It’s a brisk morning, the waves are crashing, and Jay Nelson’s camper is parked along San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. The car, a 1991 Honda Civic, is tricked out with a plywood camper shell stacked high with surfboards. It looks like a hippie hobbit house perched where it definitely doesn’t belong. For Nelson, an avid surfer and S.F.-based artist represented by Triple Base Gallery, it’s the perfect place to change out of his wet suit and brew a cup of tea when the Northern California waters get too cold.

Nelson trained as a painter but tapped into his background in fabricating skateboards and surfboards when he constructed the camper for a 2007 road trip. It was the first of what would be a series of vehicular sculptures—a scooter, a podlike cart, a boat—created out of sheets of poplar plywood. He’s since used the material to create objects big (a tree house) and small (a suitcase). When glued in place and coated with fiberglass, the plywood holds its shape and is waterproof; it’s lightweight but strong enough to handle the open road.

“When I drove across the country, the conversations that happened around the camper were really interesting,” he fondly recalls. “I’d park and start talking with people who would never set foot in a gallery to see one of my painting shows. The camper evokes nostalgia and a history of customizing vehicles, and it can affect anybody—you don’t have to have an art background.”

Inspired by the Volkswagen Vanagon his parents had when he was a kid in the ’80s, the camper is outfitted with a foldout bed (big enough for two, plus dogs), storage compartments, a cooler, and a built-in stove. Nelson has driven it across the Midwest and up the Eastern Seaboard as far as Nova Scotia, but day-to-day he uses the camper to haul plywood and lumber to his studio and to construction sites around San Francisco. Handyman-style, he straps planks to the pipe racks on top.

“If you are in the city, [the camper] gives you autonomy. You can climb in and make tea or take a nap when you need to,” he says. For some, having your home on your back means the option to hit the road at any time, but for Nelson it simply offers an escape from the everyday without ever leaving town.

Learn to make a custom suitcase.
 See more art by Jay Nelson.