so last night was the opening of the gallery show titled texstyles, which i have posted about before and is a gallery show by NFS Industries that is showing only t-shirt designs. The show was at the Washington Street Art Center, and i had never been there before so its always cool to see new gallery spaces. im really bummed i didnt get a chance to take any pictures becuase i had lent my camera out and the show was just amazing.
first off i just wanna say that it was extra cool for me because i actually had work in the show, and there was good wall placement for it. other than that personal reason for like the show i must say that yes, "THIS SHOW KICKED ASS" why? well i like to think that the success of this show was made up of 3 things:
#3- Krispy Kreme Doughnuts: holy shit krispy kreme is like crack, its the only shit i get every time i'm in new york. ill eat these things the whole time i'm down there cuz i know i wont get any up here. we need a krispy kreme up here. please. they had 5 boxes of the honey glazed, hell yes. all cuz up in to quarters i think i was stuffing my face with handfuls. honorable mention goes to twizzlers, sugar cookies, pretzels, gummy bears, and cherry coke also in attendance.
#2- Free Shit: oh yes free shit does rule but this was insanity. most people were aware that 90% of the shirts were going to be raffled off which rules but i was not expecting the amount of art booty to be on the floor. i was dumb and when i walked in i saw all this free stuff but kept passing it b or picking it up and putting it down as to not look greedy. but 10 min later the show was packed and everything was going fast. the people that ran the show were really smart about how they went about it all though, every time i passed one of the many "free shit" tables i saw that more stuff was put out. i got loaded up. stickers galore, everyone representing had stickers they had out for free[everyone except me though cuz i'm dumb and didn't think of it], lots of post cards/biz cards/fliers, some posters and great things to hang up, a t-shirt representing the show, an amazing book from gum, a comic book, and a pretty rad mesh hat. even if this show sucked it would have been amazing because all of the great give away shit. and its not even over yet, the raffle for the shirts is still at hand, which brings me to ...
#1- The T-Shirts: Totally Amazing. i had never been to a show like this before and have never heard of a show like this in the area but i have no idea why, this was great. the shirts ranged from easy one color screen prints to a few stencils to a few pieces that blew me away like the shirts the looked stenciled but were extremely detailed and had amazing colors it made you think if they were screened. there were some really amazingly screened shirts too, the Span of Sunset work was really detailed. there were other screen shirts that were just so intense with print going around the side and into the collar. it was rad. the place was packed and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves but i was sweating and did the rounds 4 times before decided to step out in to the cool night air. before we left i grabbed a handful of krispy kremes.
so here is just a random list in no order of some shirts i liked. these aren't the only shirts i liked but just the ones where i made note to check out the website later because i was impressed and/or had never heard or seen them before.
Urban Medium- this shit was good. graphically and the quality/detail of screen print. just really cool. i liked everything this place had
Span of Sunset - looking back on the notes i made of the show this place had a lot more shirts i liked than i had thought. i appreciated a lot of the work but some of it wasn't shit id rock, but then i'm finding that some of the shit i liked the best came from here too. tron bike shirts were great.
rep1- the website here isn't really any thing but very unique shirts, massive style points awarded here
kozyndan- cant go wrong with this place. i was just impressed. had an alternate color of a print i like and had free postcards.
lionlioness- just great designs. simple but style. the website doesn't have the shirt that caught my attention but soon maybe it will.
greenlady- the palm tree design really blew me away. looked like layered masking tape. website doesn't have it but does have some great designs. and the website interface is super cool.
tank theory- most of the things i was into were in the same style i think i am in generally, but these shirts were extremely detailed. really amazing, the designs on these shirts is the kinda stuff id want on a canvas hanging in my house. i liked all the stuff here which again is kinda weird because i'm usually into the straight up bold graphic. the use of color and layout here is beyond my comprehension.
Fugamma- i cant seem to remember why and my notes were written poorly but it seems i had written fugamma a bunch of times in different places and sometimes with !!! or "holy shit" next to it. the site is good but nothing looks familiar from last night.
Minor Industries- Minor Industries definitely in my style of work. i like what they had here. i'm gonna look for good things coming out of this place.
Seven-Nine- i think they had my favorite shirt of the show and its too bad its not on the website because it was rad. detailed screen. i saw it a few times and passed it over but when i got close it was like "yeah"
Speedy Marie Strip Tees- no real site yet but these were great. t shirts for fake strip clubs. my favorite was the irish stripclub called "Busty McTittie's" featuring a nude chick on a shamrock.
and of course i wanna give shout outs to our gracious hosts that also rocked shit
BrandWashed- had the best shirt i've seen come out of that shop called "Allston Invades Harvard", i want that shit except Central Sq style.
and
Evil Design- MCA had some new shit i hadn't seen before that i thought was really good. the james brown tribute 2003 and the new ABCDE shirts are rad.
so yeah that show was ill. hope to see something like it in the future. much fun. if you did go then i was the tallest guy there. had glasses. i found a bunch of new designers i am now fans of and i got free shit mingled a bit and most noteworthy is that i got some krispy kremes.
Posted by nate at June 8, 2003 03:47 PM | TrackBack