Faye Jaime was an original member of the Villa Villa Cola (VVC) crew out of San Diego back in the 1990s and early 2000s, celebrated in their zines and videos. Faye may have been soft-spoken but she was a ripping skater and became sponsored by Vans and Consolidated.
In 1997, Faye had a key role in the VVC video, Striking Fear into the Hearts of Teenage Girls skating street and ramp:
Faye shared that she lived in North Park, San Diego and started skateboarding when she was about 12 years old. Faye remembered how she was inspired to build her own quarter pipe, around age 13 or 14 when she saw a guy down the street launching himself off a jump ramp. Without any money, Faye and her friends stole wood from a school. “The police found us at like one in the morning, threw us down and handcuffed us, so we got in trouble for stealing wood, but we got to keep the ramp.”
Striking Fear into the Hearts of Teenage Girls had a lot of Super 8 footage of Faye’s half-pipe, although it sounds like her neighbours weren’t super stoked on night sessions. Faye said that her life was basically waking up and going skateboarding and hanging out in the backyard with friends.
Photos: Thomas Campbell, Lori Damiano, Dylan Doubt, Tiffany Morgan,
Lori Damiano, another VVC member and artist then made a 16mm documentary film called Defeating Projections for her class at UCSD in 1999 where she was studying film. There’s some great footage of Faye ripping around the streets with friends Van Nguyen and the twin sisters, Tiffany and Nicole Morgan, as well as the crew assembling issue 4 of their zine.
In Defeating Projections, Faye said:
- “Seeing guys skate pushed me… I never thought that I couldn’t be as good as them.”
- “Learning from each other, having fun and being creative… I wanted to offer that to other girls because I didn’t have that when I first started.”
- “I know there’s other girls out there who do [want to skate], they’re just afraid to do it because there’s not a lot of girls out there. So when you go to a skatepark and all these boys are just looking at you like, ‘what’s this girl going to do,’ it’s really intimidating. But I know when I go with a couple other girls to the skatepark, there’s three girls to look at, so I’m not devoting all their attention. I just want to give that to my friends and hopefully more girls will skate.”
Here’s some photos of Faye from the issues three, four and five of Villa Villa Cola from 1997-1999, including the cover of Issue 4:
A story / collage from VVC Issue 5, 1999 pp 16-24 by Tiffany Morgan (sequence photos by Bryan Ueda) featuring Faye:
And, here’s some writing by Faye:
Faye competed in the very first All Girl Skate Jam (September 1997), organized by Patty Segovia at the Graffix Warehouse in Chula Vista, CA. She placed 10th in street. The following year, the AGSJ was hosted at the Escondido Sports Center. Faye placed 5th in the Pro Mini-Ramp and 6th in Pro Street where it’s likely she met Lisa Whitaker, who placed 5th in Street and became part of the VVC evolution. Faye improved again in 1999, at the AGSJ “Street Scene” event in San Diego with a 4th in Pro Street behind Elissa Steamer, Jaime Reyes and C’naan Omer.
Photo by Wez Lundry for an article “Chicks with Sticks” on the All Girl Skate Jam in the January 1999 issue of Thrasher.
The competitors would meet again in 2000 at the Slam City Jam contest in Vancouver. This time, Faye took 2nd place in street behind C’naan and ahead of Elissa. The result was impressive and deserved. There was a step-up to gap to a steep hand-rail at the contest, and Faye was among the first to casually start sessioning the rail, landing a variety of grinds including 50-50s and a feeble grind. When 411VM released the Vancouver 2000 issue, a photo of Faye at Slam City on this rail graced the back cover of the VHS box. This was the first time many people had witnessed women confidently skating hand-rails in person (myself included) and I think many were surprised, even blown away!
Photo: the back cover of 411VM was taken by Michael Burnett
Here’s the women’s street contest (Slam City Jam 2000):
And here’s Faye Jaime’s part exclusively:
Even though she only competed at two of the four World Cup events in 2000 (Slam City Jam and Oceanside with a 4th place finish), Faye was ranked 9th in the World that year. While Faye competed in street, she was equally confident skating transition including parks like Burnside.
A few more photos from Villa Villa Cola zine No. 6 in 2001 by Dylan Doubt and unknown, including a 5-0 grind during Slam City Jam 2001:
When the VVC crew reunited and pulled together the epic Getting Nowhere Faster (2004) film thanks to Lisa Whitaker, and her pitch to 411VM, Faye Jaime took part:
Faye also took on various “acting” roles in the fun skits throughout the film, which made Getting Nowhere Faster so magical, such as being a frightened Tiffanyland guest and possibly the evil cupcake.
I’m hopeful that there’s more photos of Faye in existence.
Womxn Skateboard History 