As many of my close friends will know, the word 'Viña' in the Viña design was originally the word 'Flan.' I created the design for a band in 2019, a band that has now separated. The design, however, lived on in the t-shirts we made and sold that year. We will get back to that in a minute.
Over the last two years, I have been a much more active artist. Especially during the quarantine months of Spring of 2020, I had the time to explore and experiment, playing with many different styles of watercolor, as well as learning how to paint on denim.
Since, I've painted a number of jeans and jackets for family and friends, including a couple commissions. Throughout all of these developments, the idea of starting to sell my work in a more organized and accessible way grew in the back of my mind.
Then, the perfect reason to finally kick-off that endeavor came to fruition: El Oasis. El Oasis is the student ministry I will be serving in next Spring, from February to May of 2022. This ministry, located in Viña del Mar, Chile, is affiliated with the ministry I was involved with all 4 years of my time at Georgia Tech- CCF (Christian Campus Fellowship)- a place that changed my life and the lives of many people I know! These student ministries like CCF have been started all over the world, almost all of them with active CCF-alum serving on their teams. And just as each of those team members do, I am fundraising in order to raise the money for my living expenses while I'm working in the ministry.
So, what a perfect opportunity! The idea of selling my art has been growing stronger and stronger in my mind, and now I actually need to fundraise for something important to me: match made in heaven.
Now, back to the Viña (Flan) design. I have consistently gotten tons of great feedback on the original design ever since we first released it, and had many people want to buy a shirt who couldn't since it was never renewed! It's a design I truly love, so I was also sad that the original had lost some of its meaning given the band it was made for is no longer together.
Because of this, I'm excited to be giving this design new purpose, and am really happy with the final result. It truly seems meant to be, since Viña del Mar is also known as La Ciudad Jardín , or "the Garden City." The design definitely evokes that for me!