Post #371377 by bigbrotiki on Thu, Apr 3, 2008 3:46 PM

Wow, how lucky that some TCers found this, congrats!
That's the house me and Otto visited Gabe in more than 10 years ago for my research for the BOT. What a great, funny guy. He had gotten into collecting Kachina dolls and those Indian owl pots by then. He let me photocopy the stuff he had left from his Stephen Crane/George Nakashima days. He even gave me George's phone number and I never followed up on it (BANG! --the sound of shooting myself). He was one of the people that made me feel great for being able to hand him the Book of Tiki after its completion, and to see how thrilled he was.

In appreciation, he gave me two originals, one was the water color he made of a corner of the Trader Vic's in Beverly Hills. That painting was his test for his job at Stephen Crane Associates in the late 50s, he was sent there as an art spy and did this, and he was hired.

And then he drew me my own Tiki Mug design :) (he did one for Otto too):

I never really got conclusive evidence WHICH Stephen Crane mugs he designed, here is a copy of a Rum barrel rendering he did: