Krishna Swenson

Krishna Swenson was a skateboarder who owned the WILD ramp at the Castillo Street House in Santa Barbara, and absolutely ripped! She appeared in the May 1990 issue of Thrasher in an article called “Keeping up with the Santa Barbarians” by John Dettman.

The caption states, “Owner of the WILD ramp and dominant backyard skate figure, Krishna Swenson, here in a rare public appearance, slider-to-fakie at the Powell facility. Photos: Scott Starr.”

In a documentary on the Castillo Street House, narrator Erik Hatch reflects on how he moved in with Krishna, and got to enjoy her ramp, which was 8 feet wide, maybe 3 or 3.5 feet tall. She then acquired the old Powell ramp on Gutierrez street and included it in their backyard set-up, and Erik connected them with a spine.

The house on Castillo street sounded like a place party, and members of the band Lagwagon also lived there. Footage of Krishna skating her ramp on Castillo Street in 1991 is captured by Erik Hatch in Hatch Multimedia “Skateboard Stories Episode 3 – Tape # ‘STUFF II’ – 1991.”

Hatch shares a photo sequence of Krishna doing a FS 50-50 to tail at JoAnn Gillespie’s ramp and reminisces about what a great set-up they had. Wish I knew more of her story but grateful that some of her skating was captured by Hatch.

In the ‘zine Equal Time (vol. 2 #1), Lynn Kramer wrote a short story about the Santa Barbara skate scene, but unfortunately Krishna had gone snowboarding in Tahoe that day with Wendy Zaks. Kramer noted that she had heard a rumour that Krishna could do indy nosepicks on vert, and Hatch confirmed that she had this trick dialed as well as stale pop-tarts!