JW: Where are you currently calling home, and how does that affect your surfing and work?
WA: I live in Los Angeles, about ten blocks from the community I grew up in. I still surf the Venice Pier, where I learned how to surf and what it means to be a surfer multiple times a week. It's nice to drive 5 minutes and be surrounded by friends and family, in and out of the water. Also, Malibu being so close allows me to spend a large amount of time at Surfrider when I'm not working. That place has greatly influenced my development as a Longboarder. Work-wise, this city is perfect. I assist multiple artists in their studios; it feels more like a continuation of my art learning rather than work. Plus, both of them are surfers, so they understand when I'm late because the waves are good. 

JW: You are studying Art, a vast subject, what specifically interests you?
WA: I am interested in Los Angeles as a landscape of interconnected histories and iconographies and the relationships individuals and cultural groups have with the scars left behind by these histories. On the other hand, I'm also curious about industrial materials and the experience of labor within industrial spaces. As I am young in my professional art career, my practice is fragmented, in the sense that I am exploring multiple avenues of working, both materially and relating to the subject, that don't necessarily intertwine.

JW: What do you want to express through your surfing?
WA: I enjoy surfing the most when I'm on the right board for the wave or conditions at hand. Rather than expressing something outwardly, surfing feels right for me when I am smooth and can squeeze all I can out of a wave without force. There is a synergistic feeling when you finish a wave, and you feel that for every section and every maneuver, you were in the right place on the wave and could not have surfed any better. 

JW: How long have you been pursuing your passions as an artist?
WA: I think it really clicked for me that I could be an artist or surf for a living when I was around 17 or 18. I found myself in a place where I began to understand that these things could be more than just a hobby or a passion. 

JW: What excites you about joining the July Wetsuits community?
WA: I'm grateful to be in a community of amazing surfers and creatives. As a grom, I looked up to many of the people who are now a part of July Wetsuits, and I'm glad that I can surf with them as a part of the same team. This community is full of incredibly good surfers who all have and continue to push the boundaries; it makes me stay on my toes and experiment with my surfing.