I'd like to update people and apologize because I'm going to be behind mailing out t-shirts by at least another week.
I was up all tuesday night to wednesday morning finishing my ultraviolet-reactive polymer process. After letting the screens dry, exposing them, then washing them out, I can see that my paint is corrupted/spoiled after being in storage for a year. I wasn't expecting my paint to expire and I want to apologize, since I'm still learning how to do this stuff on my own. I know people might still want/wear these shirts if I printed using these silkscreens.. but they just don't meet my standards.
I want people to be 100% satisfied with the shirts so I'm going to restart my silkscreening process today. Today I cut off the silk, scraped the tape and superglue from the frames, and cut new silkscreen sheets. Tomorrow I'm going to start my superglue process again and get some new uv-light reactive photoemulsion. The jar I used was unopened and still sealed but it has definitely expired after being in storage since July '23. I'll show a picture of my first emulsion screen from May '23 so that people might be able to see the difference in the polymer's texture and spread. This is the screen I used to make a test print shirt for myself.
I made sure to be very meticulous with this process but I wasn't expecting my paint to have gone bad in storage. I had to coat the screens in the dark so I didn't notice any textural difference that would've given it away that the paint was old. The screens are so tightly wrapped around the frames and the level of tension was perfect for printing. They didn't move or stretch at all after I tried scrubbing the polymer out, which totally didn't work. Now I'll have to backtrack; cutting off the silkscreen, scraping the glue and sanitizing the wood so that I can start over.
This was actually great practice for my uv-light exposure time and overall silkscreening process. I am grateful to learn so much about how the photopolymer reacts and how strong it really is against water. I'm promising that I can do a better job in the next two weeks. I'm excited to try again and I'm sorry to keep people waiting. My original goal was to have had these shirts ready for shipping last week. I'm behind schedule and I want to thank people for understanding.
I want everyone's shirts to be perfect and look just like the digital mockups that I created, layering real pictures of my blank t-shirts and the transparency files for my designs. I know some people would enjoy these distressed/more spooky looking versions but I want everyone's prints to be exactly like what I advertised and ensure that everyone is satisfied with what they paid for.
Here are my screens using the corrupted photoemulsion on my drying sheet. I used scrap matte paper from jcard printing to create a drying sheet and cut foam pieces to elevate the frames from the matte paper. I taped the foam stilts to the paper and then taped the frames to the foam stilts. This let me get the most even paint coating and keep the frames as stable as possible while applying the photoemulsion. The foam stilts were perfect for drying the screens after washing out the under-exposed parts to show the design. I also have a picture of my first screen in uv-exposure. The emulsion reacts in only 90 seconds, so I didn't have time to take more pictures of the ultraviolet exposure process.
I want to thank everyone for being so patient. I was expecting people to be seriously upset but almost everyone who's contacted me has been so kind and supportive. Some people have been actually buying more merch to send along with their old orders which surprised me. I want to thank everyone for their support, their positivity and sentimental messages because these things mean as much to me as my music means to them. Again, I want to apologize for keeping people waiting but I'm excited to wrap fresh tapes in freshly printed shirts and ship them in fresh boxes.
I want to thank people again for helping me get my life back together. I broke my right shoulder during a seizure at the end of March '22 which eventually led to a totally unfair eviction at the start of August '22. The stress of my leasing agency lying to me, saying they'd help me after breaking my right arm, then surprising me with a p*lice-led eviction with no notice led to another seizure. This seizural episode I had while living in a hotel room broke my left shoulder with just the strength of my muscle spasms less than two weeks after my eviction. I was hospitalized for four days at the end of August '22.
These people took me to court twice where both judges were shocked after I explained my situation. The first judge explained that the leasing agency was actually losing money filing the court order, told me that how I was being treated made no sense, then he immediately dismissed the case in my favor. The second judge nearly gasped when I told her I was an epileptic and had just broken my arm and told me to get well soon after dismissing the case in my favor. I was in the Uber longer than I was in the courtroom both court sessions.
From my position, I can only interpret this kind of treatment as hateful, unfair, discriminatory, and rooted prejudice. Society is so corrupt that it's openly cliche for me as a black indigenous person to claim I was treated unfairly. Right after they've just recently passed laws protecting Pacific Islanders and normie libs are rallying behind a Black political candidate, I can't help but wonder why that is?
Both times I was summoned to appear in court I was barely short of my full rent payment with judges dismissing the case in my favor right away. I genuinely believe that these people held a grudge against me because of this and more. They promised to help me face to face when I visited the leasing agency's office nearby and through email, which were all blatant lies. I'm still trying to recover from this years later emotionally, as well as economically.
I feel that I was sabotaged and lost my apartment based on their grudge that they didn't even try to hide. I know it is my responsibility to pay my rent and bills.. but why lie to me? Why can judges understand my disability but not my friends or the people I'm renting from. If they would have told me the truth I would've had time to prepare for my eviction or ask someone for more serious help. The money I spent going back and forth to the courthouse I could have given them instead. The judges seemed appalled and disappointed, I have no say in that. My only responsibility in the courtroom is to provide evidence and information concerning my late rent payments, epilepsy diagnosis and trips to the hospital. That they both dismissed the cases with almost no deliberation every time I explained my position, which I believe is SUPPOSED to show my innocence in the situation. Why is it that the judges can be understanding but my landlord can't be?
I want to thank people for reading. I'm not trying to force anyone to agree with my perspective or beg people to understand. I just want to explain what I've been going through that has led to these unshipped and unfinished orders. I want to thank people for their purchases and supporting my art project.
My epileptic symptoms and grand-mal seizures have disappeared after speaking to a few people in my life who've hurt me and caused me a lot of stress in the past few years. My negative feelings surrounding so many traumatizing situations have been totally absolved. My seizural activity and epileptic symptoms seem to have gone along with those feelings, something I was completely not expecting. I haven't had any seizural activity in almost four months. No clonic seizure activity, dizzy spells or aphasia episodes.
I'm grateful to be healthier in a stable living situation where I can continue my work making music and finally fulfill people's merch orders. I've been stressing about people's tapes and shirts for so long. I just want people to know how much I care about doing a good job making these things myself for the people who are listening to my music.
If your order includes both shirts and tapes I'll have to keep you waiting just a little bit longer. I want everyone's shirt to be worth the wait. I'd like to remind people that I make these tapes and shirts by hand so that they're genuinely special. Here are tape orders I labeled and packaged today. I'll be sure to ship these as soon as I get paid and send confirmation emails.
If you're missing tapes or shirts, please hit me up: contact@bulldogeyes.com
Everything in my merch store on Bandcamp is still $10 off from its original price and you guys' support means everything to me. Thank you everyone.
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