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i don’t know the answer to that question. i’m just asking.
in the mean time, i will continue to bring you t-shirt designs i find interesting from designers/companies who are using their creative skills to raise some money for non-profits and other organizations responding to the oil disaster.
 
the local t-shirt makers are still coming up with the best stuff, in my opinion. local silkscreeners saturn screenprinting have a couple sharp looking spoofs on the bp logo on vibrant green shirts (above) – one that says “spill baby spill” and the other the more direct “fu bp.” there are lots of shirts using the bp logo now, but these catch my eye as being similar enough so that you know it’s a bp logo without having to actually BE the bp logo - i like that. all proceeds from the sales of these shirts will go to the gnof gulf coast oil spill fund. you can pick one up online for $20 including shipping, or stop by their central city location and get it in person for only $15.
i was wondering how long it would take for fledgling t-shirt empire storyville to come up with their own fundraising shirt for the gulf, and lo and behold, they have. this is one of my favorite designs i’ve seen so far; i just really dig all the little drawings of fish, crabs, crawfish, shrimps, oysters and other local sealife that make up the shape of louisiana. (and the color palette is pleasing, too.) they too are donating to the gnof gulf coast oil spill fund, with $5 from each $23 t-shirt sale being donated. you can pick one up at their magazine street location or order online.
 
i noticed storyville also just added this one too, which spells it out loud and clear. this one is on one of those trendy burnout shirts in a color scheme that resembles dirty water; it’s a cool effect. these are $30 and some portion of each sale will go to the same charity, the gnof gulf coast oil spill fund, though it is unclear how much. again, available in their shop on magazine or online.
i first saw this design on skip n’ whistle‘s facebook page; they were saying it was the only design they carry in the shop at this point that is not their own. so i wondered who had made it. i’d seen others posting about it, saying they’d seen it on cnn and local tv news, so i did some googling and found that it belongs to nola tee, and is benefiting the st. bernard project, to help commercial fishermen affected by the oil disaster. it appears it comes in different colors and in both men’s and women’s sizes. click the picture above to go to their site for ordering, or call or stop by skip n’ whistle to see if they still have any in stock.
speaking of skip n’ whistle, they continue to come up with more of their own original designs in response to the oil disaster. i’ve featured two of their other designs in previous posts, but this is their most recent one, time is running out for bp. they continue to donate a portion of their sales of these bp response shirts – $10/shirt on this design – to the humane society of louisiana, who are helping with wildlife rescue in the oil affected region.
of course, locals aren’t the only ones making fundraising t-shirts in response to the oilpocalypse, but i think i’ll leave that to a separate post, as this one is already getting long. if you know of other oil spill/bp related t-shirt designs that i haven’t covered that you think are cool, feel free to post them in a comment here.
stay tuned for more.
64 days after the deepwater horizon rig blew up in the gulf of mexico, the oil continues to gush. people all over the world, and especially in southern louisiana, continue to feel helpless, and even those who are doing their best to fight the good fight feel like they are in a losing battle.
let’s revisit that oil spill ticker i posted early on in this crisis:
divide that number of gallons by 42 and you get the number of barrels per day that have leaked into our beautiful gulf. and that’s just an average of all the best-guesses of how much is leaking out every day. i find this beyond comprehension.
i personally continue to feel like there is little i can do, save for spend a few hours every day posting articles and photographs and reports from grassroots groups on the ground to my facebook profile in a desperate attempt to keep others far and wide in my social circle informed and enraged. i have a few-day break from the census (the phase i was hired for is now over, but the next phase that i’m getting rehired for starts next week), but have to condense everything i’ve been wanting to do for the past two months into a few days. plus i have to get ready for the craft mafia’s 5th year anniversary party on thursday. and fae leaves for michfest work in a week, so we have to get all our ducks in a row for my eventual departure later in july as well.
it’s all a whirlwind to me.
so i guess i’ll just continue to do what i’ve been doing here on the blog, which is highlight some of the visual creativity that’s come out of this horrendous nightmare, in an attempt to both vent our collective anger and/or also help raise funds for some of the grassroots groups and first responders to the situation.
today, i’d like to point your attention to sticker robot, a silkscreen sticker company out in california. some of you may remember back when i was stenciling-for-obama, sticker robot kindly donated a huge whack of stickers of my obama stencil design for me to give out, to help the campaign. zoltron and sticker robot are good people, and here they go again, donating their brilliant work to the cause:
click the picture to get all the details. basically, you just have to send them a self-addressed, stamped LEGAL-SIZED envelope and they will send you a free sticker. i personally think this is one of the best graphics i’ve seen come out of the creative community in response to the disaster, and i can’t wait to get one onto my car. (maybe i’ll get lucky and get 2 in the mail so i can put one on the scooter too!)
a fresh batch of oil disaster response t-shirts coming soon. stay tuned.
if you’ve been following my blog, then you know i’ve been posting a lot of t-shirt designs from mostly local designers in response to the bp gulf oil disaster. i started doing so originally because i was trying to come up with my own design, and was inspired by the work of some of my peers and also thought it was a great way to raise funds for various grassroots organizations involved in the response. (i only feature designers who are donating a portion of the proceeds to some responding organization.)
well i still haven’t managed to come up with a design i’m happy with (though i did make a rudimentary stencil for the back of my sierra club “clean it up” t-shirt so i could wear it to the protest in the french quarter two weekends ago, which you can view here), but other folks continue to churn out the t-shirts… and i will get back to featuring some more of them in a bit.
i’d like to switch gears just a little, while remaining on the design continuum, and feature some of the excellent and interesting graffiti that’s been sprouting up in response to the disaster. of course i’ve noticed some locally here in new orleans, but thanks to flickr, i’ve seen pieces from all over the gulf south and around the country.
this was the first i saw posted, and it’s by an artist named priest. he is often confused with – and obviously inspired by – banksy. priest is from alabama. i really like this one a lot. it expresses the anger we are all feeling down here, and is well-executed. take a look at that link to priest’s flickr and you’ll see he has a few others on the oil disaster theme… and i’m sure there are more to come.
this one just really hits the mark, by an artist called BonusSaves from kalamazoo, michigan. it’s quite brilliant – a northern gannett coated in oil. i love the concept.
this one, too, is very effective… and a really beautiful depiction of a sea turtle, swimming amidst the oil. this one is from key west, florida, and the photo is dated may 25th. i have no idea who the artist is. but it’s a gorgeous piece. props to the unknown artist. (and thanks to todd sanders for snapping the great pic!)
another one from florida, the wynwood art district in miami. again, don’t know who the artist is, but a nice piece. thanks to photographer justin helmick for snapping the shot on this very effective image.
this one is from down on grand isle larose, louisiana. it was painted before one of president obama’s visits down to grand isle recently. again, don’t know the artist but the artists are tattoo artists eric guidry and bobby pitre. this picture definitely speaks a multitude of words. this shot was not found on flickr but instead via the mainstream news online.
there are so many more, and i’m sure lots more coming as this disaster rages on with no end in sight. check out this gallery i made on flickr that includes many of the above plus others. and definitely leave me a message here if you’ve seen/snapped others wherever you are.
as the oilpocalypse rages on, i continue to be overwhelmed with anger, heartbreak, sadness and a feeling of helplessness as to what to do. i spend a considerable amount of time every day reading and reposting many online articles and first-hand accounts to my facebook and twitter streams, and i keep trying to hash out some designs for an eventual t-shirt or protest poster or something. but my census job keeps me so busy i don’t really have time to do much else.
tomorrow i will attend my first actual protest at 1pm in jackson square in the french quarter, which i hope will gather thousands to voice our collective outrage and sorrow. (i thought there was supposed to be one on thursday, but i scooted downtown at noon to find nothing going on anywhere – so i guess that one got canceled or something. sunday’s protest has been getting a lot of play in the media, though, so i think it will be big.)
since i still haven’t managed to come up with my own design that i like enough to want to print onto t-shirts, i’ll continue to spotlight those from my new orleans peers, particularly those who are donating a portion or all of the proceeds to organizations working on the response to the oil disaster.
(if you missed the first two posts, you can read them here and here.)
first, i can’t believe i forgot to mention this one earlier, from defend new orleans. the design pre-dates the oil disaster and was always intended to raise awareness of our diminishing wetlands, but now takes on a much more urgent message in regards to the oil disaster. 100% of the proceeds goes to the coalition to restore coastal louisiana and the gulf restoration network, two grassroots organizations that have been very effective and dedicated to preserving the coast and wetlands.
this second one is another design from my pal chris over at skip n’ whistle. their website is currently getting an overhaul, so no online ordering, but he says you can call the shop and order on the phone (504-862-5909) or just stop on in to 8123 Oak Street. i’m not sure where the proceeds are going for this one, but his other anti-bp shirt was benefiting the humane society, so perhaps it’s the same for this one.
this one is from my friend phillip whitmore of inexplicable confetti. according to his etsy shop, $5 from each sale goes to benefit the audubon society and their efforts to save the coast.
i’ve seen a LOT of these around town lately, and it took me a while to figure out who was making them. apparently it’s po-boy apparel. i don’t know anything about these folks, but this shirt sure is popular! according to their website, $2 of each shirt sold will go the “save the coast” coastal sustainablility program of the lake pontchartrain basin foundation (saveourlake.org).
and lastly, for now, from the good folks over at save nola, comes this “save our coast” design. according to their site, net proceeds from the purchase of this item will go to the coalition for coastal restoration. the design comes on this army green colored shirt as well as white t’s, in both men’s and women’s styles. i’ve seen a few of these around town already, too, and i’ve always appreciated that save nola was founded by locals to help out local organizations working to better new orleans and the region.
oh, and just as an update concerning fleurty girl’s rescue me t’s i mentioned in an earlier post, she recently tweeted the following: “so far raised $14,892 for @audubonzoo‘s louisiana marine mammal & sea turtle rescue program with our rescue me shirts!” that’s pretty fucking amazing! apparently she’s now offering some other accessories with the design on it too, so stop into her retail shop on oak street to get you some.
ok, i think that’s it for now. i know there are more – i keep seeing new ones all the time – and i’ll keep sharing them as i find them. i’m sure there will be some interesting ones at the protest tomorrow. now to get back to thinking about my own design…
i love the bayou boogaloo. for all the years i was away in kentucky post-federal-flood, i was so sad i could never seem to make it here during memorial day weekend (too soon after jazzfest) so i could partake – either as a vendor or just a mid-citizen – in the boogaloo. i mean, come on – a music festival in my own neighborhood! (well i guess an argument could be made that jazzfest is also a music festival in my own neighborhood, but the boogaloo is more of a community, grassroots event, and even closer to where i live than the fairgrounds.) last year, i was FINALLY able to participate as a vendor, and it was glorious. so much fun, so many sales (thanks everyone!), and so great to see so many of my mid-city neighbors!
this year, i have been looking forward to the boogaloo for months. the new orleans craft mafia is again, like last year, offering a free t-shirt recycling workshop adjacent to the kid’s tent, in the “eco” area of the festival. (see the festival map below.) we’ll be out there both saturday and sunday – saturday from noon til 5pm, and sunday from 1-4pm – teaching people how to make tote bags, halter tops and other fun stuff out of old t-shirts, with a minimal amount of sewing. we have a good stash of donated t-shirts already, but we’re still accepting donations – just bring ‘em on out to the fest and throw ‘em in our bin. if you don’t have any t-shirts to work with, don’t worry – we got ya covered. oh, and at the end of the weekend, we’ll have a little fashion show at 5pm on sunday for you to strut your stuff with your new creations, too!
so yeah. i’ve been looking forward to it. but at the same time, freaking out… because a) i had a really successful jazzfest show at jen’s and sold a lot of t-shirts and signs – which is good, yay for money and sales, but also has left me with not as many of the signs and t-shirts i would like to have to sell at the boogaloo; and b) i started this census job that has been kicking my ass! it’s been a long time since i had any kind of “real” job (meaning worked a job outside of my own house), and it’s been a hard adjustment getting used to both that aspect as well as the strange start/stop nature of census work. for example, on any given day, i: have a daily meeting at 9am for a half hour; might go out to make rounds on a new block i’ve been assigned in the morning for a couple of hours; come home for lunch; spend an hour or so going over all the paperwork from the morning to make sure i have it all correct; go back out to a different block for 2nd or 3rd or 4th rounds, trying to find folks who weren’t home the first time; come home again to cool off and do paperwork; go back out in the early evening trying to catch folks coming home from work who i’m having a particularly hard time trying to find; come home, eat dinner, and maybe even go back out again after dinner before dark, for the pesky hard-to-find folks. and then spend more time on paperwork when i’m home. (and then collapse!)
and all of that only got me like 6-7 hours of actual on-the-clock work. but i’ve been working since 8:45am! so it’s been a big adjustment, to say the least. and has left me little time to think about things like ordering t-shirts to print (much less finding time to actually print them), cutting/sanding/painting wood for signs, and making clocks. and, to top it all off, though i did well at jazzfest at jen’s, it’s the only good market/sale i’ve had in months, so i’ve been begging/borrowing/stealing to pay my bills and am deeply in debt… and we’ve only gotten one paycheck so far from the census. so i didn’t even have the money to invest in buying t-shirts to print, or paint to make signs, etc. (much less the booth fee for vending at the boogaloo.)
so this all came to a head on saturday night, as fae and i were hanging out at home and i was surfing the internet, trying to find some wholesale outlet that actually had the style/color of t-shirts i wanted to order (all my usual outlets were sold out of at least one size and most of them several sizes) so i could order them in time for them to actually arrive in enough time to be able to print them… and i realized, what am i doing? i don’t even have the money to pay for these. nor do i have the money to pay for my booth. and even if i could scrape that up, there’s no guarantee that i’d make it back… just because i sold a lot of 70119 t-shirts last year at the boogaloo doesn’t mean i will this year. sales at markets has SUCKED overall so far in 2010, so why would the boogaloo be any different?
and, as an aside, i have been wracking my brain trying to come up with an oil disaster related design, which i thought might be the biggest seller due to the timing, but i haven’t even been able to find the time to work on coming up with that. (and even if i did, i’d be donating the proceeds to the gulf restoration network, so it wouldn’t be something i’d be making money off of. which i still really want to do, but, it was just one more piece of the puzzle that wasn’t coming together for me.)
so. all of a sudden, it came to me. i can’t do the boogaloo. i can’t afford it, i don’t have inventory, and i don’t have time to think about it. and the second i started thinking about not doing it, i instantly felt relief. i immediately posted something on my facebook page, and thought i was done with it. i slept better and the next few days i didn’t think anything about it. it was actually really nice. sad, but also stress-relieving.
and then yesterday, my friend rachelle offered to share her booth with me, which was so sweet. i thought about refusing, but then i figured if i don’t really need to spend any time making stuff and i just take what i’ve got and make as much fit as i can in part of rachelle’s booth, around her stuff, then it doesn’t have to be stressful and maybe i’ll still make a little money anyways. and i always have fun hanging out with rachelle at markets – we almost always set up next to each other. so thanks, rachelle.
so now i am once again doing the bayou boogaloo. and of course, i am going to try to make a few signs this week, maybe a few 70119 clocks. but i’ll only have a literal handful of t-shirts, and a weird assortment of clocks and signs and cufflinks… and that’s it. not a big effort. but at least i’ll be there.
hope to see y’all there!
ok, so here’s another oilpocalypse t-shirt roundup. at this point, 21 days into the crisis, lots of folks are hopping on the t-shirt-as-response bandwagon. of course, not everyone is donating proceeds to responding organizations, so do your due diligence when shopping.
first of all, i wanted to update that it appears dirty coast’s make wetlands not oil shirt is back up on the site, ready for your orders. once again, proceeds from this shirt will go to support the united commercial fishermans association. as soon as my first census paycheck is deposited into my account, i’ll be buying one of these.
second, my pal chris reams over at skip n’ whistle on oak street (uptown) finalized his shirt design only yesterday, with proceeds going to benefit the humane society.
 back of shirt  front of shirt and lastly, for now anyways, my favorite bp-response t-shirt i’ve seen anywhere does not come from a local t-shirt maker. it comes from west coast designers us versus them. it’s two-sided and is called “lube job,” which i love. i had just been brainstorming on ideas for a stencil and/or t-shirt and had the thought of doing a “fuck you, bp” design with the flower logo in shades of grey/black… but it looks like us versus them had the idea first – and no doubt executed it far better than i could. might just have to get me one of these, too. they say they are donating 50% of the proceeds to the clean-up effort and mention a few organizations in this rant on their site. it’s a little vague, but i trust that they will get the $ to some deserving organizations. it’s a great shirt. i can’t decide if i like it on white better (for contrast) or on black (for more of a tone-on-tone effect, and reinforcing the blackness of the oil itself). anyways, pre-ordering is now available – just click the pics above.
i’m sure there will be many many more shirts coming down the pike, but generally speaking, i’m mostly only interested in the local ones… unless it’s as fabulous as the one above. i’ll keep looking and letting you know when i find good stuff.
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