Nation Skateboarding - Skateboarding in Western NY
 

What Has Been Going On

T-Shirts are now available. Contact Matt or Ev to get you some good lovin'.

Last week Evan and I flew to Indiana to see Jake Korenstra for his 21st birthday. It was a great time and his wife helped take awesome care of us. Here are some pictures from before I broke the camera I borrowed and rolled my ankle.

The next day we flew to Portland to Ev could check out the Art Institute and we could skate Burnside. I wasn't able to do much more than roll around the place because of my ankle but Ev had a good time.

If you're planning on checking out Burnside there are a few things to keep in mind. Portland has a pretty large population of homeless, almost as many as we saw in San Francisco. I was told that the east side of the river was most ghetto but we saw homeless everywhere from the south towns up to the airport. The west side of the river had a night life that ran for more than 10 square blocks and was fun to walk around and check out.

The locals at Burnside like locals anywhere else. If you respect them and their park and don't act like an idiot they will be cool with you, which they were with us. They have a self-imposed no camera policy. One kid told me the reason for this was that random kids will show up and sit on the wall with cameras and poach for photos or footage. A lot of times the photos or footage will end up in mags, videos, and online without permission. Luckily, because I was only filming Ev there weren't any problems.

The next day we drove around and checked out a few other parks in the area. This got us out of downtown and led us into the nicer southwest Lake Oswego area. Look for a mini video compilation of the trip here in the next few weeks.

On a side note I got my MK1 lens in the mail yesterday, wee.

Congratulations to our good friend Jake K. for his recent marriage. Cheers to your future buddy!

Apparently the Honeoye park is now wide open from 9am to 8pm and is no longer supervised. The signs say helmets and pads required but no one has ever wore pads there and I see no reason to start now. Bring a helmet just in case. If anyone gives you problems remember to be polite and courteous, since being an asshole doesn't make friends with important people.

This April 1st at 7pm there will be an Art Opening at Boulder Coffee (100 Alexander St., Rochester). Come check out some artwork by Lea & I. Plus, it's on a Sunday and The Hounds of Hell will be playing so there is no excuse to miss it!

It's that time of the year again, indoor park season. Come skate with Evan and I [almost] every Sunday at X-Dreams in Rochester.

If you're feeling the snow instead of the masonite than get a pass and meet Nate up at Bristol Mountain.

Gabe? Him and his band, The Hounds of Hell, can be found every other Wednesday at Fuul in Canandaigua.

I had some footage of Evan from X-Dreams that was burning a hole in my pocket to use so I threw it together with some footage of The Hounds of Hell show this past Saturday at Füul, enjoy.

Unfortunately, after the show my video camera done got broked so until that gets fixed no more fun. The holidays suck anyways.

Edit: The video is now nutsack free.

Evan has finally caved in and gotten a Myspace account, yee haw. Check it out and add him.

FFFFFFFFFFFF winter!!!

I have uploaded two new videos. Nothing too significant, one is footage of the October snow storm in Buffalo and the other is some B-roll footage from Sweden skate park that was filmed last month.



We would like to welcome you to the Nation Skateboarding website. What is Nation? Nation was established in 1999 to highlight the skills and arts of 5 skateboarders: Nate Schapp, Matt West, Gabe Gendreau, Evan Schapp, and Mike Raffard. They use this site as a place for to post their material, photos, and footage.

Everyone started out in Honeoye, NY but over the years have spread out to different parts of western New York. Skate spots were always kind of rare in the town of Honeoye so they used to have to transport themselves to somewhere that does. Luckily it was not far. Some of the places covered through photos and video on this site include Buffalo, Rochester, and Ithaca.

Everyone has their own interests. Evan and Matt like to play with video and photography, Nate likes to draw, and Gabe is into music. That said, please feel free to look around at the photos, articles, videos, and the forum.