Pao Hui Kao, Taiwan

A creative response to Urushi Paper Pleats Bench by Brad Phillips

1986, everyone skateboarded but me. I never saw anyone land a trick in my life. Benches, rails, medians; Robert Morris in the suburbs, turned utility, a way, they hoped, to impress the girls. The greasy black stains from trucks and tires looked angry. “Go clean up after your friends,” my mom would always say. Instead of skateboarding I played basketball, hours and hours each day, trying to pass one large sphere through a honeycombed net.