Part memoir, part document of skateboarding's punk-infused DIY subculture as it came of age in the 1990s and early 2000s, Ed Templeton's Wires Crossed pulses with the raw, combustible energy of his image-making over the past twenty years.
 
Illustrated with photographs, collages, texts, maps and ephemera from Templeton's journals, Wires Crossed offers an insider's view of a developing subculture and reflects the distinctive aesthetic that emerged from the skateboarding world he helped create. Templeton occupies the rare position of having been a professional skateboarder and two-time world champion, as well as a photographer and artist working within the community as its cultural influence grew in the 1990s and beyond. His work first gained recognition through the Beautiful Losers collective, loosely gathered around Aaron Rose's Alleged Gallery on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
 
This largely unseen and unpublished work explores Templeton's own journey as an image-maker alongside professional skateboarders' lives: long hours touring the world, revelling in their new rock-star-like status and endlessly seeking new terrain to skate. Interviews with fellow professionals and friends add compelling detail about the pressures and pleasures of life on the road and what it means to pursue an art form obsessively, whether on a board or behind a camera.