Paintbrush and surfboard: Catching an art wave with Zen Del Rio
by Bondo Wyszpolski (Editor’s note: the following interview with artist Zel Del Rio originally appeared in Peninsula Magazine in August, 2020. Del Rio took his own life last month, at age 68, by leaping from a Peninsula cliff above the ocean where he grew up painting and surfing.) Zen Del Rio in his Lunada Bay studio. Photo by Bondo Wyszpolski It was my last question of the afternoon, but it might as well have been the first: So tell me, Zen, how did you get your name? “While my mother was pregnant with me, in 1957, she had the pleasure to see a Zen master named D.T. Suzuki, and she was impressed with the way he answered all these analytic and philosophic questions. After the lecture she walked up to him to thank him and he touched her belly and said, Don’t be surprised if you have a Zen baby. And so she thought about it and ended up giving me that name.” Soon after, Zen Del Rio was born in Mexico City where he lived until he was nine, when his family moved to Malaga Cove, near the Neighborhood Church. His mother Gemma (Zen also has a sister by that name), was an accomplished artist and taught various classes. “I grew up in her studio learning about art, and I knew early on that I…
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