A surfboard begins as a blank.
Foam, dust, measurement, instinct. Before the resin cures and before color enters the picture, there is only a form waiting to be found. In Ryan Lovelace's hands, that form becomes something more personal than a product: a board built for a specific person, a specific wave, a specific feeling he's trying to get right. Sometimes that feeling is as simple as catching more waves. Other times someone shows up wanting to mark something bigger, a first child, a milestone, a version of themselves they're trying to hold onto.
Lovelace is known for surfboards that are beautiful in the way truly useful objects can be beautiful. They are visual objects, but they begin with purpose. "People get really involved in their surfboards for plenty of reasons," he says, "and I always want to do justice to that."
That sense of responsibility has guided his approach from the very beginning. When he first started, hand-shaping every board wasn't a philosophy or a reaction against modern production. It simply never occurred to him there was another way to do it. Every curve, adjustment, and finish became part of the relationship between maker and surfer.
His design philosophy still sounds almost effortless.
"Whatever I feel," he says. "I follow my eye." What sounds simple is the result of decades spent refining instinct. A 1/16th-of-an-inch change in a curve can shift how an entire board rides, and Lovelace has trained his eye to see that difference before most people would know to look for it. "The longer you spend shaping, the more you see," he says, "and the more you realize how infinite the possibilities are."
For Lovelace, style isn't something applied to a board after the fact. It's the patience to keep adjusting a line until it feels right, even when the difference is invisible to anyone but him. "I'm always function over form in the end," he says. "I won't sacrifice function for looks, but I'll very quickly sacrifice looks for function."
Even so, beauty has its place. Sometimes it comes through bold resin work or flower inlays. Other times it's found in restraint. "A clear naked white board is as honest as it gets and has to stand on its own for what it is," he says. "That to me is super beautiful as well."
As more surfers discovered his work, demand grew beyond what one person could realistically produce. Lovelace expanded his Love Machine label through trusted manufacturing partners, not to replace the work he loved, but to protect it. It allowed more people to experience his designs while preserving what still matters most to him: shaping custom boards by hand.
Around Santa Barbara, Lovelace is often greeted by surfers who stop to say hello, thank him for a board he shaped years ago, or share the memories they've made with it. These are small reminders that his work doesn't end when a board leaves the shaping bay.
Santa Barbara remains central to the way he sees surfboards. The waves here reward speed, flow, and thoughtful design. For years, before glassing a board, he'd step outside for a few minutes and just look around, letting whatever caught his eye that day decide the color. Though he now spends part of his time in Hawaiʻi, where different landscapes influence color and perspective, the coastline that first taught him to read waves continues to guide his eye.
Outside the shaping bay, Lovelace is drawn to things with character, originality, and a story behind them. "I was raised with an appreciation for the individual over the hero," he says, recalling his father's phrase: "Rock stars that don't look like rock stars."
For all the recognition his work has earned, what continues to drive Lovelace isn't bigger numbers or broader reach. It's the chance to hand someone something made with care — something that still carries a little of the person who built it, every time he goes back to the blank and starts again.