How to maintain a long art career…tees?
Never in a million years did I ever guess I’d be aspiring to create tee shirts after surviving 50 plus years as a professional artist. What? The lowly tee? I do have a history with a tee, just one tee, in Los Angeles 1972.
I’ve written about this image before, published in the Los Angeles Review of Books in late 2018. Remembering my younger self, looking back at how life was then for a female in a male dominated world of advertising.
With this campaign in 1972 — billboards all over LA and a hand-paint on Sunset — I like to think that I helped spread the t-shirt trend to the mainland. I didn’t write the headline and to this day, I hate it, but take a closer look. It’s quite a period piece, capturing the moment in time when women were beginning to be “liberated,” or so we hoped.
Today, text on tees, though common, is still an effective way to communicate, and I like to think I had something to do with the start of the phenomena on the mainland, having brought the idea with me from my year in Honolulu in 1967.
From their website: “Crazy Shirts legacy began in 1964, when Rick Ralston founded one of the first companies in the world to sell the modern “T-Shirt” using distinctive designs that reflect the exuberant Island lifestyle. Ralston set-up shop on a Waikiki sidewalk charging $5 to airbrush monsters, hot rods and surfing scenes on T-shirts.”
As a too-young newlywed living just blocks from that Waikiki sidewalk, our crazy upstairs neighbor worked for them. Can’t remember his name, but he was wild and fun. I can’t remember if I actually bought tees from Crazy Shirts, but I did bring the impact of text and image back to California. Five years later, as an advertising art director for a boutique agency in Beverly Hills, I had the idea of putting the headline on a tee. With no silkscreen shops in LA, I bought cheesy iron-on letters. I do believe this was a first, and it was a sensation all over LA. It was also, without a doubt, the first braless billboard.
Fast forward to now. To maintain a long creative and persistent career despite constant challenges, from having babies to economic crashes and other catastrophic events, I’ve had to adapt and pivot many times. While I started my serious art career in 1977 as a muralist because there were so few, since then millions of aspiring muralists have been born. Lots of demand and also too much supply.
And while I had been on the cutting edge of large-scale digital murals with one of the first fine art applications in 1977, digital is taking over. And don’t tell those young muralists, but the printer will usually make a lot more money than they will.
We just installed a new one for the Water Forum in Sacramento. It’s amazing technology. We must adapt in order to persist.
But back to tee shirts. Once again, I pivot. Back to a branch of advertising, now called branding. Not only am I trying to brand myself, but as part of my continuing collaboration with the Water Forum, I’m now partnering with a Nature Center in Sacramento, right along the American River.
I’ll be developing and designing merchandise as well as content about the Center and the American River. I’ve been waiting for years for tech to catch up with me–to be able to transform a long career into new media. All those paintings can now become something else, (except for those projects that preceded digital, captured in low-quality snapshots).
So back to tees, cause kids love tees, and the Center is all about kids. Now that I have a fabulous partner who’s all about education, I’m taking advantage of new online store, shopping and design apps. It’s a no brainer, and wow is it fun. Here’s an example. From this…
To this:
And from my personal collection, this:
This:
And then to this:
From a series of stilllifes,
To this:
to this:
Check in soon, or better yet, check http://stephanietaylorart.com for launch news soon. Follow the Nature Center on Facebook, and email staylorstudio@gmail.com to be put on a list for a special merchandise launch prize.
