Headline: For the love of whales (and dolphins)
Standfirst: With Whalesong Art, surfer Paul ‘Max’ Lomax is onto a winner
Words by Alex Wade, photographs by Mike Newman/www.ocean-image.com
There’s an old saying in surfing, one which expressly privileges riding waves above just about everything: “Only a surfer knows the feeling.” To talk to Paul ‘Max’ Lomax, the remarkably healthy-looking founder of Whalesong Art, is to get an insight into one of the key reasons for this sentiment.
“I’ve surfed for 30 years or so,” says Lomax. “Surfing itself is a magical experience but it’s at its best when you surf with dolphins. It’s just wonderful – the feeling of joy never leaves you.”
Lomax’s antennae – orientated so fulsomely to surfing and cetaceans after a lifetime of catching waves – made him sit up and pay attention when he read a Daily Telegraph article in 2009 about Californian artist Mark Fischer. “I can remember seeing the piece as if it were yesterday,” says Lomax, from the home overlooking the sea at the north Cornwall village of Porthcothan. “It was accompanied by this wonderful splash of colour, which turned out to be a hydrophonic recording of a humpback whale song taken by Fischer in the waters off Hawaii. I was mesmerised and immediately set about finding out more.”
Lomax’s research soon put him touch directly with Fischer, a former sonar engineer for the US Navy. A field trip to Baja California with whale researchers had proved serendipitous for Fischer: he changed his career, opting to merge art and science. Utilising what he had learnt about acoustics while working for the navy, Fischer began creating visual art from wavelets – a technique for processing digital signals. “The maths is complicated,” chuckles Lomax, “but in practice what happens is that microphones are placed deep in the ocean to capture the haunting songs of whales and dolphins. In effect, wavelets is a branch of maths which then enables the sounds to be converted into extraordinarily beautiful, colourful and intricate structures.”
Wavelets are deployed in applications as diverse as JPEG image compression, high definition television and earthquake research, but Lomax at once saw a business opportunity in their use in Fischer’s arresting art. “As a surfer I found Mark’s artwork stunning. I felt that I just had to bring his images to the world market, because so many people are rightly concerned about the plight of cetaceans. I want to help make sure that they’re here for future generations to enjoy. If people walk into a room and see a canvas of a minkewhale’s song, they’ll start talking about it, about how the art was made, where it came from, what’s happening to whales and dolphins.”
Fischer – also a surfer and windsurfer – was impressed by Lomax’s vision. Soon enough, he had granted Lomax exclusive merchandise rights outside the United States, enabling him to design a new, dedicated website and to set about creating a range of products which include original canvases, framed prints and T-shirts and even run to gift bags, coasters and wallpaper. Better yet, all Lomax’s suppliers are Cornwall-based, from The Print Environment in St Columb to The Little Red Octopus in Wadebridge. As Lomax proudly says: “It’s a world first. This kind of artwork is unique and I’m thrilled both to have been given the opportunity to bring it to people and to use Cornish businesses to do so.”
Lomax launched Whalesong Art in September last year. He says that business has been good, despite the recession: “Trading conditions are tough, yes, and the art market relies on disposable income when there’s not a lot of it around at the moment, but orders have been steadily rising. The main thing now is to make the products the best they can be and to try and disseminate them and the message as widely as possible.” He’s been successful in these aims already: the canvases look gorgeous, and they’re to be found in any number of places, from boutique hotels and spas to an estate agency and eco lodges as well as many family homes. He also forged links with key groups such as Greenpeace, the Whale and Dolphin Conversation Society and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Doubtless Lomax’s career in retail and distribution will help him develop Whalesong Art yet further. Now 51, Lomax took a business studies degree at Plymouth Polytechnic before becoming a regional manager with warranty underwriters for Honda/Volkswagon. He then joined Sola Wetsuits in late 1980s, working as a sales manager and attending all manner of European tradeshows in the surfing industry, which was then enjoying a boom. Wanderlust took Lomax – who was once featured on the cover of Surf Scene, one of Britain’s first surfing magazines - to Australia, but this was not just a surf trip: he returned home with the exclusive distribution rights for Finch bikinis. Further distribution deals with Antipodean companies followed, among them contracts with Liive sunglasses and Earth Nymph, which makes children’s apparel. Lomax has also worked with Sanuk, the Californian flip-flop company, and Hawaii-based windsurfing business Simmer.
His has been a wide-ranging and diverse career, but throughout it there has been one constant: surfing. “As soon as my mates and I turned 17 we’d head off from Taunton, where we lived then, to Croyde and Saunton in north Devon. It was a rite of passage, inspired first by watching the brilliant surf film The Endless Summer. Since then I’ve been on surf trips all over the world but the best have been to France, Indonesia and Australia. I still surf as often as I can.” Not only that, but Lomax’s daughter, Mimi, is also a surfer. “She’s nine but stood up and rode her first wave aged three,” he says, with a broad smile.
Whalesong Art makes for a breath of fresh air in the Cornish art scene, something new and different. Its founder would appear to have the conviction and drive to make it work. Why, though, is he known as ‘Max’?
“It’s a rugby thing,” replies Lomax. “While I was in Plymouth I played rugby for Saltash and Cornwall juniors before joining Plymouth Albion. I loved those days, playing as a full-back against many Cornish sides as well as playing Bath when they were in their pomp. But ‘Lomax’ is difficult to say when you’ve got a mouthguard in, so the lads just called me ‘Max’.”
No wonder Paul ‘Max’ Lomax looks so fit: he’s a former rugby player as well as a lifelong surfer. His eclectic career and passion for cetaceans, allied with the steel in his character that comes of playing rugby at a high level, means that Whalesong Art could well be onto a winner.
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For more information, visit www.whalesongart.com or call 01841 520840.
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