Artist John Van Hamersveld. Photy by Arturo Garcia-Ayala
In April, at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium’s Earth Day 2025 celebration, artist and Peninsula resident John Van Hamersveld signed special edition, hand-drawn posters he designed for Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, Marine Mammal Care Center and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium as part of the Respect The Locals campaign.
These art posters serve as a symbol of the connection between these nonprofits. The poster for the land conservancy features a rich depiction of the Palos Verdes blue butterfly, which recovered from the brink of extinction. On the aquarium poster, a majestic giant sea bass looms large amid green sea grass, and the care center poster presents a dewy-eyed harbor seal. (These last two species are threatened and critically endangered, respectively).
The campaign coincides with the upcoming 60th anniversary of the surf-documentary film, Endless Summer ― a film for which Van Hamersveld created the iconic Endless Summer film poster.
Back then, Van Hamersveld was a surfer and student at Art Center College of Design, serving as art director for Surfing Illustrated and Surfer magazines before director Bruce Brown commissioned him to create the Endless Summer film poster.
To pull it off, Van Hamersveld staged a photo shoot at Salt Creek Beach with the film’s producer and stars, then combined photo techniques with hand-lettered text. He was paid $150 for the work. The poster is featured in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
The film follows surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they chase waves across the globe. Along the way, they introduced surfing to locals in places like Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, sharing boards and sparking cross-cultural connections.
By the 1960s and ’70s, the term “Respect the Locals” became a widely adopted mantra. It originated as a phrase used within surf culture to remind visiting surfers to honor the customs, space and priorities of local surfers at any given beach, especially as surf tourism expanded and newcomers began crowding lineups in places like Hawaii, California, Indonesia, Australia and South Africa.
These organizations and Van Hamersveld carry that ethos further by asking humans to respect the locals who were here first ― the wildlife. Respect embodies showing interest in culture, history and traditions, so it’s no different when directing these ideals towards nature and wildlife.
Random Lengths spoke with leaders of each of these organizations, John Van Hamersveld and his wife, Alida Post, about the Respect The Locals campaign.
Laws of Advertising
Word… image… metaphor… This is how Van Hamersveld said he designs.
“I learned that at 19 years old at an art center design class,” said Van Hamersveld. “That was the whole four years, really, those three words. People know what words and images are, but they have to figure out ‘metaphor.’ You have to tie them together.”
“Advertising always puts a product in an environment and then they put a line [of text] underneath it [explaining] the word, the image, the metaphor,” he said.
He compared it to visiting a museum and looking at a painting; if there’s no text alongside the art, you may not know what you’re looking at. No one’s told you anything. But if the docent comes in and describes what’s in the painting, the next time you visit the museum, you have an entrance to that piece of work.
The land conservancy executive director, Adrienne Mohan, said the nonprofit jumped right in after hearing about this program during a meeting with Van Hamersveld and Alida.
“[That] they wanted to raise awareness for local species, and what makes the peninsula so unique and important really resonated with what we value at the land conservancy,” Mohan said. “It was evident that the Palos Verdes blue butterfly would be a great poster child for this program, for our organization and its mission.”
Mohan noted that the blue butterfly tells quite an amazing story about the community coming together, about valuing the protection of land, space and the species that rely on it. It is the iconic embodiment of the peninsula and relies on this really important, rare and special place.
She discussed the urgency of this campaign in how it relates to the conservancy’s work. Much of the open space around the peninsula has been protected and conserved, she explained. The important work of the conservancy now is to restore the land in those spaces. That, along with fire safety, is of concern across the peninsula and even into San Pedro.
Mohan said it’s not just the work but ongoing education, connecting people to the land, and why open space matters, and stewarding this land matters.
Alida Post noted that most folks north of Torrance do not realize that the Harbor region has these facilities and organizations that are doing amazing work, and they’re all about six minutes apart. She said this campaign is timely, as West Harbor, the new waterfront destination in San Pedro, is slated to begin a phased opening in late 2025.
Respect The Locals was a phrase that Alida saw written in small text on a goodie bag, designed by high schoolers, for a fundraiser at the Lundquist house (the real estate investor couple is one of the most philanthropic donors in the United States). It was an important message, but she said it needed a graphic to go with it.
Later, she and John Warner from the care center met to discuss a campaign to highlight each of these nonprofits. Respect the Locals would be the name of the initiative; they just needed an image to go with it. That’s when Van Hamersveld designed the harbor seal poster.
Warner echoed Alida’s point.
“These nonprofits are located in an area where no one would assume that you’ve got these world class, thought leading, nonprofit organizations all focused on conservation, especially ocean conservation, Warner said, “you start thinking about this and [realize] Pedro, mostly known for the port, has a lot more going for it in terms of the nonprofits that are powering change.
“San Pedro is the epitome of the urban ocean interface and all of the opportunities but challenges that come with that, and for us to be in the backyard of the most visible urban ocean interface is also something to celebrate. [Respect The Locals] tying us all together, visually, with a message that is resonant [will] help … drive the point home that we should love wildlife — not love them to death — in this more powerful ownership [way].”
“The animals are the locals,” said Alida. “It’s not our ocean, it’s their ocean.”
The nonprofits involved with the environment and animals are not in competition with one another, said Carolyn Brady of the aquarium.
“Anything you do to save the harbor seal is also going to help the giant sea bass and vice versa.”
The aquarium has all three posters in its gift shop, and Brady wants that messaging out there. The framed posters cost $50 and the unframed ones cost $25. They are all the same size and can become a collection. There are also plans to create a gray whale poster. Brady said the gift shop has a lot of cool merchandise to buy. But the goal is more than making money; it’s to have an extension of the visitor experience.
Together In One Message
Alida recalled that after moving back to California in 2001 and getting mail from multiple environmental nonprofits, she wondered, “Why are they all working independently? Why not join forces?”
To her point, Warner said the environment and animals go in the same bucket of philanthropy when they measure people’s philanthropic dollars. And that bucket gets a mere 3% annually.
“It‘s the afterthought of causes,” she said. “That slice of investment for the environment and animals includes everything that we’re doing, and it’s really the smallest slice. It is this type of banding together that helps more people know that it is something that is worthy of their investment. This percentage is not about taking away from each other, it’s about expanding the 3% in the first place.”
Brady discussed the cool factor of these collaborative organizations; every year, the aquarium hosts the Palos Verdes Land Conservancy Film Festival on Earth Day at the John Olguin Theater. And the care center releases its rehabilitated animal patients right on Cabrillo Beach, which is at the aquarium. Also, the connection of the PV Land Conservancy is a direct link with ocean health and coastal health.
“It’s a mutual respect and love society because each one is going for the same sustainable goals,” Brady said. “This is kind of special. Here we have four beautiful murals that we didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars on.”
It took an interloper, being Alida, to point out that they need to let people know about this important work. Additionally, the Van Hamersvelds do not take any money or licensing fees for the posters; all proceeds go to the nonprofits. And upon their passing, the nonprofits will get the copyrights.
Urgency of Fundraising
As the government just passed the so-called Defund NPR Act, which prohibits federal funds from being made available to or used to support National Public Radio (NPR) and public broadcasting stations, Brady spoke about the uncertainty that CMA and other organizations are now struggling with.
“It’s an uncertain time,” Brady said. “We just lost a federal grant that we thought was almost a certainty. Then another company asked us to do a grant about DEI. That’s basically what we do because we’re bringing children whose parents can’t afford to bring them or children who can’t afford a bus to the aquarium … that’s what we’ve been doing for 90 years now. But this company chickened out and said, “We better not give you this grant.” [That’s] two grants now, totalling almost $200,000, that I can directly say is the impact of the crazy political times we’re living in.
“We’re appealing to the average person who loves coming to the aquarium, who loves us, or who remembers serving with John Olguin, or collecting sea glass, or seeing a marine mammal released right there on our beach. Hey, if you still love the ocean and you love us, we could really use your help right now … we’re a little scared.”
Warner said the urgency is that the fundraising is an ongoing challenge, and the more animals that are stranded, the more the need is there.
“The [other] urgency is for people to understand the direct linkage to the problems that we’re facing and our own individual and collective contributions to it. It’s also a realization that this can be turned around. It’s not a technology thing, [or] how do we do this, it’s not even a money thing, it’s the will to do it. Messages like this that connect you to the human experience … pull at the heart and head strings in a way that is needed to meet the urgency of the problems we’re facing.
“The fact that [the posters] add fundraising revenue is an added benefit, but people are the key to fixing what’s wrong, [which] makes us have to exist in the first place. That means start respecting the environment that you live in and share with everything else.”
Warner noted that nothing else that the nonprofits sell is going to do the same thing as these posters; Van Hamersveld’s name recognition helps. It lends a great credibility stamp because people get excited when they realize who he is and recall his Endless Summer poster or the many album covers, some of which they may have, which he designed. The hope is that AltaSea and International Bird Rescue also join the poster mix.
“JVH has done something to the images that raises them to a level that makes people care about the animals,” Warner noted.
The land conservancy’s director, Mohan, summed everything up nicely.
“This [initiative] is an interesting crossing of passions,” Mohan said. “The love of the peninsula’s open space with the love of art, that will speak to a lot of folks, and we’re excited to get that graphic out there and see if it resonates with the community.
“As far as the beauty of art and the beauty of nature, they can really uplift [people], and there’s a lot going on in the news right now, too. So, the timing of this is good. It offers a real positive infusion of something funky and fun at a time when we need it, of art and appreciation for nature, something that probably unifies all of us.
“We don’t want to seem off topic or inconsequential, but it’s important and it brings good news to people. Environmental factors are connected to everything else that’s happening.”
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