Coventry Book Bags

The photo above is a book bag where some of my students each did a drawing or a letter, and  I combined them into a design.  About a 12 students contributed a letter or one of the four pictures, that I arranged.   I did the necessary screen prep and photo work so  that my students could silk screen the design. Then I schleped all the stuff to school and the the resulting photos are the result.  I was teaching special education and reading at the time.  It was a fun project.   I still have a couple of these book  bags around.

These photos were done at Coventy School,  in Cleveland Heights, 10+ years ago when I worked there.  It was  great job and it was a shame when they closed the school down.  A lot of great people and students worked and went to school there.

I found these photos on an old floppy disk, remember those?  I went to a friends house to download the pictures because my computer does not have a floppy disk reader.  I took the pictures on a, very modern and very functional, at that time, Sony digital  camera.  It had a slot in the back that you shoved the floppy disk into.  In it’s time it was a very cool camera.

Here you can see one of my students at the time, I wish I could remember the young lady’s name, but….no.  Anyway, we had gloves on, because we were using oil based, heat settable inks(Plastisol).

Here the student is holding up a print, just pulled from the silkscreen.  All are excited.

Here are two students displaying the new print.  This picture would eventually be on book bags, once the students had the process down pat.

Another shot of a student pulling the squeegee across and down the screen.

The above shots are of  a student(again, I can’t remember the name) operating the heat press.  You had to take the book bag from the silk screen area and position it under the heat press for about 45 seconds.  You did this to make the ink permanently attach itself to the fabric.

As I write this, I look at this and think, oil based inks, paint thinner, heat press, elementary special ed students, could be a combination for disaster, but it was not, and I’ve never had anything go wrong, and I’ve done some questionable appearing projects.