Verdes High School, where Rick attended.  He saw a sample of Rick’s early cartoon work and hired him on the spot.  The early Griffin cartoon series “Murphy” launched the legendary career.  Rick was a surfer and a musician and one of the kinds of dudes that you cannot help but like to be around because he was always pretty much totally stoked about everything.  He had one of those just totally bitchin kinda attitudes that I have always found irresistible.  His family and mine came to be very close and at a very pivotal point in my musical career he introduced me to Chris Darrow.  Chris is one of the finest musicians on our planet.  He had just moved to San Clemente and was interested in learning to surf.  We bonded immediately and to this day we are the closest of pals.  I took him to places surfing that he would never have known and he took me to a totally different level of musicianship than I even knew existed before knowing him.  At about the same time Rick did a cover for a single that I had released by Jet Records.

As a surf artist Rick Griffin was the dude of all the dudes.  When Jann Wenner was starting Rolling Stone Magazine he commissioned Rick to create the logo that stands today as an icon on magazine stands around the world.  He considered Griffin the ideal choice and stated “Griffin embodied that era more than all the other artists, as good as they were, some of them, because he came out of the surf culture, which was one of the most direct tributaries to the counter culture revolution of the sixties-- the same middle class rebellion that was the hippies.”

After surf art Griffin became huge in the rock music scene being commissioned to create concert posters for the leading musicians of the time including Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Doors, Neil Young and the Who.  Rick’s art became almost synonymous with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead as he created many of their album covers and posters.

Through all this time, success and fame Rick never strayed from his roots as a Southern California surfer.  In 1970 John Severson again featured Rick’s work on the poster for his critically acclaimed film “Pacific Vibrations” as well as a great sequence in the film of Rick surfing and painting, along with Severson himself who is a great artist in his own right, an old school bus.  In the late 1970’s when Chris Darrow and myself were putting together our band the “Coolwater Casuals” we spent many an afternoon / evening surfing and bar-b-queing at San Onofre with Rick and his family, who also lived in San Clemente at the time.  Rick’s daugher Ladazia became my son Clint’s main babysitter.  
In 1980 Rick became a “born again” Christian and began working with the Calvary Chapel in Orange County.  He took on the challenge of illustrating the Gospel of John, a work that is still in circulation today having reached millions of people everywhere.

   
Rick Griffin died way, way, way too young in a 1991 motorcycle accident at the age of 47.  His work speaks for itself.  Surfer, artist, musician, mystic, friend, father and extreme visionary.  I can say from the bottom of my heart that I am lucky and proud to have had Rick as my pal and surfmate.  Do NOT miss viewing this amazing display of his work this summer at the Laguna Art Museum.  This is a must see, must do, must not miss kinda deal.  Go there now.