Maple XO

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Why Skateboards?
I’m a skateboarder and almost as much as I love skating itself, I love being a part of the skateboard community. It’s filled with amazing individuals who are all driven by the same fuel, the love of skateboarding. Recycling the boards has been my way to give back to this community by reducing the environmental footprint of skateboarding and giving the old boards new life. With such amazing art and talent that is put into the graphics and production of a skateboard deck, they deserve way more than to sit in a landfill after they’ve been skated.

How did you think this up?
Recycling skateboards wasn’t a new idea. People have been doing it since the 70’s and my first personal attempt wasn’t to make jewelry, it was to make a clock for my wall at home. Next I made a chalkboard, some magnets and eventually I just put the scraps from all these skateboard crafts on some earring hooks and wore them around. Didn’t think much of it until all my friends and people from work started asking me to make them some skateboard earrings. Looking back on it now is funny, because the earrings were literally raw pieces of broken skateboards dangling on ear wires.

Once I started cutting into the boards for the purpose of making jewelry, I started discovering the amazing beauty and qualities inside the skateboards. I was somewhat familiar with the drill press (thanks to high school woodshop many years ago) so I started with cutting circles. From the circles, I created the first pair of recycled skateboard hoop earrings, and soon to follow were the bangles.

I can still remember the day when I made the first pair of earrings and the butterflies that came with that feeling. It must have been sometime around midnight at a woodshop in Portland. This middle-aged woodworker who built and restored church organs was hard at work and from across the shop I came running over to him to show him what I had just created. I was jumping up and down with excitement, like I had just invented the wheel and this poor guy put on a great, sweet face of acting like he cared about earrings and skateboards. I had to show someone! So that was that. The beginning of MapleXO and the world of recycled skateboard jewelry. It’s been quite a journey and I can’t wait for what’s around the corner.