Tall Tee Art Show Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Adrift
2004 was a year of transition. Myspace had started the year before, and YouTube would launch the year after. Phones had one-megapixel cameras, and digital cameras weren't much better. You’d often hear the phrase ‘hesh vs. fresh’ when talking about style in skateboarding, and jeans were about to get skinny.
As skateboarders, style is everything, from what trick on what spot to the length of our pants. If you were around at this time, you’d probably remember seeing people wearing massively oversized white T-shirts in 3XL and larger—the tall tee. Tall tees were relatively inexpensive and widely available, and many of the local skate kids went to Cotton Best on Spadina to buy four for $10. They would layer them, often with another colour underneath and one size bigger to have it peeking out from beneath the top layer. And if the top tee got dirty, you simply ‘peeled’ it off, exposing the clean tee underneath.
Style and skateboarding are intrinsically linked. You can't have one without the other. So, to go big for Adrift’s 20th anniversary, we wanted to reflect on what was happening then. And what goes bigger than a tall tee art show?
The Stoop
Skate shops are the cornerstone of skateboarding culture. I'm not talking about all skate shops, just the ones where you can hang out without feeling obliged to buy something. These shops set the tone for the local scene and reflect what's happening in and around it. Without these skate shops, skate culture wouldn't exist.
When I opened Adrift Skate Shop in 2004 in Kensington Market, I was 21 and didn't know enough to know what I didn't know. What started as a place for my friends and me became something people sought out, found, and made their own.
Most of my early twenties were spent sitting on the front stoop of Adrift Skate Shop at 299 Augusta Avenue. With friends, we transformed the main floor of this unassuming house into a skate shop. Set 15 feet from the sidewalk, three stairs stretching the width of the storefront became known as the Stoop—a meet-up spot, a rest stop, a place for judging games of S.K.A.T.E., and occasionally a spot where we launched water balloons across the street at the unsuspecting bar.
Through the front door was the shop, the main reason for Adrift’s existence. But past the shoes and boards on the wall, a 1,000-square-foot warehouse structure was attached to the house. For some, this warehouse was an indoor skatepark. For others, it was an all-ages punk show venue, a New Year's Eve party spot that crammed in hundreds of people, and a place for kids' skateboard summer camps and lessons.
Adrift always had a way of connecting people who you wouldn't necessarily think would ever connect. On any given day, you would see a true mix of people hanging out, from 12-year-olds to pro skaters, even Joel from Rammer with their boombox blasting metal. Looking back, it felt like there were no rules. If you were on the Stoop, that was all that mattered. If you were on the Stoop, you were part of it.
First and foremost, the Stoop came to represent a community, and skateboarding is and always will be about community. Seeing Adrift continue with Jacob and Jesse Williams and watching them carve out their vision makes me feel like a small part of a continued story.
Adrift wasn't just one thing. It was many. Adrift was never just mine. It belongs to everyone who was there.
Words by Lyndsey Westfall
