Ashley
Lloyd Surfboards – Creating Joy
Written
by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel
With summer just around the corner it’s swimsuit season and
more – time to think about a new surfboard.
In a crowded marketplace of competing surfboard brands, SurfWriter
Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel found one that stands out from the rest – Ashley Lloyd Surfboards.
Santa Cruz-based surfboard shaper Ashley Lloyd Thompson – one of the few women in the male-dominated
field of board shaping – has made a name for herself with her colorful,
custom-designed boards.
Starting with the basic blanks that make up the body of
each board, Lloyd Thompson transforms them into individualized works of art,
conceiving the design and then painstakingly shaping and sanding each board.
Putting her passion for surfing and for life into every
board, Lloyd Thompson has expressed that she is creating joy for herself and
others through the boards she makes.
Lloyd Thompson, who started surfing while growing up in
Malibu, also has taught surfing and competed professionally.
Later, she was mentored by board shaper Danny Tarampi and
was a Bing team rider and board shaper.
Ashley Lloyd boards have gotten an international
following. Along with this, they particularly appeal to women surfers because she
understands their physical needs and creates customized boards that enable them
to get the most out of the sport.
Lloyd Thompson also has achieved something else unique in
the world of surfboard shaping – a feature story in Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine.
The magazine chose her for being a woman “with an
amazing story and a product we love.”
And, showing another side of her artistic abilities, she
and her husband Alex are part of a band appropriately called The Shapes.
Ashley Lloyd Thompson has discovered that through hard
work success is inevitable. Whatever she does, she is following her own path,
catching the next wave…and putting her talents into all the things she creates.
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Comments will appear the next day.
Sunny
Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted
material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com
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as long as credit is given.
