And I have “repatriated” some oldies & picked up a few new-to-me prints that I liked. The collection groweth. I wish I had kept one of everything, but that was literally impossible, so after 30 years, I find myself with a few hundred t-shirts, and some holes in the collection. Flipping through racks at Goodwill or ThrifTown is kinda relaxing and it’s yielded some fruit.
(Click through in-line images for full-size photos)
5by5. We printed this one at Amplifier is 2008 or so, I think. Found it unworn at the Goodwill. 5 color on a discharge uderbase. We did really good work there. Not sure who Merlin is — some tech guru?
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Not the most exciting print, but ok, lets deal with the facts on the ground here — a man’s gotta eat. I love the art prints, I love the challenging discharge jobs, but sometimes, someone just needs their dang logo on a dang shirt, and they need it done right. These folks were customers for years and years, & they’d order 72 or 144 shirts every few months, and heck, they helped pay for my daughter to go to a good private Jr. High School. Thanks, Allied Health Careers.
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I bought this one new at the 2015 Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. They had last year’s-shirt on fire-sale, so I snagged a couple. It’s signed, but I can’t make out the artists’ name, & I don’t know what shop printed it. It’s a great separation job, & reasonably well printed — 3 or 4 colors on a discharge underbase, though there are a couple minor flaws. Overall, a pretty impressive job.
Edit: A Facebook friend pointed out that this is the design work of Jay Long. Another mystery solved!
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This one came complete with the cat hair. No idea who printed it — it just seemed at the moment like I should own a Billy Joe Shaver shirt, and so now I do.
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This one is actually from Colombia. I looked at the tag & the shirt was Hecho En Colombia, so I figure it was probably printed there. Who doesn’t want a shirt from Colombia? Seriously.
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I have no idea about this one, either. I just liked the print a lot. Very detailed, very crisp halftones, very cool artwork. A mystery. I googled Sine Quanon t-shirt & drew a blank on that logo.
Update: A friend noticed this winery website — apparently, this shirt is advertising for a variety of their wines.
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Frida! Marty at Be Bop used to print these for Tesoro’s Trading Co. We never printed the Frida shirt but we did a fair amount of work for Tesoro’s as well in the mid to late 90’s & one of their shirts ended up in Clueless. This print & shirt look new– unworn & unwashed, so it’s highly unlikely that it’s an oldie from the Bee Bop days, but whoever is printing it is almost certainly using the same film positives — I’ve seen them. They weren’t the best, but they weren’t the worst. There’s too much black in the clouds… anyway. Who doesn’t like Frida Kahlo? You? GET OUT.
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I Heart Austin shirts were all the rage in the 80’s. This isn’t an original — it’s printed on a Gildan & those blanks weren’t around in those days, but it’s a waterbase print, & though sometimes I hate Austin, I still <3 Austin.
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Juke! Obama! Two Great Tastes That have great taste together! No idea why Juke did an Obama design, but I approve. When i see a Juke shirt, I buy it, and that’s pretty much that.
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KGSR Hearts For The Arts Blood Drive. KGSR was a huge client the entire time VG was open & we printed shirts for nearly all their events for nearly 15 years. I could go on about how wonderful to work with they were & how we got perks like tickets to their anniversary shows at the Austin City Limits taping studio, etc. Everyone who worked there was kind, friendly & generous. Best Customer Ever award, 10 years running. I kept a lot of the anniversary shirts & the hot sauce festival shirts, but this one eluded me until last month. Of course we didn’t print everything for them, but look at the back — I’m pretty sure we printed this one.
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Lobster Girl. Because I couldn’t NOT buy a shirt that said Lobster Girl. What sort of weirdo designed this? I don’t know, but now it’s mine.
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Magnolia Cafe. I’m only halfway sure we printed this one. It could be of 3 different vintages — possibly printed at Action Screen Graphics, because I think we added the 2nd location to the typesetting there. Possibly printed at Bee Bop, and possibly printed at Vreeland in the early 90’s after Bee Bop shut down. Either way, I could walk to the ink mixing table and mix both of those colors with my eyes closed. Actually, that would be a bad idea, but I can’t find a good euphemism for familiarity here.
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I just decided I should have an Obama Hope shirt because it was such an iconic design at the time. No idea where it was printed, but it’s new, unwashed & unworn. Pretty good for $1.99.
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Panama. Does what it says on the tin. Shirt made & printed in Panama, & who doesn’t want a shirt printed in Panama? Seriously.
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Longhorn Texas. This was from the very early days of Vreeland Graphics, before we had a computer — had to have ben late ’92 or early ’93. I recall this being a vry difficult print because the client had 4-color process separations made without consulting anyone, & we had to really play with the inks to get it to do anything. Also, this is a very washed & worn shirt — it was grungy enough that I was a little surprised a thrift store would accept it, but there it is. I’m not quite sure if it’s a bleached out natural cotton color, or if it’s a faded yellow white.
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Austin Reggae Festival 2011. No idea who designed it, no idea who printed it. It’s a well-executed print, though & also new– unwashed & unworn, so hey. I have a kind of soft spot since we did the father of the reggae fest, the Sunsplash shirts, waaay back in the 80’s.
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Robert Earl Keen, Wild Shiner Nights. We printed a LOT of Robert Earl Keen shirts at VG, including the iconic photo of his car burning in the parking lot of Willie’s 4th of July Picnic, & he always had challenging, fun designs. This one was 4 color process plus 2 spot colors — just about all our press could handle at the time. I kept one of nearly everything we did for him, except this one.
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Rosedale Ride, 1999. This is a big charity event that we printed every year up though 2007. Richard Whittington & co. always did the design & we would do the printing at a discount in return for a small “printed by” tagline which you can barely make out at the lower right.
Rosedale Ride 2000, See above.
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Tito’s Vodka started off with a very small run of shirts in the mid-2000’s. Then they kind of blew up. I’m not absolutely certain that we printed this one, at Vreeland but odds are good. I know their orders now are in the multiple thousands, wherever they’ve ended up.
Maybe I’ll run by the St. Vincent De Paul tomorrow.
