Romano Gabriel Wooden Sculpture Garden

Colourful folk-art sculptures carved from discarded vegetable crates

The Romano Gabriel Wooden Sculpture Garden is a remarkable piece of folk art: hundreds of colorful carved wooden figures — people, flowers, trees, animals — created over four decades by an Italian immigrant carpenter who worked entirely in his front yard on 2nd Street. Gabriel used discarded vegetable and fruit crates from the local markets as his raw material, painting the finished pieces in vivid primary colors.

The original garden stood in place until Gabriel's death in 1977. After years in storage, it was restored and reassembled at the Clarke Historical Museum, where it now occupies its own gallery. The scale and obsessive detail of the work are striking — this is one of the best examples of long-term outsider art on the West Coast, and it would be worth a detour even if the museum held nothing else.

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A story
Romano Gabriel arrived in Eureka from Italy in the 1930s and spent the next four decades carving an elaborate garden of wooden figures and plants from discarded fruit and vegetable crates — working in his front yard at 315 2nd Street every day until he died in 1977. The garden, which had become one of Old Town's most beloved landmarks, was eventually moved indoors and is now displayed at the Clarke Historical Museum.