The Surfers Journal
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It’s 5 a.m. in Laguna Beach, that shrine to excessive SoCal living where Botoxed real estate moguls and mom-influencers in yoga pants pass their days running side hustles at boutique smoothie shops. And then, implausibly, here comes Jim Olarte, a gay Filipino man with missing teeth, who walks around town like a stylish vagabond drifter, a throwback to the posh enclave’s surf-hippie past.
I pick him up to start the day the way he always does: by beachcombing the local coves that define this stretch of coastline. In contrast to Laguna’s assumed florid hues, there’s a heavy marine layer this morning. There’s also solid south swell in the water. A dawn-patrol session would be the priority, presumably, but the surf doesn’t really matter to Olarte anymore, not since he became addicted to this alternative ocean-based activity about 20 years ago: meandering tide pools to collect materials for his art.
He doesn’t own a car—not because he cannot afford one, but because he’s designed a simpler life for himself. He usually takes the bus to Cameo Shores, about 5 miles north, at first light. Today, I’ll be his chauffeur, although it’s really me who’s along for the ride.
Cameo Shores is a magnet for local currents, an epicenter for detritus and debris to collect on the rocks at low tide. It’s the perfect place for Olarte to hunt for his treasures from the sea: the lost and discarded items, weathered and barnacled from years in the ocean, lodged in the rock reef. This particular stretch of coast is complicated. There aren’t many beaches. It’s mainly cliffs and coves.
We start with breakfast before embarking on the hunt. Like an overgrown kid, Olarte orders a half dozen glazed donuts and a large coffee every morning. He’s got a sweet tooth, clearly, but looking at his wiry physique and his strong, tree-like legs, you’d assume he hasn’t had a carb or anything close to junk food in years. He’s pushing 70, yet appears at least two decades younger. It’s amazing what saltwater and steady movement can do for the body—and, for that matter, the soul.
Olarte is “California sober,” meaning no booze or hard stuff, just plant-based medicine. A little more than 20 years ago, he battled alcoholism. As he began to experience serious health problems, he was faced with a life-or-death ultimatum from his doctor to stop drinking. He quit, cold turkey.
Beachcombing has been an integral part of his rehabilitation regimen over the years. By “walking it off,” Olarte has staved off his demons and found the peace he’s needed to heal and move forward. His system is obviously working, keeping him healthy and fueling his creative endeavors.
As we scour the raw, rocky nooks and crannies of Cameo Shores at low tide, Olarte—sporting old Nike sneakers—jumps and bobs from reef to boulder and so forth, pulling hidden gems from the tide pools and tucking them into his beach bag during his slow, meditative dance. A mollusk-encrusted fiberglass boat shard here, an oily abalone shell there, lead fishing weights, a baby octopus. It’s like he has X-ray vision and can spot all the magic beneath the surface, items invisible to the rest of us.
“When I’m beachcombing,” he says, “I find myself in a very zen-like state. I’m connected, grounded, in the moment, part of the environment. I often think the objects I collect are finding me. I’m opening my awareness, and I’m there to receive them.”
*
Olarte’s work is both familiar and exotic, though it feels personal. His pieces are not depictions of the world as he sees it, but rather artifacts of his own world and points of view. They carry an installation-like quality that fuses them with their setting, context and environment becoming, at times, part of the art as much as of the work itself.
His pieces can feel reminiscent of Christo, the internationally renowned Bulgarian artist known for his large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, works tied to nature and intended to be powerfully moving when experienced in person.
I remember the first time I saw Olarte’s nautically inspired, naturally aged rope sculptures, brilliantly hung from the exposed ceiling beams at the Poler flagship store in Laguna. I marveled at the scale of the installation and the meticulous yet raw knots that reminded me of my youth spent sailing.
That afternoon, I met Olarte, an unforgettable character: bold, quirky, charming, very direct. He had the look and cadence of someone who had perhaps just stepped on shore for the first time after a long voyage at sea. He told me he’d first learned the art of macramé, a form of textile produced using knotting (rather than weaving or knitting) techniques, from his mother.
Prior to the steam age, sailors made macramé objects while not busy at sea and sold or bartered them when they landed. Nineteenth-century British and American sailors often made hammocks, bell fringes, and belts from macramé. They called the process “square knotting,” after the knot they used most often. Macramé’s popularity faded over time but made a brief comeback in the 1970s, hence its modern-day hippie-craft aesthetic.
Olarte’s mother wanted plant hangers, so he made them for her as a young boy. Later, he applied his fascination with the process as a retail designer for Roxy, taking commissions to do storefront installations in the early 2000s.
Former Roxy senior vice president of marketing Randy Hild recalls Olarte’s influence on both the brand and the surf-fashion industry at large during that time. “Not many men in the surf industry would crack a Vogue magazine,” he says. “You can count them on one hand, and Jim was on the short list. He knew what was happening in fashion around the world and had this ability to connect the dots and also add vintage elements through the whole thing. He became, as I kind of joke about, the stylist of the surf industry. He was the go-to guy.”
From 1980 through 2000, Olarte and his former partner, Larry Craig, ran the hottest vintage store in Southern California, called Locals Only. They specialized in high fashion, but also retained a heavy surf, Hawaiiana, and coastal vibe. Far from your run-of-the-mill, junked-up thrift shop, it expressed a specific point of view that was additive, clean, and organized. This was, of course, appealing to both the fashion industry and the burgeoning surf industry, which was basically in their backyard.
Steve Jones, a former VP of visual arts at Quiksilver and Roxy, remains a close friend of Olarte’s and has served as a creative cohort over the years. “Every designer—from Gotcha to Stüssy, Billabong, Quiksilver, you name it—shopped at that store,” he says. “Just being at the epicenter of it all in Orange County and having all those designers in there constantly looking for inspiration, you could say that store influenced the entire surf industry.”
This was before it was possible to reference styles on Pinterest and Instagram or shop on eBay, making Locals Only a de facto hub of vintage influence, largely because of Olarte’s curatorial eye. “It was a scene,” he says. “You had models like Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, Marisa Miller—all these beautiful women shopping there.”
Jones recalls first meeting Olarte when he picked him up hitchhiking on PCH while driving to his old busboy job. As it turned out, they worked at neighboring restaurants. The duo was soon part of a Warhol Factory–like clique of creative types, designers, and entrepreneurs that came to define surf culture out of Laguna. At the helm was Shawn Stüssy. Olarte and Jones both appeared as models in Stüssy’s very first print ads. The crew of creatives also included iconic shaper and eccentric artist Peter Schroff, as well as Hild.
“Jim is great at bottling up a specific feeling or aesthetic and presenting it to the world,” Jones says. “A lot of people can create those various aesthetics, but it takes a certain person to be able to bottle it properly. Jim’s like the guy that influences the influencers. He’s at the source of a lot of these other people’s influences and sensibilities.”
During the 1990s, Olarte’s specific point of view led to brands in both the high fashion and surf industries hiring him as a stylist on shoots and, eventually, to design storefronts, with his aesthetic continuing to bridge the gap between scenes. Perhaps his most notable client was celebrated fashion photographer Bruce Weber.
Later, during his tenure with the brand, Roxy turned to Olarte when they wanted their flagship store in South Coast Plaza to have a design element that was unique and impactful. Olarte came to the project with the intention of creating his first large-scale macramé sculpture, a process that helped him to reinvent himself as a fine artist.
“I consider that to be one of my greatest achievements,” he says, “taking this somewhat ancient craft and evolving it to a scale that is more unique to myself and have it be appreciated by the public.”
Where he took macramé from there became otherworldly.
*
Olarte’s day-to-day life revolves around the tides. When it’s low tide, he’s beachcombing. When it’s high tide, he’s working.
Back at Cameo Shores, it’s not even noon yet, but the tide has come in, so we decide to head to Olarte’s studio on Glenneyre Street, in the heart of downtown Laguna, to regroup and catalog his finds. His space is just five blocks from his home and looks like the neighborhood witch’s house: an old Victorian A-frame roofline with blue painted shingles, beaten wooden floors, and exposed beams. Inside, the scent of incense and the ocean clings to the ropes and other objects he’s gathered from the intertidal zone. Jackson Browne’s “For a Dancer” plays in the background.
As I navigate the studio, Olarte describes a grouping of leather, rope, and driftwood sculptures like a tour guide in a museum. “Each low tide, we set out in search of beauty,” he says. “When looking for a piece of driftwood, we have strict requirements that only our eyes know. It must have movement, a good sun bleach, the right weight and integrity to wind up in our hands. Once acquired, they are oven-fired until dry, filling the studio with delightful aromatics. All aspects of the wood are taken into account when pairing it with a material to create a beautiful partnership between driftwood and rope.”
The scale of the studio has helped Olarte go bigger with his pieces. The interior is part workspace, part lounge, and part archive of sea findings, a reinterpretation of the underwater world laid out for display through his crazy, curatorial mind. A large, jellyfish-like cluster hangs from a wall, made from two years’ worth of lost and discarded leashes. In the back room sits a white pedestal, something Olarte calls an “Abalone Midden,” displaying about 100 abalone shells stacked in a pyramid.
Everything is considered here. Inspiration and awe seep from every corner. It’s no surprise that Olarte entertains regular visitors in the studio. He’s a social magnet, and people are clearly drawn to this space and his work.
“His art, to me, reflects the person he is: a unique individual who walks his own path and follows his own creative instinct,” says artist Wolfgang Bloch, formerly based in Laguna. “I would always see him at low tide, collecting sea glass and objects most people would consider trash. He referred to them as his treasures.”
“With my work and in life,” Olarte says, “I’m inspired by this vast ocean world we know so little about. I still love fashion, but people like Jacques Cousteau also inspire me. More than anything, my intention with my art is to continue to surprise myself.
“For instance, I was collecting fiberglass boat pieces for years without any intent for them as an art form. I was just cleaning the beaches and found their shapes and textures interesting, so I kept them for years. Then I started looking at Alexander Calder’s mobiles and was inspired to create these hanging sculptures with the boat fiberglass pieces. I was off to the races all of a sudden.
“On the other hand, sometimes I’ll see a tangle of lobster-trap rope or a beautiful piece of driftwood on the beach, and I’ll see the final piece in the found object immediately.”
Several years ago, on a previous visit to Laguna, I met Olarte at his home. I was led to his cliffside abode overlooking the ocean by a long, anaconda-like sculpture, which was woven from lobster-trap rope that stretched for at least 50 feet down a steep, rickety outdoor staircase to his lower apartment. Upon rounding the corner into his patio area, the scene turned extraterrestrial. I was greeted by more colorful rope sculptures, fiberglass “wind chimes,” and strung curtains of seashells that hung from the deck above us, creating a cave-like outdoor installation.
The macramé pieces became more and more dense as I approached the home’s entrance. “I want to re-create underwater kelp forests with my work,” he said of his installations. “My intent is to replicate the experience of diving into these underwater worlds where everything is interactive and tactile.”
Found seashells and beach detritus dangled in the form of intricate, handmade mobiles, room dividers, and blinds. There were also tables covered with his prized beachcombing finds, all laid out and organized neatly, like some pirate’s treasure room.
At the time, Olarte had a similarly intentional, while also complexly organized and chaotic, arrangement with his ex-partner. He and Craig had bought a house in Laguna together as a couple in the 1990s, but didn’t want to sell it when they split up, so they decided to take turns living in it. One of them would move in for five years, and then it was the other’s turn.
“My intent is to replicate the experience of diving into these underwater worlds where everything is interactive and tactile.”
Today, they both live on the property. Olarte is in the downstairs apartment, while Craig lives in the main house. Within the space, Olarte lives simply. He has consciously designed his life this way, choosing to spend his time with objects, activities, and people that give him happiness.
As a single man, he’s naturally a bit of a loner. But he’s not lonely. He’s surrounded by friends, colleagues, and collectors of his work, and he has deep love and pride for his family, including his son, Lennon, of whom he speaks frequently and fondly.
When Olarte first mentioned Lennon to me, I assumed he might have come from a previous relationship, perhaps at a time when Olarte may not have been openly gay. As it turns out, Olarte’s friends, a lesbian couple, wanted to become parents and asked him if he’d be willing to be the father.
Olarte happily obliged and has been a part of Lennon’s life since his birth. Now he’s a proud grandfather. His relationships, like his art, are beautiful, nontraditional works in progress with many layers and compositions.
*
It’s afternoon as we meander a couple blocks from the studio to Adolfo’s, one of Olarte’s favorite Mexican joints. Over hearty bean, rice, and cheese burritos, he asks if I’d like to help him and his studio assistant, Cooper Root, with a project they have scheduled.
The plan is to transport a rope sculpture, which they’ve spent weeks crafting, back to Cameo Shores in order to display it on a large rock formation just offshore. After finishing lunch, we gather at the beach with the materials.
Soon I find myself hauling large, heavy sail bags full of lobster-trap rope on foot along the rocky coast. Two miles on, we reach the formation and swim out to it, then scale the 40-foot archway to drape the rope across the rocks, framing a portal through which to view the crashing waves.
After the install, I peer over the edge with a feeling of vertigo. Root does a gainer from the top of the stack into the ocean. Olarte jumps in behind him, feet first. I swallow my butterflies and make the leap, a set wave swelling over the mussel-crusted rocks below.
As we admire the multipart sculpture from the bouldery shore, there’s no other audience on the beach to share the scene with us. The view is ours alone.
A set wave knocks one of the sculpture’s components—a piece that might sell for thousands of dollars to a collector—into the ocean, and Root swims out to save it, but the currents are too strong.
We walk back along the shore with a vivid memory and a lighter load. “I think it’s important to surround yourself with beautiful things,” Olarte says, unfazed. “It’s good for your soul.”
[Feature image: Photo by Matt Titone.]
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