Each year, an artist is asked by the event chairs to donate their time and a piece of art to represent the Luau & Longboard Invitational on t-shirts, posters and other materials. The artwork is auctioned at the Luau. All proceeds are donated to the Moores UCSD Cancer Center.

This year's artist, John Holm, writes:

I am honored to be involved in a small way in this year’s Surfing for a Cure.

Drawing has always been a part of my life. I attended Burlingame High and surfed Santa Cruz and then Malibu while attending Art Center in the late sixties. I surfed and painted in Carmel while a Naval Aviator stationed on Monterey. While an ad art director in New York and Seattle, I continued to draw and paint. I am influenced by the paintings of the early California Tonalists and Peter Hayward, an old time Hawaii painter.

I now live in Seattle with my wife Nancy and have devoted more time to painting. Our five kids are in their twenties. We painted and surfed Hanalei Bay this last fall with my stepdaughter Hilary who lives in Honolulu.

My dad was a Marine pilot during the Korean War stationed at Barbers Point, Oahu. I was “Johnny the Beachcomber” of Sunset Beach. Then we moved to beautiful Laniakea near Haleiwa. I never saw a surfer at those places in 1953, except for the fireman that paddled out to recover a drowned three-year-old girl at the Sunset shore break. I feared the waves at Sunset, but the reef at Laniakea was wonderful snorkeling for a seven year old. My mother pointed out Duke at Waikiki one day. I was totally impressed by the surfing there.

The images of those beaches remain fresh in my mind. I thank the Creator for the beauty of waves and the thrill of riding that are the source of inspiration for me as a painter.

Give me a box of paint and waist high beach break, and I’m a happy camper.

John Holm's work is featured at The Aloha Galleries in Montauk and Kapaa and the Pacific Surf Gallery in Cardiff. To see more of John's artwork, please visit his website. To see last year's artist, Norm Daniels, click here.

Thank you to our 2008 and 2009 Luau & Longboard Invitational’s title sponsor, Pfizer La Jolla.