Ed Templeton – “Copper Head” Sculpture

About the Artist: Ed Templeton

“Depending on what hat I’m wearing, I’m a skateboarder, an artist, or a businessman,” says Ed Templeton, who produces photographs, paintings, and drawings. He began skateboarding in 1985 and went on to found his own skateboard company and to skate professionally from the early to mid-1990s. In 1994, he picked up a camera to document the skateboarder subculture he was a part of—and began his artistic career. Though he is primarily known for his black-and-white photographs of the people and street life of Huntington Beach, Calif., his work also includes a series of intimate portraits of his wife and an understated suite of paintings focused on suburbia. As the artist explains, all of his subjects come from his own life: “Everything I’ve ever shot has just been on the path that I’ve been on, be it skating or travel or street photography.”