A Quote by Rodney Mullen

Skateboarding is as much, or more, an art of mode of expression than it is a sport. What skateboarding has given me is precisely that: a form of expression that drew me to it, and, in so doing, I was able to express and be who I wanted to be through it, in a sense.
There's definitely a lot of people out there in the industry who feel that skateboarding shouldn't be a competitive sport. Or be a sport in general at all. Those are the people who want to keep skateboarding at the core side of things. But me personally, I love seeing the sport of skateboarding grow in general. It's just going to naturally happen.
I feel like skateboarding is as much of a sport as a lifestyle, and an art form, so there's so much that that transcends in terms of music, fashion, and entertainment.
I consider skateboarding an art form, a lifestyle and a sport. 'Action sport' would be the least offensive categorization.
Skateboarding is a part of Hip-Hop culture. I think it's the fifth element of Hip-Hop - emceeing, deejaying, b-boying, graffiti, and skateboarding. Skateboarders live and die on the streets. It's expression - it's everything that Hip-Hop is.
I started skateboarding at around age 10, and enjoyed the artistic aspect of it as much as the sporting aspect, so for me it was more of an art form and a lifestyle.
I think that skateboarding can absolutely help make peace... I know skateboarding can bring people together. You can travel anywhere and if someone’s skateboarding, they like you regardless of where you’re from or what you do. You skateboard and that’s it.”
Skateboarding has always been and continues to be creative and rebellious. Art and design are an extremely important part of skateboard culture, even if it's not recognized by the more elitist or pretentious members of the art world. Skateboarding itself requires creative adaptation to the streets and obstacles. My background as a skateboarder helped me to be a better street artist because I was already conditioned to look at the terrain opportunistically.
All the coverage of skateboarding sucks. They couldn't care less when it comes to how skateboarding is portrayed. All I can do is portray it the right way when it comes to me. So skateboarders can look at what I'm doing and say, "Yeah, the only person doing it the right way is him." That's why Street Dreams was so important in being 100% true to skate culture. That's why the Wild Grinders are important in showing the different styles of street skating. That's why I get involved in building the skate parks. All I can do is show skateboarding the right way.
I was introduced to skateboarding through my father. He was a surfer back in the 50's & 60's in Hawaii, where my parents grew up. They later moved to California and I was born. Skateboarding was the thing for surfers here in California in the 60's and my Dad immediately made me a homemade board.
I started painting incidentally, but it is just another form of expression. No one can stop me from what I do. When you are acting, you are given instructions by directors. This is completely my expression and my identity. No one can tamper with it.
Skateboarding doesn't make you a skateboarder; not being able to stop skateboarding makes you a skateboarder.
When I was at art school, a lot of art education is about art being a means of self-expression, and as an 18-year-old I didn't know if I had a huge amount I wanted to express. It was a big moment when I decided I wanted to shift the emphasis or the intention of my art from something I disgorged myself upon and something that actually fed me or made me see the world or understand the world.
I wanted to promote skateboarding as much as possible through different media.
People are really seeing that drag is an art form, that it's so much more than self-expression.
One of the interesting things about skateboarding and graffiti is that skateboarding exists in the documentation of an act.
If you look at the success of snowboarding in the Winter Games and how that's brought a more youthful edge to the Olympics in general, they don't have that with the Summer Games. They don't have anything that's drawing in a younger viewership. To be honest, I think they need skateboarding more than we need them. Skateboarding's popularity is solidified for the most part in a lot of countries.
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