303 Boards Is Celebrating Its History With Artists, Skaters and Plenty of PBR

French artist Lucas Beaufort grew up worshipping skateboarding, with cramped skate shops serving as his churches. When his career as a painter, illustrator, designer and photographer took off, he didn't stray far from those early canvases of polyurethane and concrete, becoming a world-renowned creator of art for skate parks, board designs and activewear. In 2022, he released the coffee-table book HEART, which takes a beautifully illustrated journey into skateboarding's core, documenting the art and community of neighborhood skate shops. Now he's headed to some of the locations showcased in the book for gatherings that bring together local artists, skaters, photographers and the community at large.

The next stop on the PBR-sponsored tour will take him to the HEART-featured 303 Boards, from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, May 1. Beaufort couldn't have picked a better shop in the Mile High to highlight: The venerable institution has mentored generations of skaters in Colorado since its inception in 1997, and has expanded from its home on East Colfax to include a Boulder shop and the Annex on South Broadway, where a Pibber-popping party will celebrate 303's many years of service to the skating community as well as a raft of local artists invited to bring their work for display and purchase.

We caught up with the busy Beaufort on the road to discuss the HEART Tour and the beauty of skateboarding.

Westword: What inspired HEART, and why did you choose to focus on skate shops?

Lucas Beaufort: I grew up skateboarding, so that's my whole life, starting at thirteen. ... [After school] I started to work through stuff related to skateboarding...and then fast-forward, when COVID hit, I couldn't travel. I'm a big traveler; I travel all over the world. Six months a year, I'm always somewhere. And I couldn't do anything that I love, besides painting. I was like, "What can I do?" And then I thought about all my friends that run skate shops, and I was like, "I think I have to do something for them."

So I decided to make a book, paying a tribute to forty years [of the] history of skate-shop culture. I did everything in my place — I didn't travel for this. It was emails, phone calls...took me a year. ... [The book] sold out very quickly, and then a year later I was like, "What can I do now?" I was like: Cool, now I'm able to travel. Let's go all around the world and meet all the skate shops that are involved with the book. Let's celebrate them by inviting the community, the people, artists that are around each skate shop to create a big show and celebrate the shop.
How did you research and decide which shops you wanted to put in the book?

I'm very aware of what's going on, who's doing what, so I already have a lot of connections. ... I reached out to some skate magazines from different countries — from Italy, from Brazil, from Germany — to help me to decide. And again, there [are] ninety skate shops that I feature in the book, but it doesn't mean that the rest are not good. It's just that I can't make a book that's, like, 5,000 pages. So I had to pick some. What I did, at the end of the book, is I listed all the skate shops that exist in the world. I wanted to put their name on and say, "Yes, you're part of it." So there is no "Aw, what about me?" No, you're here! It's just, I can't interview everybody. But the idea's the same — going to a skate shop, if it's San Francisco, L.A. or Paris, it's the same thing.

Where did you grow up, and what was skating like there?

I'm French. I grew up in the southeast of France, [in] Cannes...so I grew up on the French Riviera, where everything's beautiful. It's kind of like the "little California" vibe. I grew up skateboarding there in the ’90s, and the scene was crazy there. I remember the first time I went to a local skate spot, I didn't know anything about skateboarding. I had just my board with me, and I saw hundreds of skaters skating the stairs, and I was like "Wow, what is this?"

What was your first skate shop?

My local skate shop was — funny name — LSD. That was the skate shop near my place, and it was very tiny. ... It was like a thing, you know? Opening the door, seeing stuff on the wall. And it was only product from the U.S., so we were lucky when we could purchase a board, because it was very limited. It was mainly like three boards on the wall, all the time. So if you're not there at the right time, you might wait a long time to get a board. ... We used to go to the skate spot and be like, "Hey, can I buy your board?" We were buying secondhand skateboards all the time.

How did you decide what cities you were going to come to for the tour?

There are 25 skate shops within the book from the U.S., so my goal was mainly to make sure I'm not staying in the same region...because in California, I interviewed maybe five or six skate shops, and I didn't want to do five or six skate shops from California. ... So it was mainly like: How can I make a whole tour doing New York, New Orleans, Austin, Phoenix, until I reach L.A.? And if you research the skate shops I'm stopping by, they're all incredible. They've been in the business fifteen to 25, thirty years. They're the OGs.
Why did you choose to partner with PBR for the tour?

Well, because I've worked with them many times before this. ... Every time I reach out to them, they're always down to support, so that was just a no-brainer.

What is your vision for the stops on the tour?

I want to work with people. I want to put people together. And I found out that when you bring twenty, thirty artists on a show, you're a hundred percent sure that you're going to get a massive turnout, because it's everybody. And everybody knows everybody. So at the end of the day it's like...bring a lot of people, bring a lot of artists. ... I just want to be with people. I don't want to just promote myself. ... Next, I'm going to do a festival with, like, 10,000 friends of mine somewhere. I'm building an army of creative people. That's the vision: How can we be together to do something amazing?

Have you been to Denver and 303 before?

Oh, yeah, I've been to Denver a lot. It's a city that I love. I've done many shows there; Colorado is a very good state for me. So yeah, I've been there many times, and it's always a pleasure to be back to the city. It's a very inspiring city for me.

Anything else you wanted to mention?

Support your local skate shop!

The HEART Tour, 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, May 1, the 303 Boards Annex, 1288 South Broadway. Learn more here.