Raised in Long Beach, Ken Auster early established a reputation as the surfers' artist, having designed and executed numerous surfer-motif tee shirts in silk screen.

He was swept up in the surfing craze, which led him to Hawaii where he worked for a T-shirt company and learned screen painting. These skills supported him when he returned to California and majored in illustration at California State University, Long Beach. He worked from a garage and printed hundreds of commercial T-shirts, which became a large operation called California T-Shirts. For more than a decade, the shirt is became signature casual wear for surfers and were sold through 26 of Auster's retail outlets.

In the 1980s, the business fell apart, which was a ...