Shirts (part 2)

Ready to hear more about the shirts? I'm quite pleased about these shirts, and I will go through each one in detail. 

I'll start with one stand-alone t-shirt. It is part of the Bone Orchard collection. I say 'stand alone' because it's the only shirt in this collection as of now. [Side note: The collections are more or less on going, so more stuff will be added. It's mostly just a way of me grouping like themes and ideas. That's why I say 'as of now'.] 

 

This shirt is inspired by (and heavily based on) a group that was formed in 1896. It was called 'The Society for the Prevention of Being Buried Alive'. The society was formed because of how regularly people seemed to be buried alive. Such a fate was surprisingly common, and... well, that's not very nice. I learned about the society when I was researching people who were buried alive in the 19th century. As medicine and embalming became more advanced and more common, the risk of burying someone alive became less common. Thankfully. If you're interested in learning more about people who were buried alive, I recommend reading this Listverse list about it. It's concise and very informative. Why did I make a shirt about this? Well, the collection 'Bone Orchard' is based on Victorian ghost stories and graveyards. Unfortunately, premature burial is a big part of that. I'm quite pleased with this shirt, because the printing ended up looking like a worn down and weathered epitaph. 

Next, shirts for the 'Chiromancy' collection.

I'm quite pleased with these. They are both inspired by aspects of the history of witchcraft. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might know that it's a topic that interests me quite a bit. In general, most of the work that I create for this collection are inspired by the more arcane aspects of the history. I read a lot, and then I draw inspiration from it. The name for the collection on a whole ('Chiromancy') is another word for fortune telling, specifically palm reading. It's a fascinating word, and fit the overall feel that I wanted to instill through the  Any ways... the descriptions of the shirts.

The shirt on the left is the Haxan shirt. It is based off of the 1922 silent film that documents the history of witchcraft. I was inspired by a combination of the film itself and runes. I decided to create a design that was runic, and it ended up making me think of pyres and stakes. Ultimately, I just had the intention of creating a neat design. Ultimately, it's almost like a Rorschach pattern in that you can see whatever you want. The shirt on  the right is an untitled shirt that I designed a few months ago. The pattern is made up of a mirrored image with two crescent moons and fauns.  All of the symbolism involved are symbols of the feminine and purity. I was inspired by the women of Salem who were blamed for witchcraft. 

As of now, there are only three of each shirt (except for the Haxan design. I'll get to that later). Each shirt is hand printed on soft jersey knit fabric. They're fairly sheer, really light, and... yes, really soft. They are wrinkled, worn down a bit, and each printing is different (because that's what happens when you print). 

Where do I go from here? Well, I will be starting my summer project (and hopefully beginnings of like projects for the indeterminable future). It will be a project that involves a lot of research, a lot of writing, maybe some artist journals, hopefully a great deal of traveling, and the result will be a run of printed, painted, and/or embroidered shirts. My plan is to make a series of shirts based on weird things in different cities. Occult history, famous oddities, strange places and people, so on. I'm planning to start with Calgary and Banff. After that, I would like to stem into Salem, Massachusetts, and Savannah, Georgia. I'm excited about this idea.

P.S. There's a bonus in these photographs. The fur collars. They are more examples of the collars that I have been working on. I'm really pleased with them.