Lucas Beaufort

Between commissioned work, your new book, ‘Heart’, your art camps and your everyday doodles, what does your daily routine look like?

Man, I work so much. I have a lot of things on my plate and I love it. I work from eight in the morning to midnight or one sometimes. I love to be busy. Sometimes I complain that I have too much going on but when it gets slower, I don't like it. I think I’m hyperactive.

It seems like you excel when you’re juggling multiple things at once.

I am always doing something and I never stop. When I watch a series or a movie at home, I always have a sketchbook. I think the only moment I can stop is when I go to the theatre and have to switch off my phone. Even when I eat, I have my computer open. The thing is, I work with the world. At night I can have a call with Australians or American people and during the day I work with French and European people.

Your brain just doesn’t turn off.

I like it so much. I feel relief after a long day of doing many things during the day. If I decide to relax during the day, I get anxiety like I didn't do enough.

You don’t get that same sense of accomplishment that come’s with a hard day’s work.

Yeah I feel good when I accomplish a lot of things. My projects never stop, but I love it. At the very beginning of the pandemic, everything was cancelled for me and I freaked out. I did like everybody; adapted myself and my schedule and I survived. Think about a couple years ago when we were stuck at home. I was hearing that we would not be able to fly and I was like, ‘Are you fucking crazy?’ But the forecast was right. We haven’t been able to go back to the US until recently. I feel so good to be able to travel and live a life more freely.

It makes you appreciate how much more simple life was before all the chaos.

To answer your question, I am still busy, but I love it and I need to be busy. Otherwise I feel like I'm dying.

I hear you. One of the most recent projects you worked on was your coloring book, right?

Yeah, the coloring book was a really fun project. That was something that only took me two weeks drawing and then sending to the printer and then to deliver it to my supporters and shops.

In comparison, how long did your hardcover book, HEART, take to complete?

Man, it took a year and it was so much fun. I did this because I love skate shops - they’re everything to me. I love to visit them, say hi, check the product and just feel the vibe. I love skateboarding so much that I just want to know what's going on. Sometimes projects are an excuse to call shops up, get more stories about them and have a better understanding of skateboarding worldwide: in Japan, Europe, US, Canada, even in Africa. It was an amazing journey of calling them.

I want to do a new book now. I'm thinking about it but I don't know. I don't want to come up with a book that’s not good. I want to come up with something that will shock people.

You recently did a little tour in Japan, right? What was the reception like over there?

Yeah, the tour is basically the next step of the book. I wrote the whole thing from home, with my computer and my mobile phone but I needed to visit them and have a real sense of physically meeting them. I decided to go with with Japan first because I have a strong connection there and I've been there many times. It was Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagano, Kobe, Osaka and Okinawa. It was like my best trip ever.

Sounds like a marathon.

People were waiting for us. We would go to the shop and people were there like, ‘Let's go to the city and explore then let's go to a good restaurant. They were basically introducing me to the whole community but owned by skaters. It was hanging around with 30 to 50 people every three days. New people, new culture, new city, new vibes, new skate shops.

Next round is going to be Europe in September. I think in the book there are almost 30 European skate shops but I will visit just five. You’ve got to pick because it's impossible to do everyone. The goal with this is mainly to show that we need to keep connecting with people and activating things. We kind of celebrate the shop over the years.

If there's one thing that I want people to remember about me is this idea of connecting with people and sharing the cake. I'm doing this right now with you because you have a new magazine and I want to be there. I want to help you because the door is open for everyone.

That’s what skateboarding is all about: getting out there and lending a hand to your fellow skaters.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I get disappointed when people see my message on Instagram. Ghosting is the worst these days. Honestly, the “seen’ feature shouldn't exist. If the guy doesn't see a message, you feel like, ‘oh, maybe he receives thousands of messages every day.’

It’s almost worse to know that someone saw your message it and chose to ignore it.

I totally agree with you though. The reason I'm doing this magazine is to have an excuse to chat with people and learn a bit more about what everybody's up to in different parts of the of the country and of the world.

True man. When I did the documentary ‘Devoted’ in 2017, it was all about an excuse to meet people like Marc Johnson, Chad Muska, Lance Mountain, all those guys. It was all about being able to enter that world. I even met Tony Vitello from Thrasher. I'm not sure if there is another interview with him out there. That might be the only video interview of him on Internet.

I can imagine he's got some crazy stories, plus all the knowledge that comes with running the Thrasher empire.

Yeah I had to make it happen. I was in San Francisco and I contacted people from Double Rock because I wanted to draw something there. The guy was cool and told me to swing by, but my goal was to go to Thrasher. I was looking around and trying to find Tony Vitello. I saw him and I was like, ‘Dude, can I talk to you? I'm making this documentary and want to interview you.’ He was like ‘Dude, no. I don't have the time for this.’ I waited outside for him and after an hour or so, he passed by again and I said, ‘Hey Tony, please, I came from France just for you. Give me a chance.’ He said, ‘No, man. I don't want it’ and he left.

Then an hour later, he came back from lunch or whatever. He saw me being so into this and was like, ‘okay, I’ll give you five minutes.’ but he ended up giving me two hours. I had to be kind of pushy and very determined.

As they say in the world of sales, “it takes three no's to make a yes.”

You're right. I think sometimes if you take ‘no’ as it is, you're going to stop making things. I think in my life I had to change a lot of ‘no’ to ‘yes’ and that’s the reality. But no matter what they say, just keep trying. You might be surprised, of course.

Especially with skaters. Sometimes they are not the most diligent when it comes to returning an email or sending a text back.

Oh, man, that's the worst. For ‘Devoted’ there were people that were supposed to be in the documentary and the interviews they gave me were so bad. They didn't even put any thought into it.

Looking ahead, what else to you have on your plate this year? Any other collabs dropping in the next couple of months?

The goal for me is to keep traveling for the book. I’ll be doing the US and Canada in early next year. And I will do my art camp. That’s something I like because my head is really split up between skateboarding and art. I love to organize my art camp, which is inviting artists from around the world to a very special location. We have fun, paint, invite people and organize parties and music for the week. What I was telling you about Japan is the same with my art camp.

It seems like you guys are always in some tropical place or somewhere in the jungle.

Exactly. Last time we had ten artists, and it's been almost a year. When it was over, somebody started a WhatsApp group and we are constantly sending messages, photos and seeing what's going on. It's another example of how amazing the connection we had was. We want to keep this forever and we want to pursue this.

I just want to keep traveling. I'm going to China to paint a new skatepark and I might go back to Japan for snowboarding in January. I want to keep living the dream of having so much of stuff to accomplish. It's all about having an experience somewhere with someone. For example, in Canada, I'm going to make a collaboration with a chef. We're going to do like a mix of painting and eating.

Sounds like you got your hands in a little bit of everything.

Since I was 30 years old, I said to myself, “I want to live a very special life.” I always tell people that it's in their hands to make things happen. You want to make this magazine happen? It's in your hands. You want to make a documentary? Let's make it happen.

People always try to say, ‘I don't have the money for this’, but trust me. I did a lot of things in my life with no money, just with motivation. If you hear people saying they don't have the money for something, that's bullshit because you don't need money to make things happen. You just need to use your brain. If you don't have the money, you need to find a way. If it's your dream to go somewhere, but you don't have the money for it, go outside and hitch hike. You just need to find a way.

Originally published in Issue 1 - August 2023