Shirts! And Stuff.

We will have t-shirts. It was super hard this year, because I keep forgetting how old I am and how hard screenprinting is getting. I got too ambitious. This is a three-color waterbase, and it is wide, way wide. I don't even have a squeegee wide enough anymore. Printing waterbase has to go quickly, because the ink dries in the screens, so I knocked myself out but I did make it through and turned the screens upside down for a few tote bags too. I was worried about the black printing over the colors but I used the flash to dry them and all four platens so I got great results with that. I guess my main problem was that I had to use my poor body in ways it has not been used for several months, and it wasn't happy about it. Guess I'll go back to printing one and two color only and stop trying to make pearls to set on the table for cheap.

You can only get these shirts at the show, and they are traditionally only ten bucks because it makes no sense to have a bunch left over. I don't mind giving some away, except that I worked so hard I don't think I should. I think I'll give out some half-price coupons maybe. Really ten dollars is a ridiculous price for a shirt of any kind, much less one like this, so maybe I'll just grin when people ask about shirts for free. I thought about saying, "Do you know how insulting that is?" but that would just be mean. I'm the one who gave so many away that people got the idea that they should get one for free.

So that's done, and all the props are done too. I didn't make many this year, and had help with those. Jacque made the cool horses and Annemarie made a bunch of bright surfboards and other accessories that will look fantastic on stage. We are bringing some palm trees out of storage. Mostly we won't have many props because the stage is so full of people. That's fine with me. I still haven't gotten my taxes done, so there was no way I could have put the time in on set pieces that I did last year.


I missed that time, though, always a lot of fun for me. I love creating illusions out of cheap posterboard and markers. I thought last year's props were outstanding and really set the scenes, but they weren't exactly necessary. They just create the layers of meaning and visual richness that I love and I particularly love the funky way we get to do it for the Jell-O Show. It's supposed to look homemade. That's part of the charm.

I do kind of wish for the shirts that I had added this one more layer of detail that I left out, the warped grid that made the gravitational waves look more 3-D. It would have made the printing even harder and probably would have meant making extra screens to try to get all the detail in. I briefly thought of adding some handpainted detail like I did last year, but I won't. They're done. I have actual paid work I am supposed to do this week. Today I can't, because my days of fulltime printing are over, but tomorrow I must. At least some of it. And then more practicing, and then comes Saturday, and tra la la! See you at the Gallery!