An Artful Life

A Santa Barbara carpenter and surfboard bag designer charts a new course with a body of work centered around a beloved material and indispensable article of clothing.

By Jennie Nunn

Jeff Wapner, founder of Santa Barbara–based Paradise Is Divided Into Blue and Green, featuring bespoke surfboard bags and one-of-a-kind totes crafted using upcycled retired carbon fiber sailcloth and old anchor line, is what some might call a real-life MacGyver. The prolific surfer and sailor, who works as a carpenter by day and moonlights as an artist and seamster, is an admitted career chameleon with a robust and circuitous trajectory. His path includes a stint at an experiential marketing firm in New York, creating elaborate installations and activations for the likes of Maybelline, Delta Airlines, and Google; a job as a rock-climbing instructor in Oregon; and a five-year stretch as a firefighter in Washington. “I’ve had a ton of different careers, mostly by choice,” says Wapner, a Santa Barbara native who graduated with a degree in marketing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. “I think I like to be bad at something and learn everything I can about it and then kind of move on to the next thing.”

These days Wapner is coming full circle career-wise, melding his artistic and woodworking skills with a longtime affinity for Japanese denim in a new venture he’s affectionately named k6qd, based on his father’s ham radio call sign. The focus: creating bag designs from sailcloth cast-offs that would otherwise end up in a landfill, an idea he dreamed up more than a decade ago while living in New York. Intrigued by everyday objects including audio equipment, Scandinavian furniture, and even insects and vintage robots, Wapner uses white sails from cruising boats in lieu of traditional canvas as a backdrop for abstract, patchwork-like compilations of Japanese denim, linen, and mudcloth remnants displayed in 24-by-26-inch white oak and mahogany frames. “I love playing with shapes and colors, and it’s like creating your own jigsaw puzzle — something I’ve loved since I was a child,” says Wapner. “Just like anything new, raw Japanese denim is often uncomfortable at first until you take the time to try it on, break it in, and spend time with it. Sometimes this takes years. I like that it’s always changing and that something as simple as a pair of jeans can be a metaphor for life.”

Now it’s unmistakable Wapner has found his calling. “Whether it’s when I get to make something utilitarian or just something that pleases me aesthetically, it completes the circle when somebody else falls in love with it and they purchase it,” says Wapner. “Every aspect of making and designing is joyful to me.”

@paradisedivided and @k.6.q.d; Tote bags carried at Domecil, Santa Barbara; domecil.com.

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