Blast from the Past #193: Bread Loaf Writers' Conference

Back in 1983, my writer wife had the opportunity to attend the renowned Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. Around this time, Kevin and I had discovered the copy shop in Portsmouth, NH had that newfangled color copier which could print color artwork onto transfers which could then be ironed onto t-shirts. So I decided to make Jeannine a custom t-shirt for the conference.

Here's the black and white art...



... and here's the color, reversed so that when the iron-on was applied it would read in the right direction.



You might note some odd glare in this image -- that's because I had used a piece of clear acetate over the drawing on which I could apply the dot pattern screen used for the background. I did this because it allowed me to remove the pattern at will if desired, and also because it was easier cutting that stuff on acetate than on paper (paper would often tear in places when pulling up the excess adhesive-backed pattern film.

If memory serves, my wife got a kick out of the design and wore the t-shirt until the iron-on faded -- sadly, that didn't take too long (the quality and durability of those things was very variable). -- PL