As it happens, my Gertrude Stein t-shirt began as something entirely different. A writer friend of mine liked my bleach rib cage t-shirt. We made an art trade. He gave me a few handpicked chapbooks from his great small press, MindMade Books, and I turned two of his t-shirts, one black, one pink, into lorna art.
I bleached the black T per my usual process. It had been a while, though, so I had to get back into the right pen squeeze flow. The line widths document this relearning. I like the orange hue that comes from a single layer of bleach; In the future, I would like to (more purposefully) play around with the hues that vary depending on how long I let it set.
Here we’re wearing our matching shirts. Pretty neat. (Note the thicker lines on the front of the shirt.)
For the pink shirt, I started with the golden ratio, a layout schema I knew the future pink-shirt-wearer likes. I dabbled in typographic design for the shirt, as well. Thought I’d write upper and lowercase numbers.
In the end (and probably in the beginning), I really wanted to draw a face. I chose Gertrude Stein, an American writer who moved to Paris in 1903 (to live and salon) and write with her own rules. I used Creative Commons images as source material for her portraits.
The bleach I used on the black shirt didn’t remove the pink pigment. This surprised me, because I used bleach on pink shirts for my Affection Gap project, and the lines turned to white. (I couldn’t find a picture of the effect on a pink shirt, but below is an example of the pigment removal on a purple shirt.)
Since the bleach didn’t render the lines I wanted on this shirt, I outlined the faint lines that did show. The subsequent design created multiple lines where there once was one. The initial design included two intersecting portraits. A mosaic resulted, to say the least. It got complicated.
On the back of the shirt, I wanted to capture what I feel I lost with the revisions and negative space mazes I made on the front. I used acrylic paint (with mad dilution), sharpee, UV paint pens, and eventually, a black fabric marker to shade in Stein’s features. I drew roses in her vest and wrote about roses on the side of the shirt to connect the front/back designs.
I washed the shirt to see what would happen and to clean away my sweat and blood. The contrast depleted a bit. That’s when the I introduced a fabric marker. I think the design will stay with wear.
A shirt is a shirt is a shirt and the art on it might change, but that’s kind of cool, so I’m pretty stoked.
You Can Find Me…
Facebook: @LornaPhone and @LAWordSalon and @AffectComic
Twitter: @LornaPhone and @LAWordSalon
Instagram: @Lornaphone and @LAWordSalon
Youtube: Lorna Alkana
I update my Exhibition Page with events and galleries that feature Lorna Phone art.
Check out the Disclosure Page to see a chronological evolution of my blog and art.
I share new art/discussions about the process of works in progress, and I post segments with Comic Lorna in my audiobio comic series called, Affect.
Check out my previous exhibitions here! (It was a busy 2017!)
Current Collaborations:
Operator_Error– Collaboration on the album Affection has moved into collaboration on Affection 2! Plus, the band has released the album Minus the Umm in the meantime.
LAWordSalon– Creative community in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and on tour around you. Green, esteemed, established, curious. @LAWordSalon Instagram and Facebook documents live music and art around town
Otis Books- I’m an editor for this publication based out of the Otis School of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Check out our backlog.
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