Art for Old Mal National Surfing Titles
Every September, surfers form all over Australia gather together to celebrate surfing, it’s history, community and everything that surfing holds in the Mid North Coast. Old Mal surf competition celebrates and focuses on surfboards from the 60’s but they also celebrate modern logs by having divisions for both surf crafts. As well as surfing in the Womens Logger division, I was also asked to paint ~200 fins as trophies for the contesters that led me handing them out for the winners during the presentation, and further to commission pieces to homes around Crescent Head.
National Old Mal Surf Competiton Trophies – Art by Sonja Katariina Vahasaari.
The National Old Mal titles in Crescent Head, NSW, is one of my favorite competitions of the year. Surfers from all over the Australia fly here and there are always so many beautiful people I meet.
Thats why it felt like an honor to paint these fins for this competition. It was such a fun project!
I wanted to design something that will not only end up on a wall with other trophies, but rather something that feels like its own design element in a house. I wanted to make a piece of art for each winner and finalist to take home.
I painted every fin as an individual art work, and this project took me weeks to complete. The bases were made by Roger Ferguson (Mal Club president and an art exhibition guru) and he asked the local community to help in the timber cutting and glueing process.
I was asked to hand some of them out at the start of the presentation and the feedback of these trophies melted my heart. So many people came up to me after the competition to thank for the trophies. I loved seeing my paintings finding their new homes!
I ended up getting to the finals the Womens Logger division and got to keep one myself too! We had the most beautiful surfing conditions. Images below are by the talented Gary McEvoy.
For me, the Old Mal wasn’t just a contest — it was a living reminder of what surfing means. It’s the way it connects us through tradition, creativity, and play. Being able to contribute both in the water and through my art was a true honour, and a perfect reflection of how my worlds of surfing and creativity continue to flow together.
It was cute to see that the comp and my trophies also got featured in the Australias NBN News !
A special thanks to Daffy, Diane, Caroline, Fergo and the Mal Club for organising this beautiful event once again, to all the surfers and everyone that came to the point to support and enjoy the event!
Due to painting these trophies for the event, I got few commission enquiries to paint custom pieces for homes around Crescent Head, so fun! This one is an ocean table commission!
If you’d like an ocean commission piece, please e-mail me at hello@sonjavahasaari.com and we can talk more!
