Ad Hoc Assemblages

Charles Adler’s apartment is tucked into a sleepy residential side street in an otherwise nondescript part of Long Beach, an unvarnished 1920s Spanish Revival curio, two up and two down. Viewed from the outside, there’s nothing particularly conspicuous about the place. But any passerby would be wise to stop and reconsider. Housed within is a living, breathing treasury of DIY-assembled surf history, art, and other assorted rarities. 

Its occupant scoops me up from the nearby airport in a vintage Land Cruiser for a tour of the interior. It’s been a hot minute since my last visit to the LBC, so he and I take a moment to get acquainted on the latest municipal goings-on before we step inside his abode. Adler has called Long Beach home since the millennium, his place only a short rumble to his favorite rollers at Bolsa Chica. 

Much like the contents of his roost, Adler—fit, tattooed, and deceptively young-ish in visage—remains a hidden gem: one part industry salt and two parts affable, consanguineous waterman. One wouldn’t be wrong in classifying him as the Kevin Bacon of surfing: the degrees of separation between the man and the culture’s various shakers are intimately tangled. His reputation as one of the most reliable, versatile, and creative minds in the surf business, combined with a predisposed curiosity for our chosen pastime’s more granular details, has resulted in a veritable taxidermy of analog, surf-themed artifacts. 

“He has a deep knowledge of how surf history connects to graphic design and fine art,” says Randy Hild, a former employer of Adler’s at Quiksilver. “And from there, how those connect to being in the water. That’s his unique skill set. Put it all in a blender and you get Charles.” 

Maybe so, but he’s also a “hungry, grumpy bear,” chuckles close friend and artist Yusuke Hanai. Of the various professional monikers Adler goes under (and there are many), he considers himself chiefly a curator. With that descriptor comes the draw of putting one’s hands on a wide range of works, in addition to meeting and collaborating with A-level talent. Perhaps most importantly, it also entails “just bringing beauty to a space,” Adler says.

Inspiration for Adler comes at all hours and strikes anywhere, from the car to lying in bed late at night. “I can immerse myself in Instagram for hours,” he says, “then days go by and I don’t even realize it. I’m always bookmarking things—a lot of my books and magazines have pages bent or little marks or colored paper sticking out of them. Everywhere I go I’m taking hundreds of photos with my phone. It’s ridiculous.”

It would make sense then that Adler’s home is an extension of his acquired design sensibilities. He has a naturally keen eye for cultivating a wide range of physical media—and for recognizing talent on the upswing. The results of his process have clearly born fruit: Adler’s “little surf shack,” as he calls it, is full of eclectic, limited-edition nuggets from his time in California. “It’s a museum of my life up to this point,” he adds. And while it might be worthy of a photo shoot now, the apartment was unrecognizable when he first happened upon it. 

Needing to move out of Seal Beach because he “maxed out the garage,” Adler went in search of more space and cheaper rent. Given its striking distance to Huntington Cliffs and Bolsa Chica, the Long Beach apartment presented itself as ideal. The only wrinkle was that it had fallen into disrepair under its previous, chain-smoking tenants. The ceilings were blackened (where there weren’t gaping holes) and a flea circus was popping off in the carpets. “I went in there,” he says, “and ripped out the flooring, did all the painting and hole patching, and just kinda made it my own.”

Today, a wide-eyed stroll through the home is to glance at say-what originals by some of contemporary surf and counterculture’s most relevant talents. Works by artists like Barry McGee, Andy Davis, and Alex Weinstein occupy wall space. A choice Rad Cars with Rad Surfboards piece by Kevin Butler makes an appearance. These contemporary pieces sit alongside more vintage jewels: rare photos by Leo Hetzel and Ron Stoner and a series of watercolors by John Severson. Casually propped up in the living room is an ornately painted pig-fish by the artist Randy Noborikawa. A gorgeous, ultra-rare, 10-foot Harbour with a figure-eight-style wooden stringer hangs above the breakfast nook, an atypical concession to the surfboard-as-art school. “He’s definitely got the hoarding disease,” Hild jokes.

And yet the feng shui is doing it, so to speak, a result of Adler’s attention to detail and much-sought-after eye for spatial design. “His walls take you on a journey of his life,” explains co-conspirator Will Pennartz, founder/curator of the influential Surf Gallery in Laguna Beach (2001-2010). “To the untrained eye, it might feel like sensory overload, but once you start to unpack each nook and cranny, you see the gems he’s collected.” 

“Every couple of years I revamp it all,” Adler says. “Change it out. I’ve got closets, storage units full of art.” The overflow of his collection has even extended beyond the usual sheds, spilling out into the domains of his friends, family, and peers. “Charles cannot help himself,” says artist, photographer, and fellow surf archivist C.R. Stecyk. “His vision manifests itself in the spaces he’s passing through.” If Adler senses an opening, it’ll “suddenly be filled with his curated oddities and ad hoc assemblages, arriving seemingly out of the void,” Stecyk adds. 

The line between museum-quality grade and more populist mediums can (and should) often be blurred, but in Adler’s case, the situation appears quite unique. Out back behind the building are a series of weathered, blue garage doors, no doubt filled with landlubber detritus. His garage, however, is positively teeming with boards. Mind you, we’re not talking of much-loved heaps of yellowed fiberglass, but rather 100-percent mint, mind-blowing one-of-a-kinds, nearly 130 in all. There’d be more, he huffs, “if it wasn’t for a divorce.”

All the legends are represented. One finds a 1967 Harbour Banana Special nestled alongside a real-deal Cojo Gun shaped by Mike Hynson. Donald Takayama, Tudor, some old Hansens—take your pick. What really raises the hair on the neck, however, isn’t just the beauty of some of these vintage logs, but the manner in which they’re stuffed into board bags, still damp, and ruggedly stacked top to bottom. The overriding takeaway is of a quiver that is loved, but more importantly, also field-tested. This is what makes Adler’s gonzo collection so unique. 

“The driving force behind their acquisition is Charles wants to surf better,” says Hild. “He’s doing it because the boards are insane—8s and 9s on a scale of 10, and he can ride them legitimately.”

Adler next busts out a pair of vintage Harbour Rapier models, one from 1968 and its more rounded, tiger-striped big brother from 1966. One can smell the fresh wax on these boards. Placed side by side, then held and examined, the evidence of the era’s Shortboard Revolution is viscerally brought to life.

Presented in this intoxicating context, as specimens that necessitate being demoed rather than fixed to a wall or behind glass, the designs crystallize Adler’s intent: to ride these boards is to know them. It’s no wonder he has pursued a path of soaking up everything he can about surfing’s history. “He has a critical eye and distinct point of view,” says Pennartz. “His strength comes from being entrenched. He’s both curating the story and a main character at the same time.”

*

Adler was not birthed into the dyed-in-the-wool, California grom existence as one might’ve expected by now. His tale starts in the unlikely locale of Tacoma, Washington, an upbringing filled with livestock raising, hot rod fixer-upping, and a steady amount of familial transience. His childhood was, however, one surrounded by making art. 

He remembers his dad, Chuck, always drawing in the house. There was also an uncle who was a sculptor and summertime pilgrimages down to Arizona to stay with Grandma Mary, with whom he would study Bob Ross episodes. (Hey, you gotta start somewhere.) From there Adler was “always trying to get as much of it” as he could, whether it was painting or lessons in computer graphics.

The family moved around Washington a lot when he was young. Tacoma, Puyallup, Eatonvillle. “A little bit of everywhere,” he says. In 1979, when he was seven, the family bought a farm and settled down for a time, teaching Adler the value—and results—of self sufficiency. Before and after school he’d be out cleaning horse stalls, slaughtering animals, and mending fences. Everything the family ate was sourced right there. By 1982 his parents chose to split up. Charles, his mother Helen, and younger brother Seth moved out, resuming a life bouncing around the state. On the weekends, Charles would stay with his dad, helping him painstakingly restore old Chevys.

High school was filled in part by various jobs running printing presses, making t-shirts and concert posters. Punk rock entered into Adler’s world, leaving a considerable mark, as did learning how to skateboard with his cousins. During the summer of ’84, he decided to skip the annual family visit to AZ and, convinced by his cousin Aaron, instead road tripped to California. He first tried surfing in Laguna Beach. He got worked a bit and swallowed some water, but that feeling of getting on a board for the first time was an indelible experience. 

By age sixteen, he and his buddies would cruise up and down Washington and Oregon looking for surf. “We’d go year round, because we were young and dumb and had time to burn,” he says. “None of us had any money so we were just sleeping on the beach and getting into all sorts of trouble.”

Upon graduating, Adler moved to the Seattle area to further his education but soon got sidetracked by nocturnal adventures amongst that city’s alternative music explosion. It also didn’t help that his college instructor had no clue how to man the class’s new Heidelberg circuit board, which meant Adler found himself demonstrating how to use the modern printing press machine to the other students.
The whole situation bordered on farcical. “I kind of stopped and thought, why am I paying to go to this school when I’m the one who is teaching everybody how to run this thing?”

A school in Iowa called Graceland University offered Adler a scholarship and he jumped at the opportunity, not quite realizing until he was on terra firma in cow country that it was, in fact, a religious school, and quite the change of scenery. “I was like ‘Where am I?’ This was 1993 and 1994 and it was a huge step back in time.” Compounding matters was the fact that Adler didn’t look the part either. “I mean, everything was pierced,” he jokes. “I’d meet friends’ parents and they wouldn’t shake my hand.” Despite the setting, Adler ended up graduating with three degrees: illustration, studio arts, and graphic design.

Returning to Tacoma, he found a lot of his friends migrating south to California. He’d frequently make trips down the coast to see them, stopping along the way at various points to get a dip in. On one such jaunt, Adler ducked into a surf shop in Lincoln City, OR, marking his introduction to Harbour Surfboards. Intrigued by their more classic longboard designs, which were a far cry from the boards he was accustomed to surfing, Adler made a point to visit the flagship Harbour store in Seal Beach, just up Main Street from the pier. The meeting with Rich and the rest of the Harbour crew would ultimately spark a lifelong creative collaboration that continues to this day.  

 After some solid surf on the northside of Seal, he was hooked on the locale as well. Adler went back up to WA to pack his things. Three days later, girlfriend in tow, Adler was bombing back down I-5 toward Orange County. 

Relocated, he went to work studying his new local setups, surfing as much as he could, and fitting sessions in amongst various creative director gigs, including some freelancing for Quiksilver. He also started hanging around Pennartz’s Surf Gallery in Laguna, a space that was becoming an incubator for some of the most innovative, emerging voices in the surfing community, as well as a rowdy magnet for an audience hungry to explore contemporary intersections of art, surf history, music, and culture. Adler would volunteer around the gallery, befriending Pennartz in the process and helping to install exhibitions for artists and photographers such as Severson, Leroy Grannis, and Thomas Campbell.

Hild, then Executive Vice President for Quiksilver and Roxy, met Adler at one of these Surf Gallery events. This was the early 2000s, a time when the Quik brands were “rocking and rolling,” as Hild puts it. Sales were approaching their all-time peak and “money was of no object” to marketing initiatives. The goal was simply to ratchet up the bar and deliver top-notch work. 

Adler joined Hild’s crack team of 20-plus designers and immediately stood out, redesigning the Roxy logo, art directing retail spaces, and implementing dozens of Quik HQ art installations as (eventually) their chief curator. 

“Charles had an extra level of knowledge,” says Hild. “We spoke the same language about things like logos, surfboards, books, and fine art. I could trust him to make it [all] happen.” Of particular note during this run was helping to produce an ambitious, globe-trotting art, film, and music exhibition called The Happening in support of Roxy and Pennartz. His knowledge of the family of brands was so deep that the company asked him at one point to become its official historian. “I didn’t feel worthy,” Adler recalls of the designation. “They were like, ‘No, this really needs to be you.’” 

He would ultimately spend 13 years on and off working with Quiksilver, attempting to stay the course through its tumultuous slide and subsequent takeover by Oaktree Capital. Along the way, however, he was repeatedly discharged, only to be asked to come back, a result of the external decision makers not having a clue what people did within the company. Each time, somebody would call and say, “Yeah Charles, we didn’t realize you did this, and we don’t have anyone who does that now, so would you be interested in coming back?” For Adler, the whole thing was an emotional rollercoaster, “like an abusive ex you can’t get away from.” 

Adler is now an in-demand consultant with a litany of projects in various stages of development, production, and wrap. There’s the Pacific City Gallery in Huntington Beach, which is his to do with as he sees fit. Another project that excites him is the 60th anniversary of Harbour Surfboards, for which Adler is contributing logo redesigns to commemorate the occasion. In a sense, the project is a perfect confluence of his talents, combining his expertise in graphic design, surf history, and event planning. “It will no doubt reveal innumerable unseen examples of Adler’s prescient vision,” says Stecyk about the upcoming exhibition. “After all, he’s spent more than a decade submerged in a Harbour deep-dive, procuring the Seal Beach master’s most arcane artifacts.”

At this stage in his career, Adler has become one of his generation’s most knowledgeable caretakers of the sport. Through his ongoing, daily efforts to care for and protect surfing’s old guard, he has logged countless story-time hours with legends like Grannis, Takayama, and Rich Harbour, looking through their archives and helping out as much as possible. 

“I always enjoy listening to the older generation’s stories,” he says. “It’s become addictive, because I just want to learn more and more, and immerse myself with different shapers, surfers, and artists.” 

“Charles is wired way differently,” says Hild. “He truly cares and he’ll do whatever it takes. He’ll hang with [these guys] all day and night, drive them home, get them a meal, and then be there in the morning when they wake up.” 

Nineteen years into his lease in Long Beach, Adler is also gearing up for the next phase. A big move to Santa Monica with his girlfriend is in the works, meaning he’s going to have to make some hard decisions with regard to which stuff routes its way up the 405. Naturally, he’s dragging his feet a bit, soaking in as much cheater-five time at Bolsa as he can. 

The Long Beach house, he says, will be hard to part with, but it’s a healthy change. “That’s where I found myself, who I am today. I’ve had some really big highs and some really big lows there. There’s been a lot of moments in that house.” The purpose for Adler remains clear however: the mementos kept, the board museum out back, the art adorning his walls—they all serve to inform the elemental value, meaning, and joy of riding a wave.

All photos courtesy of the Surf Shacks book, available at www.indoek.com.