Super Typhoon Pamela had sustained gusts of over 190 miles an hour. It sent my neighbors roof crashing at my back door and turned coconut trees inside out.
Despite what the article in the local paper said, the design for typhoon pamela was born during the typhoon as I (with back to camera holding shirt up) sat in a papasan chair in my livingroom, alone, watching the louvers in my windows bend with gusts and snap back with a resounding clank as the rain was forced through every crack, under every door and window.
When the storm was over I created a silkscreen of the design and began printing shirts in my kitchen, drying them in the hot sun on fishing line strung back and forth in my back yard.
As with my other ventures, there is always a "money man". I was Art Director at Gibson's at the time, but had little cash for production. I have pleanty of great ideas from time to time, but seldom the cash to put them into production. Sometimes I get lucky and team up with a good business partner. Jerry Champion (pictured to the left), an ex Oakland Raider lineman, was such a partner, putting up nearly ten thousand dollars to help get over five thousand shirts printed in the Phillipines.
We double that investment, and then some, within two weeks. The shirts were so popular with locals and tourists alike stores couldn't keep them on the shelves. Hell, I think we sold half of them to Red Cross volunteers.