“Over the years I’ve found it hard to get rid of my surfboards,” Simon Kaan confesses. “They’re like taonga to me. My partner Sarah tries to turn a blind eye but sometimes hints that maybe I should get rid of some from our basement. So, I send a few of them to live with friends and family.”
The Dunedin artist owns around 40 of them, a hoarding that reflects the depth of his ocean love. It may also be Simon’s way of compensating for the first makeshift surfboards on which he learnt his sea-craft in the 1970s.
“My dad used to get big bits of polystyrene from the fish factory down the road in Sawyers Bay. My two brothers and I would snap them in half and share them. We’d go to Aramoana Beach with the family, have a surf and get some cockles. We never knew what the waves would be like – we’d just rock on up and jump in the water with no wetsuits and a couple of bits of polystyrene. It made us hardy.
“Our bodies would be rashed-up like sandpaper from lying on it in the cold water all the time. It was like torture. But it was all about getting to love the ocean.”
He eventually bought a wetsuit – which saved him some skin, but it didn’t offer up much in the way of temperature control. “The wetsuits were so cold back then. I remember once putting a ski jacket on over top – I nearly drowned because it just filled up with water.”
Surfer and artist, Simon Kaan's work is influenced by the ocean. Photo by Nick Beadle.
Four decades on, Simon still surfs at Aramoana, but these days he’s coddled by thick, chill-thwarting neoprene rubber – though that tends to make the moment when you peel your wetsuit off all the more withering.
“Aramoana is sometimes referred to as the coldest car park in the world. You’ve got that brutal southerly in the winter with a wind chill factor that can bring the temperature down to two degrees or colder.”
It isn’t enough to keep him away from Aramoana though. “It’s one of the best beach breaks in the country when it’s good. When it gets swell, it’s the only place I’ll drop tools for and bolt on meetings or other responsibilities.”
Today’s detailed meteorological forecasts have helped minimise the need for sudden tool-dropping.
“Back in the day we’d race home to watch the six o’clock news for the only weather report of the day. Now we’re updated 24/7 with 10-day forecasts, so I can plan meetings around high tides, low tides or offshores.”
Asked what a dedicated Dunedin surfer puts up with, body-wise, Simon says, “An elderly one like me? My knees. My shoulders. Surf injuries. I’ve got about 98% bone growth over both my ears from surfing. It’s diminished my hearing and I get ear infections, so there are little prices you pay.”
Simon at work in his Dunedin studio. Photo by Nick Beadle.
But it’s still worth it. “It’s that engagement with the ocean, with the energy of a wave – you feel like you’re part of it. Really good surfers become an extension of the wave.”
Given that the Dunedin coastline is so heavily imprinted on Simon’s psyche, it’s not surprising that it shows up in his art practice. The visual vocab of the ocean has long dominated his paintings and prints, and in recent times he’s taken it one step further by painting on fibreglass surfboards.
“My art is often a kind of pause – like you get when you’re out in the water. I spend a lot of time on my surfboard waiting, eyeing the horizon. I’m always observing colour, translucencies, the relationship between the water and the sky.”
Now in his 50s, Simon’s content with two or three surfs a week. “I did the maths and worked out that at an average of 20 waves a week for 40 years, I’d probably surfed 40,000 waves. So I’m now happy just getting the waves I get, rather than wanting more and more.”
Of surfing’s tug, Simon says: “I can’t imagine not doing it. It’s a ritual, it grounds me. My grandmother used to call it my church – she’d say, ‘are you off to church again, Simon?’ She was a wise old thing.”
Story by Claire Finlayson for the Spring 2024 issue of AA Directions Magazine. Claire Finlayson is a freelance writer who contributes AA Directions Magazine.
Explore more from AA Directions magazine while you're here:
- Take a coastal road trip from Nelson to Kaikōura.
- Dunedin’s Tex Houston has made a business of hand building unique hi-fi speakers.
- Is congestion charging the best solution to New Zealand's traffic woes?
