www.jaredeberhardt.com

Jared is partnered with artist Michael Jager.

A story about Jeff that you would like to share: I was art directing the 1998 Burton Fall shoot in New Zealand. We were staying out in the middle of nowhere, the place we were staying was named erehwon, which is backward for nowhere.

It had been a long icy day, so I took a small group of people out on a sunset 4X4 mission to blow off a little steam. I borrowed the keys to the most four wheel capable vehicle in the arsenal, which was Bruno Musso’s rental ‘Pajero’. Whenever I did anything like this I always wanted to have Jeff around, he always made good things that much better. He had a way of picking up the vibe and sort of amplifying it. I would pretty much do anything to get a reaction out of him.

After a half hour of burnouts and chasing sheep we went for a mandatory river crossing. The river was considerably deeper than I expected, and the car started to float down stream. All I could picture is the group of us sitting on the hood in the middle of the river somewhere waiting for a rescue helicopter.  I remember looking over at Jeff and he wasn’t laughing, he looked at me like I was the devil.

After a few long seconds we hit a high spot and got traction and I gunned it, hitting into the high bank on the other side. We managed to get out of the river and we limped home. It was dark when we got back and I looked over the car and it looked fine so we just went inside and joined the night’s festivities. No one said anything about what had just happened.

The next morning, on the way to breakfast, Bruno took me aside to ask my help to find out why the bumper and grill was missing from his rental car. I froze. Had he accused me or asked if I’d done it, I would have confessed. But the fact that he thought that I was the only one he could trust made me freeze. I hate to disappoint people. He asked around at breakfast and surprisingly everyone kept quiet. After breakfast, he called a Team meeting. We were all sitting in the foyer of the inn as Bruno interrogated us as a group, it was intense. My hands were sweating, my mouth was dry, I could feel my face heat up as I was about to confess. Right as I opened my mouth Jeff blurted out something to the effect of “Jared did it, but don’t be mad, he didn’t mean it!” It was the perfect way out, since no one could ever be mad at Jeff maybe it would rub off on me. Thanks Jeff, I miss you!