At Home With Eric Dixon

It’s a hot August afternoon with high winds in Springs. Eric Dixon is itching to get out on one of his six windsurfing boards.

“This is the best type of day,” he said, standing barefoot in the sandy driveway of the beach house built by his father, Alan, on Accabonac Harbor in the 1970s.

The elder Dixon bought the half-acre at auction in the 1960s. There’s no fancy landscaping. Native prickly pears, scrub oak, bayberry and cedar surround the stilted A-frame with porches that face east toward Gardiners Bay and west over Accabonac Harbor, affording a sunset view.

“These trees are 55 years old, as old as I am,” he said. His father may no longer roam the littoral plane but the trees he planted continue to provide a balance for his son’s whimsical artwork.

The front yard could be considered an outdoor art gallery where Dixon’s fish mobiles sway gently with the wind. The collection of colorful objects represents the marine life that Dixon craves, from fish to sailboats.

“Fully Rigged Sailfish” is hoisted from a mini-crane made from a windsurfing mast and sailboat rigging. The camouflaged eyes of a moray eel, part of the creature’s elaborate game of hide-and-seek, inspired him to paint red, white and blue circles on a piece of sailcloth, which hangs under a miniature sailboat fashioned from old plumbing, wire, blocks and tackles.

“Jell-e” entails many varied strips of stainless steel ribbons hanging between three cobalt windsurf masts. Oddly, even in this wind, the metal barely makes a sound as it moves through the air, much like an octopus or jellyfish as it moves through the sea.

“Totally Tubular,” a small but fierce “shark,” looks down on the scene from a corner of the front porch. Perched on a bleached chunk of coral, white plastic and copper cylinders form a perfect mascot for the home.

Dixon went to school on the Gold Coast of Long Island.

“I grew up in Old Brookville, and my family now lives in Sea Cliff,” he said of his teenage son and former wife.

Although Dixon has strong ties to the North Shore, he was born into the weekend warrior rhythm of his parents and has no plans to change course. “I can’t really break the pattern,” he said. “I’ve been in lockstep for so long.”

“I love the Hamptons,” he said. “The reality is I need to hit the street and work. I don’t make a living doing any of this stuff.”

He studied Industrial Design at Rhode Island School of Design in an attempt to make being an artist more practical.

After graduating, he apprenticed with boat builder Mike Bull at the South Street Seaport Museum, building dories for the Fredonia-type fishing schooner, the Lettie G. Howard, a National Historic Landmark. There, he also began to build surfboards.

“I got swept away by classic wooden boats and couldn’t make a living in New York City being a boat builder,” he said. “I eventually found my way into film by building sets because I was a good carpenter.”

Eventually he found his way into IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, working in the property department of television and film.

“My title varies from ‘property master’ to ‘set decorator’ to ‘art director’ to ‘set dresser,’ depending upon the size of the project,” he said. “I’ve done it all.”

From music videos like Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” and commercials for IKEA, Zales and McDonald’s to television shows like “Severance,” “Fallout” and “Manifest” and movies like the remake of “Bride of Frankenstein.”

“As good of a fit as the film industry is for me, I’ve never really been able to apply my personal artistic vision to the projects. Everything is scripted and formulated,” he said.

Yet some tricks of the trade have trickled into his work. “The most important thing is the ‘frame,’” he said. “What you actually see is critical.”

One of the best aspects of the industry is that it’s freelance. “I have some control of my schedule,” he said. “So I can work on my personal projects, have time with my family and friends, and get out on the water.”

The creative vibe continues inside the home with a table fashioned from windsurfing boards and a chair he’s dubbed “Surf Throne,” made from surfboards. Both were featured at the East End Furniture show at Ashawagh Hall in Springs in July.

With his furniture line, called “StreetWaves,” he takes vestiges from gear used on the water and redirects the energy into objects used around the home.

The sleek white table has beautiful lines that look, well, like a wave. It’s so seamless, you might think it was just bent into shape.

“There was quite a bit of surgery in the joinery,” he said. “The windsurfer table is made with carbon fiber board, a trick to make it look like I just bent it. It was anything but that simple.”

Photographs of the city streets, swirled to look like waves, adorn the wooden walls of the modest living area. “It’s not always about swirling,” he said. “It’s about reflection. The images resonate powerfully when they mirror themselves.”

The tagline Dixon keeps referring to is “liquefy your street,” his advice for surfers when they’re in the city and cannot surf. He has an Instagram account (@liquefy_it) featuring his photographs, but his StreetSkeez probably represents the term better.

“You’re in the city thinking about surfing so you get on StreetSkeez to get your mind into a more fluid state,” he said. “The streets are not at a hard angle and more like a wave, until you hit a crack.”

Dixon opens a vintage suitcase to reveal StreetSkeez, skateboards made from wooden water skis, before fiberglass was used, reanimating icons such as Maherajah, Lund and Dick Pope.

In August, Dixon participated in Luna Fest, at Hero Beach Club in Montauk, where he showed off an array of fine art, furniture and skateboards. Amid the lunar rituals, drum circle and fire ceremony, he didn’t sell any of his wares, but the owner of the hotel expressed interest in putting the furniture in the lobby, so it was not a waste.

Waste is not wanted in Dixon’s world. He works from a makeshift storage unit underneath the house, where a marlin his father caught hangs on a wall overlooking his current project, another metamorphosis of energy.

“The vessel I’m prototyping is the S.S.P., or Stand-Up Paddle Sailboard Proa,” he said. The hybrid offers two types of watercraft in one vessel: Stand-up paddling when the wind is too light to sail and sailboarding when the wind picks up.

A winter storm played out in his favor when a canoe washed up on shore, now serving as the board. “I pulled it out of the marsh. It’s a little longer than I would have wanted,” he said. “It’s called salvage.”

“Part of my mission is to prevent waste from happening,” he said outside again. “Let’s go to the boneyard, a place of resting for salvaged materials.”

His serviceable fleet of windsurfing boards, a canoe, a dinghy, a stand-up paddleboard and various surfboards lies closer to the water’s edge.

Art and building may be Dixon’s form of meditation. “I’m saner when I’m creating,” he said. “I really need to be involved in these projects to balance me out. It’s how I keep happy.”

Then, there’s getting out on the water. “Sunsets around Tick Island are magnificent.”