Sean Cliver and Todd Batrud currently have a show up at the London House of Vans. In honor of the occasion, Cliver recently sat down for an extensive interview with Slam City. If you are as big of a fan of Cliver’s work as we are, you’re likely familiar with most of the information contained in this latest Q&A. But, near the end, he eloquently sums up the importance of art in skateboarding, and what makes the connection so unique.

My wife pointed this out to me after a few such exchanges at the House of Vans exhibition, saying most professional artists go their whole life and never hear of anyone having such a visceral connection to their work in the way that skateboarders do. Look, I know I’ve lived in a foxhole for damn near most of my existence, but I like to think what we have as skateboarders, the weird world-away-from-the-world that we’ve created, it’s something incredibly special and unique. I can’t think of many (any?) other activities that celebrate and cherish the artistic culture as much as we do.

I mean, can you imagine the baseball—or in maybe in your UK case a better analogy would be football—community coming together and rallying around someone’s art show at the local sporting good’s store? Or someone mid-lifing in their ’40s who’s desperately trying to track down the first cricket bat or ball they had as a kid? Who knows, maybe they do and I’m just making shit up to support my case for the importance of art in skateboarding, but what do you expect? I’ve been very lucky to have this as my labor of love for the past 30 years and I intend to keep doing it as long as my hand holds out.

Read the entire interview here.

Image Via Sean Cliver