Art of the Skateboard

Crystal Worl is a Tlingit/Athabascan designer. With her brother, Rico, she is the co-founder of Trickster Company, which promotes innovative Indigenous design. Her work explores the relationships and bonds between her people, the land, and animals.

Interested in traditional designs that come from her ancestry and modern design applications that honor her Indigenous background, Worl applies her skills to a wide array of media. These include kiln-cast glass, printmaking, painting, and silversmithing. In 2020, she completed a three-year apprenticeship with contemporary Haida artist Robert Davidson in painting and formline design, the striking curvilinear style of the northern Northwest Coast’s Indigenous people. Her artistic pursuits also extend to storytelling and dance.

Worl has exhibited widely in the United States, including solo and group exhibits in Juneau, Seattle, Santa Fe, and Washington, D.C. Her international exhibitions have included Paris, Venice, and Bristol, U.K. Worl’s public artwork has graced Juneau ambulances, Seattle buses, and she has created murals in Juneau and Anchorage. At the Trickster Company, the Worl siblings apply their designs to a variety of goods: skateboard decks, apparel, jewelry, housewares, paper goods, and more. The work mindfully respects traditions of their ancestors, keeping design ideals and cultural pride alive for new generations.

Worl earned a bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe. She lives in Juneau where her family-owned company promotes innovative northern Northwest Coast design and themes and issues in Native culture.

The salmon artwork for Art of the Skateboard (2023) is Worl’s first stamp project for the U.S. Postal Service.

Pop culture–inspired line drawings, vivid color palettes, and kaleidoscopic psychedelia typify the artwork of William James Taylor Junior.

The mesmerizing creations of this self-taught Norfolk, Virginia, artist can be seen emblazoned on skateboards, casual clothing, and prints. Interested in “renegade, punk, outsider stuff,” he is influenced by skateboard culture, graffiti art, and trippy 1960s imagery, in addition to the cartoons and fantasy and horror movies of his youth. He describes his style as “everything and the kitchen sink . . . as long as it’s fun and looks good to me.” 

Taylor doodled obsessively as a child, was encouraged to make crafts with his creative aunt, flourished in local art exhibits, and learned experimental darkroom techniques in a high school photography class. Prismacolor pencils originally provided much of the color that Taylor employs with gusto. His doodles still often begin on paper, drawings he scans and refines digitally using a Wacom tablet and applications like Photoshop, Vector Magic, and Filter Forge. “It would be fun to get my hands dirty again with some acrylics and canvas,” he says.

Taylor prefers creating art to marketing his work, so his CORE222-branded goods are sold via online shops such as Boardpusher (skateboards) and Hoodie Lab (apparel). He finds great satisfaction seeing rappers, DJs, and comedians wearing his clothing designs, “because I know how important image is to people who perform in public.” And when he realized that his artwork could be emblazoned on skateboards for a younger generation to enjoy, “I just thought that was one of the coolest things ever.”

The “maze” artwork for Art of the Skateboard (2023) is Taylor’s first project for the U.S. Postal Service. 

Di’Orr Greenwood was born in northeastern Arizona, within the Navajo Nation. She takes pride in her tribal membership and her Diné upbringing—rooted in the cultural traditions of the Navajo people.

Greenwood learned traditional artisanship from relatives, and was encouraged, in her teen years, to pursue her artistic and entrepreneurial talents. Family members taught her skills such as beadwork and artistic wood burning and flute-making. A family friend admired Greenwood’s self-decorated skateboard and hired her to paint skateboard decks with Navajo symbols and teachings. She first sold the decks through the friend’s food stand at the local Navajo swap meet, then started a kiosk of her own.

A skilled woodworker, she passes her techniques and philosophies along to community members through her products and through instruction. She takes particular pride in implementing traditional motifs into the creation of modern devices. She turns to colors found in nature and to Navajo principles rooted in the number four: seasons, directions, elements, and four mountains considered sacred by her people.

Greenwood makes skateboards from scratch and is also a high-level competitive skateboarder and instructor, having honed her skateboarding skills on the streets; a skateboard is her primary source of transportation when in the city. She divides her time between Venice Beach, California, and her family home in the Navajo Nation. 

The sunburst artwork for Art of the Skateboard (2023) is Greenwood’s first stamp project for the U.S. Postal Service.

Federico Frum, who works under the name MasPaz (Spanish for “more peace”), is an artist, educator, and community activist whose murals and other artworks can be seen around the world. Born in Bogotá, Colombia, and adopted as an infant, he grew up in Arlington, Virginia. The distinctive thick lines he employs evoke Indigenous styles of the Americas, reflecting his deep affinity with these cultures.

MasPaz has created murals overseas and locally, and has collaborated with National Geographic, the Sierra Club, the National Gallery of Art, the Corcoran, and the New Museum, as well as with the Smithsonian Institution. Brands including Nike, Roots, and Brooks Running have commissioned his work. He has also created large pieces for numerous schools and education centers worldwide.

MasPaz studied art and visual technology at George Mason University, where his thesis was in 3-D animation. A job “sitting in front of a computer all day” made him restless, so he quit and took up painting and silk-screening, while also selling T-shirts on the streets of New York, where he was drawn to the city’s graffiti art. “I feel very connected to humble communities,” he says. His work, which honors the Earth and its wildlife, “keeps me grounded.”

In his youth workshops, he encourages young artists to explore a variety of media. MasPaz still loves working digitally and has produced clothing designs and projection mapping events.

The jaguar artwork for Art of the Skateboard (2023) is MasPaz’s first project for the U.S. Postal Service.