Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Inspired By Fabric

I've begun work on my entry in this month's PCAGOE (Polymer Clay Guild of Etsy) Challenge.

The subject of my design is this.


This is my father's shirt circa 1970ish.  From what I've been told there were some ultra stylish gray corduroy bell-bottoms involved (yikes!).  I wore this shirt all through out high school (as well as his army shirts and jacket from Nam and several pair of bell-bottoms that I made by patch-working together multiple pairs of his pants to accomadate my huge butt). The shirt is one crazy mess with brown abstract designs and these dreadfully silly huge gray-blue flowers. It's made of that weird stretchy silky crap fabric that would probably burst into flames if I stood next to a heat source.

The side story to the shirt is that I lost it for years. I got really, really heavy toward the end of high school so it stopped fitting me (like it ever did - very unattractive cut now that I'm wearing it again).  The shirt disappeared. I didn't know if I donated it, threw it out, or packed it up. I moved in with my mother when I was 19 and thought I'd gotten everything that was mine out of my dad's house. About a month ago, my dad decided to empty his basement of the loads and loads of crap that had accumulated between me, my 3 sisters, and my step-mom. I helped him clear it out and thought to go up to the attic to see what was up there. In the attic I found 6 huge rubbermaid totes of my clothes from high school. I took them downstairs and set them in the garage to be emptied into the dumpster. And then I thought, you know, I should probably just check to see what's in there. I found the shirt and stood in my dad's garage bawling my eyes out. This shirt is so special to me.  It is a reminder of my high school days, and it's extremely sentimental to me because it was my father's (also makes me giggle to think of my big, burly, biker dad wearing a shirt with flowers).

3 comments:

  1. Great story - and wow, that's a challenge, babe, to make that into clay. :)

    Can't wait to see it!

    me<><

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cool, I like that the funky abstract design and the huge flowers.....and the colors, I like unusual colors. I will be fun to see what you do with it. I'm glad you found the shirt.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That looks intricate. I can't wait to see what you do with it.

    ReplyDelete