Gary passed away peacefully on December 7, 2011. He will be remembered as a kind and gentle soul who represented the genre of ''starving artist'' quite well. He was painting right up until the end; having just started on this year's hand-painted Christmas cards for his friends.
He was one of the pioneers of airbrush work on surfboards, starting in the late '60s. He moved to Florida shortly after, and did color on thousands and thousands of boards over the next 40 years. When I met him (around 1980) he was working for MTB, then he went on to Larry Pope's LP Glass where he sprayed all of the Matt Kechele boards for the rest of the 80s and into the 90s.
Sorry Mike,to hear about your friend and I love the painting and sounds like he was a pioneer in airbrushing boards. If his paintings ever go on sale,let me know I would be proud to own one. Aloha,Wildog
Mahalo, kokua. Here's a better version (photo) of that painting. I think we may try to assemble some of G's work for the memorial, maybe I can get some more pics...
I got to see the scrapbook you put together for your Uncle Gary, with your permission I'd like to reproduce a few bits of it on here.
I want you to know that there are a lot of people down here who loved your uncle and appreciated all the great work he did over the years. Plans are coming together for a memorial paddle-out this Sunday at 1:00 pm, at Dunes/Mobil/Austin's Beach (damn, that place has a lot of names!) in north Indialantic.
Gary was a great artist! I was lucky enough to have met him in the late 80s when he painted these two lightwave surfboards for me when they were in the old Oceanside factory in Melbourne, Florida.I couldn't figure out how to enlarge the scanned pics. He painted the peace sign board as well.
Mike, Thanks for the paddleout info, it was mentioned on 2ndlight but no location was listed, Thanks! Mike, you actually shaped that bottom epoxy for me in 89' I think it was!
Gary always said he didn't want us to ''do anything'' when he passed, but I don't think he'd mind a bunch of his friends getting together today to remember him and put a portion of his ashes into the ocean.
He was remembered of course for his work, but also for his knowledge of history and language. And then there were the funny stories about people giving him rides to work (Gary didn't drive). We will miss him very much but he will live on through the art he left us.
Mike, first and foremost, there are no words to express our
gratitude we feel in our hearts.
Agreed, he would have been pleased.
Thank you for honoring my Uncle, and turning a seemingly ominous
day into a celebration of a beautiful human being who we all held near and dear
to our hearts.
My friend John Lucas sent me these pics yesterday, someone just sent them to him in rememberance of Gary. A promo board for Record Bar, with album cover art by Gary P. I'd like to encourage anyone who has art by G to post up pics here. If somebody has a mag collection and could scan the Kecheles from the ''design forum'' features, there were several graphic gems of Gary's in there....
Thanks to a couple of old-time Melbourne Beach local boys, a wonderful piece of Gary's art has surfaced. This piece is large (48''x 24''), striking, and unusual. There's a great story behind it also, as it was made in the MTB factory in 1987. Art on Clark sheet foam, glassed over. We'd like to get it to Gary's family.
I'll put up a pic when I can, it's very difficult to photograph because the surface is highly polished and reflects everything.
Wow. Honestly, I am sitting here in shock, I didn’t expect
to hear any more stories let alone the possibly of seeing more of my uncle’s
art. I know the family is truly grateful for anything anyone is willing to
share with us. Yeah, it sounds like an incredible piece of artwork. Wow. You made my day! Thank you!
The story behind this is great. Two history buffs got together to do a piece about a plane going down somewhere in the South Pacific, the same year as Amelia Earhart was lost. But this guy's disappearance was somwhat less famous. The co-conspirator was one of the other employees at MTB, he has owned this ever since.
Sorry for the photo quality, the reflections are hard to avoid. They look like flaws, and there aren't any flaws in this piece. The hangers on the back are fin rope and lam resin that is still tacky after 25 years.
