Always Take the Flyer

One of my favorite comedians of all time is Mitch Hedberg, and he has a joke about people who hand out flyers.  The joke goes something like this: “when people are handing out flyers what they’re really saying is ‘here, you throw this away.’” Generally I would agree with this sentiment.  Flyers are usually for clubs you don’t want to go to or coupons you’ll never use.  But on one occasion I was handed a flyer that really made a difference in my life.

I was walking through Turlington Plaza at the University of Florida when I was handed this flyer.  It was an advertisement for ‘leisure classes’ and it was printed on red paper.  Leisure classes were courses that didn’t count for college credit and were usually art related.  There was a ceramics class, a photography class, a screen printing class, and a few more.  The university offered leisure classes so students wouldn’t kill themselves during finals week.

I decided to enroll in the screen printing class because I was really bored, and hadn’t done anything creative in a long time.  The monotony of school and working at a restaurant was starting to weigh on me.  I have always liked to draw and paint and screen printing was something I had always wanted to try.  If you don’t know what screen printing is, it’s the process used to create images on graphic t-shirts.  You force the colored ink through a design you’ve ‘burned’ into a screen and onto a shirt, or bandana, or whatever.  You then set the ink with heat and you can recreate that exact image thousands of time on thousands of shirts.

So I take the class and I love it.  I print a shirt with an image from Go, Dog. Go! that I was very proud of.  But then the class ends I start trying to figure out how I can continue to screen print because the equipment is pretty expensive.  I find some plans online, and build a crude but serviceable setup out of wood that I use to start an Etsy business.  Eventually I make enough money to buy some professional equipment and that’s what I use today.

I have now made over 700 sales through Etsy, and have shipped shirts and bandanas to 49 different states (still looking for a sale to New Hampshire) and 17 different countries.  It’s not a business that will make me rich, but it puts beer money in my pocket, and it’s incredibly satisfying whenever someone from another part of the world sends me a picture of themselves wearing something I created.

If you want to see more of my stuff, check out my Etsy and facebook, neither of which is updated as much as I’d like, but have at it:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/AdageScreenPrinting

Facebook.com/AdageScreenPrinting