well things sure are deteriorating quickly in our country right now. trump’s authoritarian regime is ramping up attacks on democracy, voting rights, free speech, education, healthcare, immigrants, trans folks, and really pretty much everyone and everything that has defined this freedom-loving melting pot of a country during my lifetime. it’s hard to digest it all, everything coming at us every day, the nonstop urgent headlines, each one worse than the last. i understand why some folks have tuned out, stopped watching or reading the news and social media. it’s all a lot and it’s all pretty awful. and we all want to wish that someone or something will save us soon from this hell.
but guess what? here we are. and no one is going to save us but us. SO WAKE THE FUCK UP AND RESIST! don’t capitulate. don’t comply in advance. stop being complacent. push back. stand up. fight! do what you know to be right. stop standing on the sidelines and get out in the streets! or do whatever you can do – organize, make phone calls to your reps, write postcards, talk to your friends, family, neighbors. it’s now or never cuz at some point we will get to the point of no return and history will have completely repeated itself and the US will be 1940s germany all over again. no hyperbole.
hence, this design, which was made just as much for myself as for everyone else. i had yet to make a political design all year which is not really my way – i’m usually churning them out left and right. but i too have been overwhelmed, busy just trying to survive, getting through my days, and spending my free time doing things that made me happier like abstract painting and hanging with friends and my new kitten and binge watching way too much tv. but when i was on my last quickie vacation this imagery kept coming to me and as i wrote in my last post i started working it out, first via small folk art paintings, then with a 2″ square linocut print, and then a handpainted protest sign… and the reactions i was getting from it made me realize it was resonating with folks. so i knew it needed to be a sticker and maybe a tshirt.
it took me a while to get it digitized cleanly enough for a sticker as i had let my adobe illustrator subscription lapse a while back (it’s so expensive y’all!) since i wasn’t using it but there’s really no other way to turn a rough hand-drawn design into something print-ready so i sucked it up and signed up for it again at $35/month. there’s a trial window of time where i can get my money back if i cancel and if i don’t come up with some other ideas real quick i’ll probably cancel cuz i just can’t afford to add yet another monthly subscription right now unless it’s making me money. but it did allow me to make this design into vector art so i placed an order for stickers and those should be arriving this week. i’m trying out a new sticker company (the sticky brand) so crossing my fingers they look good. as soon as they arrive, i’ll post them for sale.
then, with that digitized vector file, i was able to do a print-on-demand campaign for the shirts via bonfire. the initial campaign has ended so now it reverts to on-demand which means they will produce them as they are ordered. since i’d made the stickers in the eye-catching lime green and black colorway, folks wanted the matching shirt and my testing out at home of neon colors on dark shirts in my very DIY set up wasn’t looking good so print-on-demand was the only way to offer it. plus i can offer many more styles of shirts, brands, sizes, colors, etc. i even ordered one myself cuz i like the colorway!
however i did want to print them at home too on lighter shirts so i printed out my vector file to the right size and used it to cut a vinyl stencil to make a screen. i did some testing on some random blanks i had here including this heathered sapphire blue shirt to see how black ink would look and i loved it! i think i picked up the blank shirt at michaels months ago cuz i really loved the color. but OF COURSE, when i went back to michaels to find some more to do a short run, i found out michaels stopped carrying that color and they didn’t have any other heathered shirts or colors that i liked. so back to the drawing board.
google helped me find a tshirt wholesale store in metairie called aviva that i’d never heard of before but it’s basically a warehouse that stocks many different styles, sizes and colors of gildan and bella/canvas shirts at close to wholesale prices. (you used to need to have a reseller’s license to get wholesale pricing but it seems nobody cares about that anymore cuz there’s this whole store offering wholesale pricing to the public.) i wish they had other brands and they don’t carry every color or style i might want but it’s a godsend to find a place i can drive to and just pick up dozens of shirts off the shelf in many sizes for doing short print runs.
HOWEVER they also did not have the heathered sapphire shirts. i think they might be a discontinued color which is just my luck. but they DID have the sapphire in 100% cotton and it looks almost identical so i got 3 of each size small – 2xl to do a short run to hopefully satisfy the few folks who expressed interest when i first posted it on my social media. if i sell most of those i’ll go back and get more.
this is what they look like. i’m trying to configure my store to offer them there but for now, i have sizes small – 2xl. they are 100% cotton basic unisex shirts from gildan on sapphire blue with black water-based ink that are printed and heatset by hand. i think they turned out great! i only have 3 of each size at the moment so these will probably go quick but email me or send me a message on facebook or instagram with the size you want. they are $20 each plus shipping which will probably be about $8 for 1-2 shirts via ground advantage, more if you want priority. (postage costs have gone up so much at usps!) if you are buying more than 2 shirts i’ll just have to figure out how much more it is before you pay. payments via venmo or paypal.
ok, that’s it for now. hope y’all are hanging in there. do what you gotta do to stay sane – take care of yourselves. ❤️