Fit to a tee

Local designers make art of the old cotton standby

July 24, 2008

Along with fire escapes, altruism, and his cat, 30-year-old Matt Raymond lists "T-shirts as art" as one of his interests on his Facebook page.

"T-shirts as art, to me, simply means using your clothing as a canvas," the Somerville resident explains. "Being able to have the visual creations of others that would normally be seen spray-painted on a wall or hung in a gallery on your chest says a lot about a person. There are beautiful, dark, and intricate designs from really talented graffiti and street artists."

Inspired by the success of Boston T-shirt magnate Johnny Cupcakes, Boston has become a hotbed of fresh-out-of-art school painters, sculptors, and graphic designers who put their art on T-shirts to draw in aficionados like Raymond. By day, they might wait tables or design sneakers, but at night they're feeding a growing demand for unique, hand-screened tees. The shirts sell quickly at alternative craft fairs such as Bazaar Bizarre and online.

The ease of computer design and a renaissance in hand silk screening has led to the emergence of local brands Huzzah, Cash Money Distribution, Sanchez Circuit, Ortegacy, and Brandwashed. The owners of boutiques Motley and LAB are creating their own T-shirt lines. At a time when Urban Outfitters sells frames for T-shirts and online T-shirt vendor Threadless is turning its designs into wall art, it seems everyone is looking for a wearable masterpiece. Here are a few of our favorites. - CHRISTOPHER MUTHER

Top dogs

The connection between dance parties, T-shirts, and campy 1980s slasher flicks may seem about as random as the link between a Rob Schneider movie and the Oscars, but it makes perfect sense to 24-year-old designer Alex Dakoulas.

"You go to a dance party, and everyone there is young. You watch slasher films, and they're all about young people having fun," Dakoulas explains. "They don't think they're doing anything wrong, and then they get killed for it."

The concept behind Dance Party Massacre, which features tees with images such as a knife through a high-top sneaker and the infamous "Halloween" hockey mask, was cemented during Dakoulas's senior year at the Massachusetts College of Art. In his studio apartment, he hosted screenings of horror movies, followed by dance parties. He's quite clear that he's not trying to make scary horror tees. Dance Party Massacre shirts are bright, hip party shirts that just happen to be inspired by the art on boxes of old VHS slasher tapes. Dakoulas, who works as a sneaker designer at Converse, wants to get the gore on the shirts, but he doesn't want to scare away potential customers.

"My friends want to support me," Dakoulas says. "But at the same time they're always asking 'Can't you make something without blood on it?' "

Gary Busey's Tough Love Family Counseling Center? The Charles Bronson Spiritual Healing Ministries? Sadly, not real. But Fort Point T-shirt designer Adam Yothers creates shirts for those of us who wish these twisted institutions were reality.

"I've got a pretty sarcastic sense of humor," the 32-year-old says.

The sense of humor shows up on Yothers's designs, which play off of familiar retail icons. His "Armed and Hammered" tee has a logo that looks suspiciously like that of the baking soda giant, and his "Welfare" shirt borrows Wal-Mart's logo, complete with a cheeky "Always low wages, always" slogan.

" A lot of my work is about twists on brand identity and twists on sayings," Yothers says. "I'm really trying to celebrate the visual language rather than the written."

There was no plan for the kittens to take over the T-shirts produced by Family Dinner for One. They just managed to cast their cute, furry spell over the husband and wife team of Seth, 30, and Beth Marois, 28. The pair make tees that simply say "Kittens!" and others that show naughty cartoon kittens, complete with black bars over their eyes. But please, don't assume the Somerville designers subscribe to Cat Fancy magazine.

"My point of view is mockery," Seth says with a grin. "For instance, for the past few years, I've found warning symbols to be very funny. So I created a line of shirts that warn against things like putting your head in a microwave."

Seth and Beth started Family Dinner for One two years ago, when Seth realized it was much easier to get his art on T-shirts than into galleries. They focus on tees that play with familiar images but present them in unusual ways. One tee sports a lobster playing with a ball of yarn. Another series borrows the genial chef found on most pizza boxes, but instead of a pizza, he's sporting nunchakus, or a great white shark. The line is aptly titled "Pizza or die."

"A lot of kids get out of art school and don't know what to do," Beth says. "Most of the people we know who make T-shirts are also fine artists."

With about an hour left until customers start arriving at their Jamaica Plain studio for a trunk sale, Bias Design founders Jon Nutting and Krista Siana are hand screening nature-influenced images of bare branches and vines adorned with clams onto tote bags and tees.

"We try to work our fine art background into our designs," says Siana, sweating over the screening press in the 90-degree heat. "What we're trying to do is combine our structured designs with unstructured organic shapes. We're constantly layering and playing with composition."

The two 26-year-olds met at the Art Institute of Boston and started Bias Design more than two years ago as a way to spread their art and send eye-catching messages, such as "Gay is the New Black," to the masses.

"People buy art for their walls, but really, you only have so many walls," Nutting says. "I have drawers and drawers of T-shirts, and I wear them all."

Graphic design devotees have found their official slogan, and it appears on a T-shirt made by a Somerville-based company called Artefacture. The shirt "Design Will Save the World" is sold at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and is seen on the backs of countless Web designers.

"It started pretty innocently," says Andreu Osika, 34, one of two brothers behind Artefacture. "I came up with the slogan 'I Will Pay for Good Design' and thought it would look good on a T-shirt. We started experimenting off of that."

Unlike many of the art-based T-shirt lines in Boston, Osika, a graphic and Web designer, eschews cuteness or skulls and crossbones on his tees. Understated and clever, Artefacture's shirts rely on sly humor (Metatran Teleportation Technologies, anyone?), grid-like lines, and progressive graphic design to convey its savvy messages.

"I love creating identity and working with typography," he says. "Our main inspiration is going back, looking at graphic design history, and seeing what kind of work stood out. I hope that my work measures up to that in some way."

Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com.