I met Joseph Hart skating the cold streets of Providence, Rhode Island during art school. Originally from New Hampshire, Joseph Hart lives in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited at museums and galleries across the United States and Europe. He has been featured in FlashArt, Modern Painters, COLOR Magazine, Elephant Magazine, and The New York Times. His work is in the collections of The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, The Davis Museum at Wellesley College and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is also a super nice guy.
When did you start skating?
I got into skating in the mid/late 1980’s. Some older kids from California moved into my rural New Hampshire town. I saw them skating and was immediately interested. I was 11 years old.
What was your first skateboard?
I’d like to think I had two “first” skateboards. My first “first” skateboard was a Santa Cruz Jammer, which I received as a Christmas gift from my parents (bless them). It had a black and white chain link fence graphic on it, and came with red wheels and matching red nose and tail guards. I stopped skating for a few years, but got back into it in 92-93’ish, and set up my second “first” board, which was a Consolidated Karma Tsocheff.
While we are on topic, my favorite board of all time was the Good & Evil that featured the rails-nose/tail guard-birdie graphic. That shape was lovely. It was a white full dip, and I was really into how well it recorded and held my slide marks. More importantly though, it was the fact that it was a very small independent company, and I was friends with the people behind it. That was important.
