The online tuts always leave out plenty of juicy details of the hangups that can happen from any skill, and there are a fair number of “experts” who love to share bad or something downright wrong advice…but armed with some intro videos from a reputable screen printing supply company, we dove it and got an entry level set up.

Over the next 3 or 4 years, screen printing took on several iterations for me. It was a private brand, then taking on some work for others, trying out another personal brand, full-on screen printing operation for the public, taking a peek into sublimation…late nights to hit deadlines, working around a full time job and my wife’s hours as a ICU nurse. It was 3 parts chaos to 5 parts fun.

Needless to say, it’s the fun parts I miss (there’s plenty enough chaos going on with our schedule already). Some of the fun parts are probably obvious, others a little more subtle.

I miss the artistic side of the work. It wasn’t just a logo or design that was printed onto a shirt; it was selecting the garment (the brand, material composition, cut or thickness of the shirt), choosing the inks and playing with negative space – could we use the color of the shirt as a part of the design? Or was there so much print that we needed to mix in some secret sauce to make the shirt not feel like you were wearing a piece of plastic? How many passes, or layers, of ink? If it was a dark garment, did we need to put down a white base layer, or underbase, in order to make the design pop? Or did a muted print, without the underbase, look even better? Not to mention where the design would go, or the sizing of the print.

Around every corner there was a problem to solve. Being a “do it out of your parent’s place” operation, we didn’t have all the fancy equipment or inventory. So ingenuity was the name of the game. To print the leg of a pair of pants or the neck of a shirt or the sleeve of a long sleeve shirt all require custom platens (the boards the shirts are put on to stay flat for printing). Sure…we could spend the money to but the specialty made platens…but I also have a jigsaw, and a can-do spirit. Don’t have $1,500 to spend on a vacuum top exposure unit (used to apply the artwork to the screen printing frame)? Nothing that some plywood, tube light fixtures, neoprene, custom cut glass, and the vacuum value from a Space Bag can’t solve.

And then there were the quite moments, in the mundane tasks, where I would get lost in thought and God would meet me there. Cleaning the press off (platisol ink is uncannily difficult to fully get out of the screen), or reclaiming screens (removing the emulsion from a screen so it could be reused), coating a fresh screen witih a new coat of emulsion so the process could start over again – these were quiet times. My hands were moving, but my mind was free to be present in the moment. Whether it was a reflection on a podcast I had just listened to, or the application of a passage of Scripture in my life, or just time to pray for anything and everything that would come to mind…the mundane of screen printing was a time and a place where God would show up.

Screen printing t-shirts is definitely not for everyone. And it’s not for this season or place of my life. But I sure do miss it.

The question I am left to wrestle with is: how can I find the space for those quiet God moments without making t-shirts? My brain does not have quiet, calm space as I am writing code and developing websites. There’s not the room for Holy Spirit to speak quietly as I’m listening in on another meeting. Maybe the first steps are acknowledging that my present line of work isn’t conducive for those moments.

So where can I find them?

There is something to doing work with my hands, when my brain isn’t fully required, that allows me to be more present. Now that spring is almost upon us, there will be plenty of yardwork and gardening opportunities. House projects can be a-plenty as things warm up as well. But can I settle myself amidst the busyness of all the activity of the day to meet God while doing the simple, necessary things – doing the dishes, folding laundry, making lunches? Brother Lawrence famously was able to. What about me and you?