Behind the Graphics with Oak’s Greg Monroy

Greg Monroy has been Oak’s in house artist since the beginning. Web site, soft goods, decks — pretty much all Oak art comes from Greg’s creative hands. He should get an award for just being able to decipher our ideas and make them a reality. You try explaining The Fur Chucker or Banana Pants to someone and multiply that by… well a lot.

Whenever we bring Greg the new graphic concepts for the upcoming season, there’s the idea in the form of a story or phrase or whatever and then there is prolonged silence or a deep sigh on the other end of the line. Regardless of how ludicrous our ideas are, Greg makes them happen in ways we cannot begin to imagine.

The fact that Greg has known us long before Oak does not hurt either. Oak does not give a rip about demographics or what’s hot. We do what we do and hope that folks dig it. So far we have not had any complaints. If we ended up doing our art without Greg, there would definitely be a lot of complaints. You see an Oak and you know before you see the logo. That’s all Greg and we are proud to have him on the creative team.

So recently we honored Greg with his first art show at a local salon in downtown Greensboro.

The show featured Oak pieces from every season, save the upcoming 09/10 offerings. Greg displayed process art, maple base ply’s and finished decks from Mike T’s personal collection. When Oak originally pitched Greg the idea, he was hesitant because he’s modest to a fault and annoyingly humble. We pretty much told him it was gonna happen and he should probably be there. Greg showed and the night was pretty amazing. Oak has never been considered part of the wine and cheese set, but we segued nicely and people actually purchased pieces as art to display in their homes and studios. Pretty rad.

He deserved a sweet art show and we wanted to show our appreciation through not so conventional means. We could have sent him a cool thank you card but we probably would have had him draw it. And that would have ruined the whole thing.

Thanks Greg

Love, Oak