My husband and I have lived here in Pownal since 1995. For a while we both worked in Massachusetts, but today I’m an instructor in computer applications, design, programming and animation at the Community College of Vermont. Besides print art, I also do a fair bit of woodworking (but not for sale).
I’ve been playing roller derby since 2007 and my first attempts at screen printing were out of necessity – putting my name and number on practice and scrimmage shirts. For my first few years in derby I did the iron-ons and craft paint.
But iron-ons became expensive and wasteful as I used up every 8 and B in each set. Hand painting through stencils didn’t work on all kinds of material. My mother used to make all her own Christmas cards using a small, hand-made, table-top screen and hand painted masking glue. My memories of that found me at a local art supply shop where I purchased some screen material and reclaimed framing material.
I did a lot of prints on these in my first year – mostly my own practice and scrimmage shirt backs and those of my husband and derby wife, Will Jettison.
But those frames loosened up, I was always having to touch up the screen fill, and I couldn’t change the font or size when I needed to. I’m sure I printed dozens of shirts with them, but I wanted to do more.
A good friend gave me three commercial screens. With this great resource I didn’t want to tie them up with painting permanent designs on them. I had learned from another derby friend I could print with paper, so with these new screens, an old college text book, a cheap squeegee and some supplies, I learned I could print with paper and I loved it.
I loved the softness of the water-based inks after my tee shirts and hoodies were washed a few times. I loved the creativity I could have with paper stencils. I even learned to love how creative I had to become with the restrictions of using a hand cut stencil. I made a lot of shirts for myself and for friends as well as big runs of shirts for the East Coast Derby Extravaganza as challenge teams wanted custom looks.
There have been other custom prints since then. I’ve printed custom number panels for my travel team jerseys when we have a new skater and not enough time to get a new uniform shirt made from our uniform company.
Will wanted a three color logo printed on some hoodies in December ’11 and I told him that while I could print him one with my ironing board setup, to print 8 of them was really going to require a press and more screens. Plus a press would mean I would have more control over alignment of his name and number on the backs of shirts.
I’d been looking for a press since I started printing and managed to find one right in Bennington, Vermont. It’s an older press and needs a lot of TLC. It came with a pile of screens which already have designs on them that I’m working on cleaning up.
As I looked, again, at making screens using photosensitive chemicals, I decided I really loved my paper process. One of the things I really love about it is the restrictions in what I can and cannot do in a design. By forcing myself to make all art with a exacto knife and sheets of paper, my designs are bold and striking. Without half tones, I use the color pallet available and work with shapes and designs that look different than what you typically get out of a commercial screen printer. They don’t look handmade, they look artisan made!
If you’ve played derby any amount of time, you’ve probably had heat pressed art as well. After 20 washes they start to fall off and, if you sweat a lot, they’re sticky and heavy. The soft hand of these water-based inks is a pleasure to wear. I miss some of the shiny plastisol inks you can push with a lot of chemicals, but they aren’t as wear-friendly either. Nor are they great for the environment – not just with the chemicals but with the energy required to heat set them. All my shirts are air dried then ironed by hand to set the ink using very little energy.
Being easy on the environment, however, isn’t usually the first concern for most people who want my shirts. Usually they want something custom and either one or a few prints. Take these Pair O’Dice City Rollers hoodies.
Ballistic Miss L is happy about her new hoodie I made for her. The run for shirts and hoodies was a total of 23 imprints of the team logo. Frankly, a commercial screen printer would have used plastisol and made a shiny, more durable logo on the front. In time, these will soften up and look well loved and worn (but they won’t crack).
What’s extra special about these hoodies is for a few dollars per shirt, I custom printed their names down the sleeves and numbers on the back in the font of their new logo. This made for a great set of custom, team-oriented wearables that everyone on the team was just as happy to pull over their heads!
Getting this work done at a commercial printer is prohibitive as each screen setup costs $20 – $40 and even if the names are ganged (put more than one name on a screen), the set up fees are usually more than I charge per imprint. While this hoodie looks commercial, I still consider it artisan because of the care that went into coordinating the printed parts.
So if your team is looking for custom imprints for fun, special events, or uniforms, my limited run prints are just the product for you.
For now I’m also offering limited runs of designs I’ve created relating to roller derby and other interests of my family and friends. I look forward to making you your shirt or bag or wall hanging. Thank you for reading!
Peace,
Amy “Bitches Bruze” Moore
