T is for......

.......the indestructible T-shirt. I recently went through some dresser drawers because they were a tad stuffed and chaotic. Most of what was taking up all that room were collections of old T-shirts. And as I pulled them out, most of which were now abandoned or turned into night shirts (hence my tendency to only buy pajama bottoms) I realized that most of us don't really set out to collect T-shirts, as opposed to say ceramic kitties or thimbles, but somehow there they are, dozens of them taking up space.  Most of them were bought to commemorate or advertize an event. In my case, dance concerts or art shows. Sometimes it was a souvenir of a place I had visited or a rock concert I had been to. And that's not including all the freebies that various organizations sent, usually to entice me to save an endangered species. As I pulled and sorted, and sadly let some sail into the trash bin, it became a short sweet trip down memory lane. The oldest memory being THIS hideous specimen, and yet one so full of love and friendship: my 1973 Sweathog shirt worn by our little clique of dancers at TTU, Luke, Diann, Larry, Steve, Roxanne, and myself. We were the college edition of all those cute ensemble shows on TV complete with all the drama. Lots of drama.

Here are Steve, Larry, Diann, and Luke in an alley near First Baptist Church on Broadway in 1973.

The rest of my T-shirts seemed to be from the late Eighties and through the Nineties and beyond. I collected many many (can I say many?) Lubbock High dance T-shirts over the years, usually because we were using them as fundraisers and promotion tools. Not that we ever raised much money or got much promotion. So it always is in the arts. I designed this particular one. It's still a comfy night shirt:

Rock concerts or a new record album release usually entailed a purchase:

A trip somewhere:

 This was a good memory of my time as a dance counselor at a summer youth camp in Healdsburg, northern California. Beautiful wine country scenery and a chance to hang with my friend, Julie. Yes, Juliana, I still have this shirt and it's nearly transparent now. Soft as butter:

Sometimes a T-shirt becomes the ultimate example of wabi sabi. This one was 'borrowed' from me (I bought it in 1994) by my daughter in 2006 when she went to college. This is what four years of art classes does to clothing:

And even when the original T-shirts are tattered and torn and soft as gauze from hundreds of washings they can still have another life.  They can be cut and torn and then quilted, crocheted or knitted back together. Or they can simply become a scarf:

Did I throw that Sweathog shirt away? No, I did not.