Object: Jesus & Mary Chain Tour Shirt, 1990
Recreated a teenage relic, a Talisman for all that would happen to me. A T-Shirt purchased at the Gig on Miami BeachClub Nu, 1990, The Jesus and Mary Chain with Nine Inch Nails Opening.
Some t-shirts are more than just t-shirts. And as I look back on my life, there are objects in my life that take on greater importance than their original worth would dictate were it just a t-shirt, but this is not an ordinary t-shirt, this item, for me, was the ticket to a new, dark world. Most of my clothes were GAP late ‘80s. My fashion sense at the time was cool and comfortable, bright colors and baggy pants.
But this object, this Jesus and Mary Chain shirt was my ticket to Goth Clubs like the Kitchen Club. I could wear my new Jesus and Mary Chain shirt and pass for a goth kid. I could clip on my clip on sunglasses to my regular glasses and with this shirt I could outwardly display the darkness I felt on the inside.
And I had a word for the blackness inside me that I saw in two brothers, William and Jim Reid from Glasgow and in the way they were pouty, these two had the same black discomfort pillow up their veins and lungs. Depression affected their speech, how they were half asleep during interviews, in the way nothing about them could be described as cheery. When they were interviewed on MTV’s Sunday Late Night Alternative Music Program, 120 Minutes, they weren’t exactly thrilled to be there, They were evasive, they told outright lies. Their music was a tender childhood bruise, innocence mixed in with suffering, their suffering became our suffering.
The original Front of the shirt.
When I told the kid in Outward Bound Directive why I was along for the ride with the 15 or so other kids some of whom were court ordered to join me in spending 30 days in the woods with other malcontents. On the first day I wore my JAMC t shirt, the one up there, when kids asked me what I was there for and I said “depression”, the T-Shirt said all the things I wanted to say but didn’t have the language for yet.
When I said depression, I saw the kid look at me, take in the whole package and he believed it, he saw what I felt because I was literally wearing on my sleeve.
This shirt was a statement, that I could boogie in darkness.
The last few days of the school year were spent tracing this t-shirt, front and back. Taking the pen tool, click to place an anchor point around the corner of each letter, and every fill that I made of bright blue and bright green for the star, took me back to a place I wouldn’t ever want to go back to, but I miss how bands could be stand-ins for things felt. And yeah it meant hurt depression, and sadness, but it also felt kind of punk rock. It disappointed people to see me in this shirt, to not see me thriving. I thought people wanted the worse for me, but maybe I only thought about it because I was wearing the t-shirt?
Objects like this, its what’s we miss most, but bringing this item back from my past, with the tools I have learned since immersing myself in art and design, it feels like an excavation, its a museum piece for a person who is still alive, and yes, mostly, now, the person they’d want to see. I still wear weird shirts. I wear University of Hell shirts to a job in Public Education, only now, I’m not wearing dress up, just modeling the type of living I want students to tap into. That a decision like what shirt to wear can mean so much more.