John G. Slaby’s love for skateboarding and art will live on through an initiative to donate boards to children.
The beloved Luzerne County artist died on Feb. 16 at the age of 40, seven months after receiving a cancer diagnosis. In the wake of that loss, family and friends recently printed and sold more than 200 T-shirts with Slaby’s artwork, raising money for more than 50 skateboards for local middle schools, youth shelters and foundations.
It reflects the way Slaby lived his life.
“He’d skate a board for a couple weeks. He’d switch it at a skate spot and then he’d leave the deck behind for some kid to find,” said T.C. Harding, one of Slaby’s lifelong friends and a member of the North East Skate Crew (NESC), a group of friends from the Wyoming Valley who filmed skate videos. Slaby joined NESC in his teens.
“He was already out giving back to the community long before he died,” Harding said. “This is just a way to keep his legacy going.”
The shirts feature a design Slaby originally made years ago for a skate shop. His illustrated figures spell out the words “Wilkes Scary,” a play on “Wilkes-Barre,” with a nod to the Market Street Bridge. The design is now sold out.
There may be other shirt designs in the pipeline, Harding said. Friends also would like to sell skateboards to raise funds.
‘His impact was huge’
Slaby was raised in Dallas, in Luzerne County’s Back Mountain area. He later moved to Southeastern Pennsylvania — first West Chester, then Philadelphia — where his friends say he often looked to give to others.
Laura Wallace, Slaby's wife, also recalled his generous nature on one of their first dates. “He took me to a skatepark in West Philly, and he left a skateboard there,” she said. He thought it would be nice because close by was a disadvantaged area, she added.
Wallace lives in Ireland, but organized the memorial benefit with friends and businesses in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Bazaar Skateshop in Scranton hosted the shirt’s pre-order on their website, and AxelRad printed the shirts in Wilkes-Barre. They shipped the shirts to as far away as Australia.
“His impact was huge,” said Caleb Hartnett, co-owner of Bazaar Skateshop. From the bands he collaborated with, to his street art and skating, his death is a big loss for the community, he said.
Slaby’s art, paintings and mixed media often inspired by man’s effect on nature, adorns records and shirts for local bands with international reach, including Title Fight, a melodic punk band from Kingston, and Scranton-based Tigers Jaw. Slaby is perhaps best known locally for the Title Fight “Hyperview” mural on South Main Street in downtown Wilkes-Barre, which was almost covered up in 2021 to make way for a billboard.
Band collaborations and a mural
Throughout his career, Slaby’s paintings appeared in fine art galleries in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago and in the U.K. Though originally inspired by skateboarding, graffiti and street art, he went on to study art history at West Chester University.
Slaby worked as an art handler and registrar for the West Collection, a contemporary art collector in the Philadelphia area, for the last 18 years. His former employer plans to honor his life with a gallery show in 2025. In recent years, West Collection installed his art as a large-scale wrap on a property they’re developing in the Fishtown neighborhood.
John and Mary Slaby say their son was influenced by the 19th century French artist Henri Rousseau. They both enjoyed painting wildlife, Mary said. Rousseau was working class and self-taught – “not part of the royal society of artists,” she said, adding her son respected that.
Graffiti got him into trouble as a youth. Slaby was fined in Wilkes-Barre in the early 2000s, at a time when the city wanted to make an example of graffiti artists, his friends said.
Years later, he left a permanent mark on the city that has attracted tourists and loyal followers.
His “Hyperview” mural – designed for Title Fight’s 2015 record of the same name – has been on display since 2015. Fans of Title Fight travel to Wilkes-Barre, sometimes from outside the country, to take photos with the painting. Three years ago, a corporate billboard was proposed for the site, and would have covered up the mural. Pushback from fans convinced the media company to withdraw its plans.
Shane Moran, guitarist of Title Fight, called the mural “a breadcrumb trail back to the counterculture” in the area. It’s across the street from a now-defunct music venue, Cafe Metropolis, where the band played its first shows.
Moran and bandmates looked up to Slaby as an older skater with an infectious personality. The band members regarded him as “a legend” for his skate videos and enigmatic street art. Then, the band got to work with him.
“If we were gonna ask anybody to do artwork to illustrate the music we were making, which was very much rooted in coming of age in our area, I thought his art was the perfect match,” Moran said.
Slaby and Title Fight began collaborating back in 2008 and became dear friends.
“It's weird to think of anybody else besides Slaby doing the art for the band, [the music and imagery] seems so connected,” said Ned Russin, Title Fight’s vocalist and bassist. “It’s such a part of the music and our overall aesthetic that it’s almost impossible for me to think about what something else would have looked like.”
Slaby painted the album art for Title Fight's record, "Shed," released in 2011. It depicts Wilkes-Barre's former Murray Complex, an old factory building once home to another long-lost venue called Homebase. The spot was known for punk and hardcore shows as well as skate video premiers. The Luzerne County Transportation Authority acquired the building and demolished it to make way for a new headquarters in 2020.
'It's a mentality'
Above all, it was skateboarding that defined Slaby.
“It really informed his art, it informed his friendships, it kind of kept him on the straight and narrow when he really needed it,” said Wallace.
With the benefit, organizers hope the boards will reach youth in the same way the skate culture reached Slaby.
“He knew how much of an influence [skating] had on his life. Skateboarding isn’t just a piece of wood with some wheels on it. It's a mentality, it’s a lifestyle,” said Harding. “Skateboarding saved my life. It saved Slaby’s life.”
Listen to Slaby describe his art, plus reflections from family and friends:
