My Hero and Friend – Ross Clarke-Jones

I’d like to dedicate my latest exhibition to all the crazy diamonds I’ve shared waves with, but this time it’s Ross Clarke-Jones who both in and out of the surf, is the epitome of a man living life constantly climbing mountains. Then, as the metaphorical land slides down these mountains, he rides them – feeling their rumble, their sheer power, a force so immense it’s chasing you and you tease it in one way, while at the same time harnessing it to propel you forward.

 

 

“It’s not hard to see the mischievous, larrikin, hyperactive side his friends and admirers talk about. You can still see in Clarke-Jones the kid from the beaches around Terrigal on the NSW Central Coast, where he grew up and started surfing at 11.

“It is a brave man who fronts up to a 90-foot wave armed with nothing more than a surfboard. But for Ross Clarke-Jones, it was his father’s courage in the face of cancer that was truly inspiring.”

“It was such a beautiful sight. It was 20 feet bigger than anything we’d ever seen before. (Surfing has clung to the pre-metric measures.) It was like the cartoons of huge waves we used to draw at school. Being out there had a completely surreal quality.”

“In a doco about Clarke-Jones’ life called The Sixth Element: The Ross Clarke-Jones Story, narrated by American actor Dennis Hopper, Tom Carroll says Clarke-Jones’ actions might appear outrageous but there is a method. “He works in a very intelligent way, not in a highly destructive mindless sense.”

“What sort of person are we dealing with here? Who would say that surfing waves under 70 feet “is a little more playful? “

“Everything is good. But there’s always this nagging need for what he calls excitement and what almost everybody else in the world finds incomprehensible. “Ross has got to live in the day-to-day world with this burden of restlessness,” says Tom Carroll. “It’s like the test pilots – once you have a taste for something, it’s hard to step back.”

“Clarke-Jones’ status as a modern-day extreme adventurer has been a lifetime in the making. In Terrigal, he told a reporter, his excitement was such that he was “getting up in the dark and building a fire on the beach waiting for the sun to come up to surf”. At 12, and at “about four-foot-four”, he was riding waves with 20-foot faces.”

“In 2001 he was the first non-Hawaiian to win the “Eddie”, a competition in memory of Eddie Aikau, a big-wave rider who died in 1978. The contest is held only when the waves are a consistent 25 feet.”

“From his house you wouldn’t know an obsessive surfer lives there, the only clue being a framed cover of an “annual for boys” called The Champion from 1950 featuring a smiling boy lying on some kind of small motor craft pulling another smiling man behind him on a version of a surfboard. “The original tow-in surfers,” he laughs. “It’s like seeing the future.”

 

It is uncanny to find the above words in an article by Peter Wilmoth, from which I’ve taken a few excerpts to illustrate just a small glimpse – barely scratching the surface of one of the world’s greatest adventurers.

 

 

My own work for years has been based on the children’s annuals my dad had stored away. When I discovered them, I found children facing challenges with complete confidence, their hearts and souls brimming with the desire to take on the future – as long as adventure was around every corner. Not adventure simply arriving at your door, but the kind that demands you use all your knowledge and instinct to chase it down.

 

 

I personally believe that Ross is not only a great surfer – he is the epitome of one of the world’s greatest adventurers, characters, and fearless chasers of living on that edge – a place most would avoid, but he relishes.

Music, lyrics, novels, films – quotes that inspire… like the much loved Robin Williams statement in Dead Poets Society,  “Seize the day”…  people quote the film, call it one of their favourites, and say the words as if just saying them is the same as living them…

Ross actually does it.

He is the captain of it, the embodiment of Dead Poets Society. He isn’t just satisfied with exploring ideas – he lives them. And he has been doing so for decades.

 

 

Why does he do it? The thrill comes from an intense adrenaline rush. He has said that after a ride of up to one minute “you come out just laughing, screaming with so much joy and it can last for weeks”. It’s the ultimate feeling of living in the moment.

As an artist, I head to the studio, trying to create the best work I can. My work, though, is more like poetry – sure, there’s something about wielding paintbrushes, and in this case a way of life, bringing these boards back to life. In my eyes, each of them represents a form which behind them stands one of the great heroes in my life – Ross Clarke-Jones, who takes these vessels and turns them into vehicles, riding the raw power emanating from this planet we live on.

David and Goliath.
Dead Poets Society.
Indiana Jones.
Ross Clarke-Jones.

 

By David Bromley

 

“My first board, I found in the rafters” starts Friday 28th March to Friday 25 April

Bromley & Co
247 Toorak Road
SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141
www.bromleyandco.com
@bromleyandco