View From Behind the Machine(s): What makes a t-shirt special?
White t-shirts are all the same. If you compare the shirts that I produce to those that you can buy from a store (like H&M, as they are our competition, huh?), yeah, ok, a ‘15% tee’ is unique; but within the 155 realm, if your compare #148 to #149, they’re the same aside from a few slight sewing errors and a size jump.I unrolled the fabric after #149 to find the makings of the first (seriously) special t-shirt:
there was a MASSIVE flaw in the material! A hole! Created from a small slice on the textile, perhaps? It was big enough to fit your fist(s) through, and I pondered whether to level the fabric off and excuse the holey segment from the rest and then I realized: no, no, this hole is here, you can’t deny it, or tag it ‘waste’ and hide it away—it’s going to stay, and it needs to be a part of t-shirt #150.
I would say, then, that in comparison to all shirts before, and all shirts to come, #150 stands as the *most special* t-shirt I will ever make, because it is genuine and complete just as it is. It was humbling to realize that we are presented daily within this world, in the exact same form: genuine and complete just as we are. To be excessively personal for a moment: I’ve felt at times as though I wasn’t good enough? or perhaps, unworthy? of working in this installation: my hair’s a mess + my nails are dirty + my skin isn’t flawless + my clothes sort of smell + my voice sounds weird = ‘completely inadequate to be a performer’.
But there’s that shirt. It can’t be anything other than what it is, and part of it is a giant hole.
And here I am. I can’t be anything other than what I am, bad hair days and all. None of those flaws disqualify me from every day, donning my puke-green apron, and presenting to you this very precious work, with results that at times, are extraordinarily special. *Awww*
15% 