SkateAZ
Love Bowls Memorial
“Love Bowls is the 7th wonder of the world. Kind of like Egyptians just left all their stuff in the desert and left this thing here for us to skate. It’s definite skate god material here. It’s bitchin’.”
– from the 1987 Santa Cruz video Wheels of Fire.
Artwork by Xavier Ortega. Original photo by Steve Pingleton in 1987.
The Love Bowls was a part of skateboarding in Arizona for 30 years. There aren’t many spots from back then still standing, let alone ones that people still pilgrimage to today. Needless to say, the news in May of 2016 that these mysterious desert monoliths finally got bulldozed was sad to hear. AZ based skateboarder and podcaster Ted Schmitz made the first episode of “No Coping: Stories from Skateboarding” about the history of the Love Bowls. Scroll to the bottom of this page to listen in, or find it where ever you listen to podcasts.
Photo taken by Mat C. Nobert on May 15th, 2016. The other bowl in the background was demolished the following day.
Steve Pingleton was one of the first guys to skate and photograph it; he filmed this session there in 1987.
Then the Santa Cruz team skated there in the legendary video “Wheels of Fire” in 1987.
This Bryce Kanights photo of Brian Brannon was featured on the cover of Thrasher Magazine in April of 1987!
Skateboarders continued to journey out to the desert to skate the Love Bowls throughout the 90’s. Then, in 2008, Aaron “Jaws” Homoki broke ground when he dropped in from the top for his last trick in “A Happy Medium”.
Just a few months later, Rune Glifberg barely managed to scratch a frontside grind on the top!
Click below to hear episode 1 of “No Coping: Stories from Skateboarding” – a full length podcast that covers the story of the Love Bowls from start to finish! Also available in the Apple Podcasts App or Google Play for Android users.
And click below to watch a best of the Love Bowls montage with footage that spans 3 decades…