One of my absolute favorite things in Jim's house is his t-shirt table. If you've ever met him, you know that virtually all of the shirts he wears are, true to his work, an extension of his house, and are hand-made collages that he irons on. The further down in the piles you dig, the further back in time you go--some of his earlier shirts (and some of my favorites) have just screen prints of the simple, figurative line drawings he used to do in the 70s.
Many of the shirts contain a mixed-age self portrait that mashes up photos and artwork that spans decades. Others are friends or family presented in an uncanny format. Sometimes it's difficult to discern whether he wears his shirt with a sense of humor, in all seriousness, or with just a twinge of irony. It could be very well be a combination of all three in varying degrees from day to day. The shirts are a direct play into his interest in camouflage--I sometimes wonder how he chooses which shirt he will wear on any given day. He can choose which fragment of his life, from which period, he wants to fit himself with, or hide himself in; his skin for the day.
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| maybe I do know how he chooses.. |
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| a series of the t-shirts have become wall pieces. |
