Niels Schack is certainly a creative force. Watch him ride, and that becomes abundantly clear almost immediately—his clips feature pretty much everything under the umbrella of “I didn’t know you could do that.” To the casual viewer, it may seem like his creative energy stops there. But those who know will tell you it runs much deeper. Just take a look at the board he straps into—or, as is often the case with Niels, doesn’t. It’s the Blossom freestyle snowboard, which he’s been designing for the past eight years. If the term Farm to Table Video part doesn’t exist yet, then maybe it should, because Niels embodies it. He’s the artist behind countless graphics of a board he uses day in and day out. He’s a snowboarder and an artist, though in Niels's case there’s hardly much difference between the two. Take this year’s Blossom for example. A trip to the museum got him hooked on the idea of fishes and down the rabbit hole he went, only to emerge with this year’s seahorse graphic, which is simply an extension of the elemental themes he’s been exploring with this board for years. That same spontaneity exists in his riding too. For Niels, snowboarding and art both draw water from the same well.
"It's an elegant...really sophisticated board. It's so slim, it looks like a perfect skateboard. And we spent so much time making this graphic, and I don't do it alone. We're a real team..."
Norm: Can we start by doing a quick introduction? Your name, what you do, what type of art you create if you can categorize that, and what your connection is to Burton?
Niels: My name is Niels Schack. I've been riding for Burton for nineteen years now, and I've been doing the Blossom for eight years as the art director. And so, depending on the time, sometimes I’m painting, sometimes not painting. But I'm an artist, painter, art director, and have been riding for Burton, so we made the Blossom happen together, and made the team happen, and we keep on going, which is crazy.
I want to start specifically with this year's board, and I was wondering if you can describe it for someone who hasn't seen it? What’s the vibe, what did it become?
Last year [Burton] started having two boards, so it was really fun to do diptychs and hit two different clientele with two different graphics that could tell two different stories of the same story. And this year I knew Zeb was going to do the other one, so I was like: Okay, I know his influences. We have a gender-neutral board here, so I'd love to do something more on the sensitive side. More on the cute side. And it’s funny, I got a little half-sister, and Jackson, who helped design it, he just had a baby girl, so we were talking and were like, "Oh, it'd be so sick to do a board that his daughter and my little sister would love to ride." And so that was kind of the inspiration.
And I feel like every year there's a big theme that's taken into question. We had rocks, we had physics, we had geology, and this one was about the ocean. Blossom is easy because you get one theme that kind of feeds, and you’re waiting for the next big theme that's connecting everybody together. That's a universal principle. That's why physics or geology was really easy. This one was about the deep blue and the abyss and the ups and the downs. And we started working on it. I think I fell on a small drawing from a t-shirt, a pufferfish, some random like free of charge image. And I was like, oh, I love pufferfish. And I had been to this museum in Denmark called Louisiana, and it was a whole thing about the underwater world. I was just like, fishes are so awesome, and I feel that boards have a certain degree of difficulty because of their format, and the ocean dwellers are often long and weird looking. And with the seahorse, I was like, oh, you are made to be on a board. You're the most fine animal to fit there and to enjoy being on that board. Some animals wouldn't have loved it, you know?
I never thought about that. It's interesting that fish, just because of their shape, are perfect for fitting on a snowboard.
Some animals work well, and some don't. When [Salomon] did the Salomonder—perfect animal for a board. And so for us, I sent a lot of different studies of coral reefs, of different animals that I love. This top sheet, too, there's kind of an easter egg where there's a coral reef pattern on top that you can only see in the sun, and it's really quite impressive because the board really shines very differently like a denim, depending on how the sun is. So it's a board that could be really navy, but also mega pink.
You mentioned earlier the idea of themes, that the Blossom has a theme each year. But I was wondering if you ever thought of a theme throughout the boards over time? Like, do you think that there's a certain Blossom “vibe?”
Yeah, completely. It's the earth. Blossom comes from something growing and changing and evolving. So, straight away we were like, oh, we're talking about whatever micro to macro reality that you want to focus on. You have to focus on things that are universal. And that was very important to me. Whether it's gravity or the patterns of how rock formation occurs, they bring us all together because we all have to deal with those consequences and the beauty of it. As much as a forest fire brings new life, a forest fire also breaks your home. We can't go further than the earth around us. Not in a hippie way, but in a pragmatic way. And there is this team of young people that are evolving and changing, and I really would like it to resonate for every one of them. So instead of making something trendy, I was like, I want to do something that ties people together. And so when they said Blossom, I thought it would be so nice to go and dive into the elements, like a table of each and every core idea. It’s like an ode to a piece of nature. I kind of have this puzzle every year where I know I want to talk about something about nature, but I'm looking for the twist, the punk twist, you know? Like how can it be like a bit like Vivienne Westwood, or a bit like that sort of rock and roll era within a scope that is elevating those snowboards into a natural pattern.
"And so when they said Blossom, I thought it would be so nice to go and dive into the elements, like a table of each and every core idea. It’s like an ode to a piece of nature. I kind of have this puzzle every year where I know I want to talk about something about nature, but I'm looking for the twist, the punk twist, you know?"
You are a snowboarder yourself; you’re on the Burton team. Is the Blossom the board you usually ride?
Yeah, I only ride that.
What is it about that board that keeps you coming back?
It's an elegant board. It's like a camber, really sophisticated board. It's so slim, it looks like a perfect skateboard. And we spent so much time making this graphic, and I don't do it alone. We're a real team between Casey, Dylan, me, Leo, Jackson, Evan, and everybody that let it—the first time we didn't have “Burton” written on it, and they were like, oh, yeah, we let it slide. A lot of people are behind this board and made it fucking sick. So when I ride it, I'm so proud of the team. And I know a lot of people expect it to be good. Like my friends who are on the Burton team, they're like, "What's Niels been cooking up for us this year?" It's nice to be trusted, and it's also nice to see the board be so much of a success. Because it is sort of a counterintuitive success. It's not made to be successful. I mean, it is, but it's always made to hit on the point of making the people that you love happy.
I don't know if it's worn off, however many boards later, but is it exciting when you see your friends riding that board?
It's the craziest thing in the world. I think I'm on the ninth one now, and it's never been like, oh, no. Oh, it's another board. It's my favorite thing to do every year, and I put my whole heart into it. And I think also, Casey has fucking 20 boards to do. I have one. So I have so much time to elongate the feeling and nurture it. It's a really fun collaboration, because it's generous from both sides. It's Blossom; it's just a nice word for everybody to tag along with.
