Mel Katz Part 7: The T-shirt

This isn’t from my Mel Katz file, but from a box in my closet.

I think it was 1971 when Mel organized a group show at the Fountain Gallery called Crush. My memory is that it had something to do with recycling and the only work I remember from that show was a pile of cigarette butts by Louis Bunce.

Back then I was one of Mel’s advanced painting students and hung around with George Crary, a photographer, doing odd stuff around the PSU art department. Anyway, at the opening of Crush George snapped a pic of Mel and as George readied to take another Mel said, “One’s enough George.” George snapped. We made that pic into a t-shirt.

T shirt overall

We gathered t-shirts from fellow students and art department folks and screen printed the pic in green, just to give it a little extra icky factor. We kept it a secret until the day we all wore them to school including the department secretary and the model for Mel’s life drawing class.

T shirt closeup

Fun times! Here’s a pic, by Craig Hickman, of George Crary and me at about that time.

920003_10151451410274024_603307781_o

Mel Katz Part 5: 1981

Mel Katz has a retrospective exhibition opening at the Hallie Ford Museum  of Art at Willamette University on June 5. I’ll be mining my Mel Katz archive for awhile. 

The Art Gym at Marylhurst University opened inSeptember 1980. During the initial year Mel had an exhibition of his works with paper. Here’s the catalog.

1981 cover

Scan 2Scan 3

Scan 4

Scan 5

Scan 6

Scan 7Scan 1

 

In the file was a bunch of Polaroid SX-70s of the works in the studio.

Scan 22 Scan 23 Scan 24 Scan 25 Scan 26 Scan 27 Scan 28 Scan 29 Scan 30Scan 50 Scan 51 Scan 52