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Birth In Venice

Gabe's undeniable passion for airbrushing led him to set up his own shop in sunny Venice, where he spent two years airbrushing tons of tees, custom-painted dolls and women's wear for boutiques. Many of his creations were sold on the beach and local boutiques.

Venice was where he would design his first templates, made out of oiled stencil board. They would last for a while, but then paint would eventually build up and a new template would need to be made.

After perfecting how to make acrylics stay on a shirt, Gabe needed a new challenge.

Flying Solo

Back in the 70s, the airlines would retread old tires to save money. Gabe took a job managing a tire service conveniently located in a huge warehouse with full plumbing. Little did the airlines know that Gabe spent his evenings their as well.

"I delivered those recapped tires to the airport, working a few hours a day, and then spent the rest of my day and night painting and playing music. They had no idea I lived there," said Gabe, who was often the only soul still stirring in the industrial area of the city, except when his avant-garde jazz group would jam and rehearse late into the night.

His "art studio" proved to be the ideal location over the next five years for making enormous fine-art canvases that he would stretch himself, and then paint abstracts of random shapes or colors. He was still captivated by the airbrushing medium.

"It was amazing the way you could gradate colors so quickly and seamlessly, one to the next, blending them, covering all this area in a short space of time," Gabe said. "The act of atomizing paint on a surface...there was just something really magical about it."

Gabe also became a serious student, getting a degree in the theater arts, which he used to perform at the Venice Living Theater, and taking nearly every art class he could at Santa Monica College, where the only real costs were art supplies.

Flat Broke

The retread tire business eventually went under and suddenly Gabe had to find some place to not only work, but live as well. He would continue to paint on the side, but spent his days now working for Columbia Pictures Distribution, promoting new films to exhibitors in the mid-70s.

"I would have to watch many films, but only a small percentage of these movies was even worth watching," Gabe said. "In the end, I realized that selling films wasn't in the cards for me. I could have stayed and been very successful and secure there, but I didn't have the passion. It was too regimented. I had to create."

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Reprinted with permission of Airbrush Action Magazine.