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Big Wave Rave
Hundreds gather at San Francisco’s 111 Minna gallery to show their support for women’s surfing
by Nicole Coate
While women are flooding into surfing like never before, a few of them are coming up dry when it comes to corporate sponsorship and industry recognition. The Northern California surfing community is responding with a strong grassroots effort embracing its female athletes, with more than 250 people showing up on Thursday, October 28, 2004 to a San Francisco fundraiser for unsponsored pro surfer Pauline Menczer and surfing filmstress Elizabeth Pepin.
Tucked between skyscrapers in a San Francisco financial-district alleyway, art bar 111 Minna Gallery hosted the Big Wave Rave, a celebration of the art, culture, and sport of surfing. TribalSurf, Monica Lee’s surf promotion and event production company, put on the event with the pure intention of supporting Menczer’s World Championship Tour expenses and the final production of One Winter Story, a documentary on Mavericks female pioneer Sarah Gerhardt, made by Pepin and Sally Lundburg.
Elizabeth Pepin (L) and Pauline Menczer
© Coate/SGMag.com
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"The surf industry could be more supportive of women's surfing," Lee says, adding, "Grassroots events are always important and instrumental in creating momentum."
One of the homes to big-wave surfing, Northern California boasts a very different scene than its Southern California neighbor, where surfing corporations have a bigger presence. "We have great talent coming out of here -- filmmakers, surfers, artists -- and we have a tight-knit community that is very supportive of that creative energy, despite the lower level of industry presence," Lee says.
At the door Tierza Davis, founder of Costa Rica surf camp Pura Vida Adventures, helped tear tickets while inside booths from sponsors such as NorCal Women’s Surf Club (NCWSC), the San Mateo and San Francisco chapters of Surfrider Foundation, and new women’s surf apparel brand Moolóolaba lined one leg of the L-shaped venue. On the other end of the gallery-gone-club, The Aquamarines, San Francisco's self-proclaimed Pan-Pacific Instrumental Surf Squad, ripped out ’60s-style surf rock in front of a silver-screen size projection of surf footage. Famed Mavericks film gurus Grant Washburn and Eric Nelson mingled among surfers, artists, and the curious.
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