A mandala is a graphic symbol that depicts both the physical and psychical worlds. In Hindu thought it denotes the union of opposites such as fire and water and is used to explain cosmology. Buddhists perceive mandalas as the enlightened pattern of the Buddha and use it in their meditative practices for focus and contemplation. Essentially, it is a universal mark of integration and harmony.

I first came across the work of Manuel C. Caro in 2004 when a friend showed up to the beach with a yellow 5’8” twin keel. He’d read about Manny’s boards on-line and decided to email him for more information. Manny responded immediately with lengthy answers to his questions, which added a nice personal touch - something characteristic of ordering a hand-shaped surfboard. A dialogue was set in motion and a fish platform with marine ply Larry Gephardt fins arrived months later.

Later that afternoon I witnessed my friend ride a wave across the beach, from jetty to jetty, blazing one section after another as if he were riding a Campbell Bros. bonzer in hollow surf. Certain people feel that the twin keel and bonzer function as Yin and Yang, both complimenting each other in their desire for speed and drive.

Much has happened since 2004 and Mr. Caro has become one of the most recognized shapers of alternative craft in the United States, blending the classical templates of such shaping luminaries as Skip Frye, Steve Lis, Rich Pavel and Wil Jobson with his own futuristic impressions.

This interview was conducted over the course of a month via email. (See Werner Herzog’s "Wheel of Time" for the construction of sand mandalas.)

MM: You recently moved from Santa Cruz to SF, how's that been in terms of surfing and shaping?
MC: It’s been a crazy transition moving to the city, but I couldn’t have picked a better time of the year to do it. San Francisco has a bad rap for being foggy, or blown-out with the prevailing NW wind, but Fall here is pretty ideal. It’s been sunny and offshore, with late season south swells for the past few weeks. I’ve been doing the shape-surf-eat-sleep thing and I’m pretty stoked.

I’m living pretty close to the beach now and I’ve been shaping at Mollusk Surf Shop, which is pretty much the surf nucleus for the budding surf/art community in San Francisco. It’s really inspiring to be around so many talented people. Everyone who hangs out at Mollusk is doing something to make the world a better place - teachers, artists, musicians, carpenters, massage therapists, etc. It’s good to know that a common love for surfing brings all these people together in a place that’s more than just a surf shop. For example, Will Oldham came to Mollusk today with his band and played some songs for us and a few friends. It’s Monday, 1pm and we’ve got a special little show going on…just another day at Mollusk.

MM: Cool that a "movie star"- rocker like Will Oldham would play an impromptu set at Mollusk. The place sounds awesome. Were you into Will’s earlier band, Palace?
MC: Yeah, it was really cool show. I used to have all the old Palace music on cassette back in the day, so it was neat to hear all the echoes of his older music in the new Bonnie “Prince” Billy material. The new album he recorded in Iceland called “The Letting Go” definitely falls in the beautiful/sad category. I like his newer music a lot, like the “Superwolf” album he did with Matt Sweeney. I guess you have to be in the right mood to appreciate how beautiful and depressing his music can be sometimes.

MM: Do you listen to music when you shape?
MC: I’m definitely into music when I’m shaping, and having my Ipod around is crucial. It’s really the only thing I can handle when I’m covered in dust, so having most of my music collection in the palm of my hand works great when I’m in the shaping room. What I listen to really depends on what mood I’m in, but I generally like faster upbeat stuff when I’m using the planer and roughing out boards and mellower stuff when I’m fine sanding.

MM: What have you been listening to lately?
MC: I’m kind of into pretty obscure music, so I’m not sure if anyone would know any these bands, but here’s a short list of favorites:

Madlib -“Blunted in the Bomb Shelter”
Papercuts -“Rejoicing Songs”
Vetiver -“To Find Me Gone”
Jolie Holland - “Catalpa”
Modest Mouse - “Interstate 8”
Sandy Bull -“Still Valentines Day, 1969”
Savath & Savalas - “Manana”
Tapes ‘n Tapes - “The Loon”
Tommy Guererro - “Loose Grooves and Bastard Blues”
Ravi Shankar - “Introduction to Indian Classical Music”
Pinback -“Summer In Abbadon”
Cat Power - “Moon Pix”

MM: Great music. How did you first get into shaping?
MC: I guess shaping was one of those things that started off as a hobby and then grew into something of an obsession for me. It all started in fall of 2002 when my good friend John traded boards at Waddell. He had a little 5’4” John Mel kneeboard with wood keels - the full teardrop with a nice big swallowtail on it. I can’t remember what I was surfing, probably my 6’8” round pin single John Mel made back in ’78. My first wave on the fish was super fast and I remember just flying down the line, hooked.

A few weeks later, Thomas (Campbell) and I were down at Trestles and he pulls out this crazy thing with double-wings, four fins, swallowtails, etc. I had my little yellow 5’8” round-pin twinny Bob Pearson made in the ‘80s, and Thomas says, “Leave that in the car. You gotta try this thing.” I was pretty excited, but unsure about it, I mean that board wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. So we get down there and the lefts are doing their thing. The first wave I caught was so mind-blowing that I still get excited when I think about it. I remember going faster than I’d ever gone on a surfboard, and when I finally reached the shoulder on this waist-high wave I tried to do a cutback, but I was going so fast that my legs buckled under me and I flew over the rail! I paddled back out totally shaking like I just got the wave of my life. There’s a few things in life that define your life before the event and after: a first kiss; moving out of your parent’s house; things that are coming of age events. Well, surfing a quad fish for the first time kind of felt like one of those things, like I was finally surfing a real surfboard. I’d finally achieved the sensation of flight, the pure line, pure energy. That board eventually became the yellow 5’11” Dan Malloy surfed in the opening for “Sprout.”

I remember paddling back out staring at the logo on the deck, "CHOICE." It was so serendipitous because I was reading “Still Life with Woodpecker” by Tom Robbins, and there’s a thread in the story involving a pack of Camel cigarettes, and printed on the pack are the words “CHOICE.” There’s a point in the book when the protagonist is shut away in a room for months, naked with only a pack of Camels, trying to decode all the secret messages hidden in the pictures and words. She finally figures out that we all subject to free will - choice. The choices we make define our reality and radiate outward and affect others. I was at a turning point in my life where I wasn’t really inspired and contributing to the collective. At that point I had a degree in Anthropology, a degree in Film Production, and a minor in Marine Biology, but I was working at a youth shelter as an activities director. Not exactly what I got into tons of debt for. That board Rich Pavel made was the spark that started the fire. I paddled back out to Thomas and said, “That was crazy, how do I get one?!”

So, Thomas gave me Rich’s number, I got through after a few tries and ordered something more my size: a 5’5” double-wing bump quad fish, marine-ply Canard Quad Cutaways, ice-blue resin tint, polish, the works. I was kind of freaking out at this point because I really, really wanted one for myself. Over the next few months, I visited Rich at his old shaping room at Channin and just sat in on some shaping sessions with him. I never really asked questions or interrupted his flow, I just watched and watched. There was so much going on that I didn’t understand, so I guess I just tried to soak up the experience. It was like watching a wizard making magic potions or something.

All of my friends were sick and tired of hearing me go on and on about how I wanted to start shaping, so I cleaned out a tiny room in the basement of our house in Oakland (yeah, Stokeland) and put together a little shaping room. It was about 7’ x 10’, with a low ceiling that had nails sticking down from the flooring above. I made all my taller friends wear a skate helmet if they wanted to be in there with me! It took a few months to get the courage enough to get behind a planer and say, “Ok, here goes nothing…” Actually, my friend John was the first to shape a board in the basement. I was too chicken-shit to go first! My first board was a 5’11” round-pin single modeled after my 6’8” Freeline. It turned out ok, as good as anyone’s first board I guess. It’s now my niece’s growth chart!

By this time it was 9 months after I rode Thomas’ 5’11”, and I was still waiting for my board from Rich (laughs). I couldn’t handle the wait, and there wasn’t anyone up in Northern California who was making quad fish really, so I made a little red 5’4” quad for myself. We were on our way back up from spending New Year’s down at the Seven Sisters in Baja, and we passed by the Greenroom to say hi to Rich. I showed him the 5’4” and I guess he was pretty stoked on it. I reckon he’d heard that I was shaping in the basement, so he busts out with a perfect little fish template for a 5’5”! I couldn’t believe it. I mean this was like being given the gift of all gifts.

MM: How’d you wind up choosing the name Mandala?
MC: I was buzzing the whole drive home, listening to some blazing Ravi Shankar raga, trying to think of a name for the boards that would sum up all my interests, yet have many levels of meaning. When it finally came to me, it was like hearing a bell: Mandala, all-inclusive, circles all over-lapping in a central nexus, wholeness. It was a place where all of my passions could come together - photography, art, surfing, shaping. I know this all sounds like some kind of New Age post-acid realization, but I felt like it was the right name for what I was trying to do. I was just trying to bring it all together.

MM: Did you go full force into shaping when you returned to Oakland?
MC: After I started shaping, I held on to my day job for about a year until I was getting a steady stream of orders that allowed me to go into shaping full time. I was living in Oakland still and driving every week or so down to Santa Cruz to the Strive Factory to drop off blanks for glassing. It seemed like a long haul back then, but now that I’m driving 500 miles down to Oceanside to bring boards to Moonlight it doesn’t seem far at all.

Shaping in Oakland was pretty interesting. I was living in a shed attached to a garage in the backyard, which I’d gutted and renovated with new walls, door, window, etc. There was Himalayan raspberry growing on the roof, which overflowed over the front of my room like a natural awning. It was pretty much a hobbit-hole. Rich Pavel had a good laugh when he came to visit me once, first with the abode and then with the micro-shaping room. The beach was 45 minutes away and homeboys were playing dice out on our doorstep when we weren’t home.

MM: Was this 5'5" template Pavel gave you a classic Lis one?
MC: The template Rich gave me was a combination of a few templates that were combinations of templates handed down to him from Lis, Frye, and others. It’s pretty much a perfect template for making fish 4’11” to 6’5”. I’d visit Rich as often as I could, either at his shaping room in Encinitas or at the Greenroom shop. He’s since given me a few more templates to study, like a 7’0” California pintail template which I use to make some of my longer single-fin and 2+1 shapes.

MM: California pintail template sounds amazing, how wide and thick?
MC: The 7’1” California Pintail is another design heirloom passed on from Rich. It’s pretty much the same template they were surfing back in the late 70’s in and around San Diego…13” x 20” x 12” x 2-3/4”. The boards were designed to handle most winter size, with an emphasis on vortex seeking…barrels. Given that I’m used to the quad fish, I like to give the boards a bit of double-concave through vee for a little more speed. I like making them 7’1” to 7’7”.

MM: Were there subsequent observations or shaping tutorials with Pavel or other mentor shapers?
MC: Well, after a few years of hacking it out in the basement, I got an opportunity to move to back to Santa Cruz. My friends owned a house with a woodshop out back, and renovated the place into a deluxe 2-story cottage. I really wanted to get out of the ‘hood and live closer to the beach and my glasser, so the deal was sealed when Jon over at Strive offered to build out a whole new second floor in the factory for a shaping room and spray room. I got to design my new room at Strive, live in a cottage under a redwood tree, and check the surf on the way to work! It was a really great set-up. I’m pretty damn lucky to have such great folks in my life.

After shaping at Strive for about a year, Wil Jobson came to town and parked his mobile home in front of the factory and started blowing minds with his Twinzer shapes. He’s kind of like the Stephen Hawkings of surfing trapped in the body of Popeye the Sailor. Will is a pure genius. Anyway, he’d come up to my shaping room and talk story for a few hours (if anyone’s ever met him, you know what I mean.) Inevitably your brain gets full and you ask to be excused, but right before you fall over he’d drop a few secrets about the Twinzer for you. We went over the bat-tail design one evening and he gave me the recipe, along with some secret ingredients for sure. He recently drove back up to Whidbey Island, where he’s been scoring unreal left-points in the Strait.

MM: What shapes have you been making lately?
MC: I’ve been shaping quite a few wing-diamond 2+1’s lately. A lot more people have been surfing fish the past few years and many of them have sold all their contemporary tri-fins for fuller templates. With the wing-diamond 2+1, I wanted to make a board that paddled just as well as a fish but had a pivoty feel to it. I love the speed and flow of a quad fish, but sometimes the board out-runs barrels! The wing-D 2+1 isn’t a fish, it isn’t a widow-maker, and it doesn’t really fall into the category of “tri-fin.” It’s just a really fun, functional shape.

I just wanted to make something I could transition to from the fish with ease, but also stay in the pocket and come off the top. I grew up on thrusters, so there’s this big part of my muscle memory that still aims for the lip. I’m really loving these shorter, wider boards with a centered fin cluster, and when OB is smaller and hollow they work pretty good. Nice drive and release from the flex fin, and some extra bite from the side fins.

MM: Which designs do people request most?
MC: Most people are still exploring the quad fish, so most of the orders I take are for these boards. A lot of times I send a board out to a part of the country where no one’s seen one of my boards, or a quad fish for that matter, and once they see how you can go on one of these boards people usually freak out. Speed is the foundation of any maneuver, and I see a lot of people trying to do things on their regular shortboards without any speed and their surfing just doesn’t seem as strong as it could be on a board with inherent trim. With the exception of a few talented people out there, the modern shortboard just doesn’t work for regular folks who actually have jobs and work all week to make the mortgage. I’m stoked to make boards for people like that, and some of them have become good friends. I get photos all the time from people stoked on the boards, photos of them surfing their local breaks, pictures of their dogs and newborns - you don’t get things like that from people who are bumming on their surfing! I’m happy to contribute to that collective stoke. I finally get to give back to surfing.

MM: What boards have you been riding lately?
MC: I’ve been going through boards pretty fast these days because the waves here in SF can be a lot more critical than the point surf in Santa Cruz. I’ve been pulling in the tail a bit on my personal fish, and even doing away with wings on one of them. I’m about to get a late start on my winter boards, a 7’1” round pin and a 6’1” wing-diamond, but I’ve surfing a 5’8” wingless quad that just worked insane for those draining afternoon OB sessions. There’s nothing like shaping a board and rinsing off in perfect head-high barrels with your friends.

MM: What’s it like having your boards glassed at Moonlight?
MC: The folks at Moonlight Glassing are some the nicest people on the planet. They’ve been around forever and are some of the most knowledgeable craftspeople anywhere. Some think that I’m a bit crazy for driving my blanks 500 miles down to San Marcos, but I really look forward to coming to the factory and seeing my designs glassed to perfection. It’s like going to the North Pole and meeting Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Peter and Sally St. Pierre really take good care of me and I’m grateful to be working with them. You just have to watch out for their son JP, because he’s always got his little digital camera in his back pocket. You just might end up on his blog with a nerdy caption attached to it.

MM: Are you still getting fins from Larry Gephardt?
MC: I’ve never been able to get fins directly from Larry Gephardt. You kind of have to be in the Sunset Cliffs fish mafia to get fins from him. Rich Pavel was always my threshold guardian, getting me CQCs and twin keels every once in a while. I’ve since been getting all my marine-ply fins from San Diego fin-smith John Cherry, who’s pretty much a magician when it comes to foiling fins. I just sent him an updated quad fish template called the AK4, which is the updated version of the AK2. I‘ve been surfing the AK2 for the last few years, and I’ve reduced tip area and made the trailer in a more similar template as the lead fin. The AK2 template had a pretty tall leading fin, which made it feel more like a twin fin than a quad, so I evened out surface area distribution to balance out power between the leading/trailing fins. It has lots of drive, but with a smooth release characteristic.

MM: Any additional thoughts, comments, manifestos?!
MC: I don’t really have any manifestos or anything. The closest thing to a manifesto I have is “just do the best you can, when you can, while you can.” And then go surfing…

For more information about Mandala Custom Shapes, please visit www.mandalacustomshapes.com.

Tom Robbins' "Still Life with Woodpecker" can be found online.

All photos courtesy of Mandala Custom Shapes, and by Manuel C. Caro, except where noted. Manuel shaping photo by Monkey

Michael Machemer is a New York surfer, writer, photographer, curator and a frequent contributor to Newyorksurf.com. Michael can be reached at eataknish@newyorksurf.com

© 2006 NEWYORKSURF.COM