my god
hahaha
it's a whale
break
oh well that was me in the background
saying oh my god while I was visiting
with some humpback whale researchers in
Alaska the guy on the deck shouting it's
a whale
that's captain Andy who happens to be a
humpback whale researcher with quite
some enthusiasm even after seeing
hundreds of humpback whales and I've had
a large number of encounters with
dolphins and whales myself and I still
feel very excited when I see them I'm
just inspired by the graceful movement
of a 100 to 150 tonne whale seeming to
be moving so effortlessly through its
few fluid movement in the ocean and I
emulate that style that's just graceful
I love that graceful movement in the
things that I try to do in my surfing
and skateboarding and yes over 40 years
ago I was the only female member of the
famous Zephyr skateboard team featured
in Dogtown and z-boys we were known to
live a bit outside the box be a bit
rebellious while lots of kids were
trying to figure out how to stay out of
school we were getting into them to
skate the banks and getting into skate
the pools which led to our surfing style
that was a trademark vertical
skateboarding that led to what you see
in today's X Games and of course I still
love surfing that I've been doing for
over 40 years the action of surfing
waves but also I get a lot from just the
thousands of hours I've spent sitting in
on my board waiting for waves in between
that time of just having the the rhythms
of the ocean beneath me and encounters
with sea life and and seabirds coming
around at the time that I was on the
skateboard team I was also studying
field zoology and environmental biology
I had a real interest in animal behavior
especially in the social behavior of
dolphins and whales they're also known
as cetaceans and I refer to them as the
sea tation nation
or cos the largest member of the dolphin
family stayed together their entire
lives sperm whales
I am a sperm whale groupie they are the
world's largest toothed mammal they
possess the world's largest brain they
can dive to depths of 2,000 meters and
hold their breath for up to an hour but
what really touched me the most about
them is I was learning about their
behavior is that even in fatal
conditions where their lives are in
danger
they will never abandon their injured or
sick as our studying animal behavior
scientists were coming out and saying
that play is a sign of intelligence and
here we are with dolphins surfing
another connection that I feel to these
these beings as a surfer myself and
seeing dolphins as I'm surfing in their
surfing ways to whales also surf imagine
a school bus dropping in on a wave at
pipeline
it's happened if that's not enough to
impress you about cetaceans there's many
stories of dolphins encountering humans
and this is one from Whangarei in new
zealand 12 years ago a lifeguard father
of three had his three daughters out
swimming for practice off of Ocean Beach
100 metres out when seven dolphins
approached them slapping their flukes
circling these swimmers almost as if
they were hurting them they weren't
afraid of dolphins so they just kept
swimming and thought oh yeah this is
pretty cool but a lifeguard from the
shore salt was going on he thought it
was really odd too and he decided that
he was going to go check it out got on
his little boat went to just outside of
where the dolphins were and into the
water and what did he see a three metre
long shark a great white shark what a
great day to have dolphins swimming
around you in the 20th century alone
nearly 3 million whales were killed many
of them are still endangered in the
early 80s thanks to protests and public
outcry the International Whaling
Commission announced that in 1986 they
were going to have a moratorium on
commercial whaling a victory
we saved the whales I remember that day
I would remember that time that wow the
whaling was going to end despite the
millions of whales that have been killed
there's never been a known attack of a
whale on a human imagine a world without
war revenge or retaliation one of
forgiveness and compassion I pondered
the wisdom of whales and I thought what
would it be like to look into the eye of
a whale so I created this painting of a
gray whales eye and then in less than a
year on Christmas morning in 1999 while
I was surfing a great spot down in
Southern California
catching really fun waves and I paddled
back out and sat on my board waiting for
my next wave a gray whale 15 meters away
from me just 15 meters away
lifted its head up out of the water like
the periscope of a submarine looking
around and it looked at me our eyes met
and I was just ecstatic I was blown away
I had no fear at all this whales so
close to me but I was just in awe and
then the whale just went back underwater
and right next to it another gray whale
surfaced raising its huge arching back
out of the water and just going back
underneath and they disappeared I knew
how rare that experience was
that's very rare for a whale to come
that close to a human in their own
environment and so I felt I needed to
look into it what was going on with
whales at that time little did I know
that that experience was actually going
to be changing my life I found out that
despite the moratorium when the whales
are supposed to be protected in 1986
that they were still being killed
and numbers of up to over 1,800 whales
were being killed every year between
Norway's commercial whaling activities
and the scientific whaling of Japan and
Iceland recently joining in as well
in 2007 the Japanese government
announced that they were going to
Antarctica to kill 50 humpback whales as
an artist I felt I needed to do
something about it and so I came up with
the idea of painting a portrait series
of fifty humpback whales based on photo
identification records of actual
humpback whales sighted off of
Antarctica the markings on humpback
whales are as unique as the fingerprints
on a human these are sentient individual
beings that I wanted to somehow help and
so I did this art series which may have
seemed a bit obsessive I was wondering
if people are gonna think oh she's
really crazy but actually the show was
quite well-received and I was really
glad that I was able to do something
like that I also try to raise awareness
and appreciation of cetaceans by doing
large paintings of them such as for
whales this is a oil on board that was
one and a half meters wide of a sperm
whale fluke
and it's big but a sperm will is
actually twice the size of that this
particular painting caught the attention
of the Santa Barbara whale festival
organizer who invited me to come up with
children's whale art activities at the
Santa Barbara well festival so I thought
of origami whales what about a goal
something meaningful with this this
effort okay 1,400 origami whales to
represent the number of whales that were
going to be killed in that year it
seemed like a huge endeavor but the
whale festival we got children coming in
people of all ages folding origami
whales we got halfway there and working
with animal welfare organizations who
posted information about my campaign on
their web sites people from all over the
country of the United States people from
all over the world started sending the
origami whales and I reached that goal
and then was provided the opportunity to
present these whales to the
International Whaling Commissioner of
the United States so how am I going to
bring these whales in Washington DC the
most visually impactful way I'm not
going to show up with two big plastic
bag holes of origami whales how about a
plexiglass cylinder of all these OD
goggles as if they're they're kind of in
a display tank or something oh no way
these animals swim you know 50 miles a
day and there's just such beautiful
beings that should never be kept in
captivity to tank so then I thought of a
curtain of origami whales so that each
individual whale would be recognized
when I shared the idea with my friend
she said let's do it at my house and six
other friends came for an entire weekend
and we hand stitched these these origami
whales into a strand and that's the
first curtain of origami whales that
went to Washington DC and there's the
IWC Commissioner the United States at
that time since then I've created many
curtains of origami whales and dolphins
for different different efforts through
my origami whales project which leads me
to a little side note I guess when I
went to New Zealand in 1980 for my first
time following the endless summer
and I landed into Raglan and yes this is
my 19th time in Raglan I learned about
the Maui's dolphin the world's smallest
dolphin which is unique to New Zealand
and it's also critically endangered in
2006 learning that there was only a
hundred and eleven of these dolphins
left I decided to create a curtain of
origami Maui's dolphins through rallies
dolphin day but 111 being such a small
number I wanted to get attention to this
this issue and so decided to create a
curtain of 1111 Maui's dolphins so that
the 1,000 mallies dolphins would draw
some attention people would go wow what
is that big thing of paper dolphins and
then right beside it
this little curtain of 111 just to show
how relatively few are left this curtain
was exhibited at the Tate pappa National
Museum of New Zealand for three months
and then it went to the Waikato Museum
in New Zealand for two months I felt wow
this is really great working with the
children of all ages and having our
exhibit in such such fine places it
takes a lot of people hundreds of people
folding origami whales thousands and
lots of volunteers but I was feeling
very frustrated about the lack of
information getting out about whales
being killed despite the moratorium when
they're supposed to be protected so in
2006 I came up with the idea to create a
curtain to represent the number of
whales that have been killed that was
25,000 in that year but it was an
ambitious endeavor that I felt I needed
to take on and as 2007 was approaching
that number grew to 30,000 but I said if
I get that many whales I'm going to make
a curtain and I'm going to bring it to
the International Whaling Commission
meetings in Alaska which I did
since then I've exhibited the curtain
three years in a row at Whale day on
Maui the curtain is exhibited inside of
two massive festival tents joined
together and the numbers keep growing it
went to 32,000
thirty four thousand thirty six thousand
because each year I update the curtain
to represent that number of these
magnificent beings each paper whale
representing whale a real whale that was
killed that should have been protected
people of all ages have entered
thousands of people into the exhibit
they peek in and they see the sunlight
on the whales and the the air flowing
through the curtain with all these
colorful whales and they're not quite
sure what to expect and as they walk
through this this long maze of whales
and read messages on them and realize
the numbers that they've just walked
past some people come out feeling a bit
overwhelmed and in tears and thanking me
for what I've done and I feel really
grateful for that opportunity to work
with people to create art that has
meaning an art that empowers through
participation art that has purpose I've
had the honour of meeting some of the
volunteers of the sea Shepherd
Conservation Society here's one of them
and sea Shepherd Conservation Society
volunteers they go out to some dangerous
places in the world including Antarctica
they get in their ships and literally
get between a Whaler ship and a whale
putting their lives on the line with
direct action which is something that
very few people would be willing to do
in 2007 I invited captain Paul Watson to
view my exhibit of the origami whales
curtain and he came out to another event
a few months later and gave me this
medal of honour I was really thrilled
that my work was being acknowledged by
somebody who does some of the most
dangerous work to save whales well I'm
doing something on the other end of the
spectrum working with kids and people of
all ages to raise awareness for the
whales a few years ago as I was being
inducted into the skateboard Hall of
Fame one of my friends referred to me as
saving the world one whale at a time I'd
like to think that everybody who is
participated by folding origami whales
and helping me
stitch these curtains has been a part of
that lots of people can have passion
that you don't have to be passionate
about seeing whales and dolphins it's
turning passion into action that can
make a difference in the world I never
imagined that the Berlin Wall would come
tumbling down but some passionate people
did they took action and it happened I
never imagined that that nations across
the world would ban circuses from using
wild animals some passionate people did
and it happened I never imagined that
with one remaining female black Robin a
New Zealand black Robin that left that
that species would be brought back from
the brink of extinction some passionate
people did and it happened what sort of
thing do you feel passionate about that
you feel you could make a difference in
the world for this summer in Raglan
while I was teaching the whales and
dolphins ambassador program one of my
students 12 year old Ayla asked me for
some advice I said follow your heart
with vision and actions create your own
folds and you will connect with your
porpoise in life thank you
you