Shirting the Issues

Designer Patrick King believes in wearing your heart on your chest.

by Mickey Jou

COTTON, CANVAS: Painter/propagandist Patrick King with his work and his wares. Photo By: Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Patrick King got his first taste of politics as an 11-year-old volunteer for progressive Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential bid. "I grew up in a union town," remembers King. "All the kids would hang out at the [Labor Center] and people would ask us, 'Hey, kid, can you hang up these posters, make some phone calls?' I thought everyone made calls on Election Day. I believed it was my civic duty."

Given that background, and having grown up with a mother who worked as a department store buyer and a father who worked in newspaper production, it's only fitting that years later, King, 50, is the founder and creative director of Progresswear, a political logo T-shirt company based in his Reed Street studio in South Philly. Armed with 30 years' experience as a professional designer and painter, King is the mastermind behind eye-catching T-shirts emblazoned with one-liners such as "Intelligent Design is Stupid," "LIERAQ ," and the ever popular Jesus-faced "If I had a grave I'd be spinning in it."

"[Progresswear is] my own little printing press to get people to question the status quo," says the Wisconsin native, who first came to Philadelphia in the 1970s to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to study painting. "I'm selling my own point of view, a clever quip that other people find funny, [and] using the design skills I have for good."

Like many other liberals, King had thrown in his towel by the time the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years were over. It took a conversation with his mother after Kerry's stunning loss in the 2004 election to get King back into the game. "She said, 'Don't bury your head in the sand,'" recalls King. "My mother's dictum was to use this passion to do something."

King started by creating satirical posters for Clear Channel and headers for friends' newsletters, eventually turning very political war-related jokes into logo T-shirts for sale on jesuswasaliberal.com. (He has since moved the shirts to Progresswear.com, explaining, "I hate the word liberal and I didn't want to spend the day talking about Jesus"; jesuswasaliberal.com is being overhauled as a forum for political discussion.) Surprisingly, one of his earliest successes was not an indictment of the religious right, but one that promoted a spirit of global community: Printed at the center of this T-shirt is the phrase "God Bless America" with a second line "and while you're at it:" underneath which King designed an American flag made up of the names of as many countries as he could fit into it.

"The message has got to get out there somehow and I want to do it in a creative way," he says. "By putting two or three words on someone's chest, I get to plant an idea."

When Progresswear.com went live in October 2005, King had decided to check out of time-consuming design projects in order to go back to painting. A year and a half later, Progresswear boasts 17 politically and culturally critical designs (with the option of eight less political ones for kids), as well as customers from as far away as Australia and New Zealand. Progresswear shirts are available on the Internet and have been picked up by local clothier Sparacino Mens. And even though King is still deciding between organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Center for American Progress and other organizations working for the separation of church and state, the still-growing company is committed to donating a portion of any profits to progressive causes.

King remains adamant about visually savvy products. "Graphic design is basically embellishing words, taking a thought and try to further it," says King. "People's identities are wrapped up with their politics these days. They're rabidly passionate. Mix in talk radio and 24-hour news, suddenly everybody wants to have an opinion, but a lot [of people] are just angry, preaching to the choir."

At the end of the day, King believes that a little political sass can go a long way toward getting people's attention. After all, King observes, "Tammany Hall was brought down by [cartoonist] Thomas Nast. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert — the voices on the left, it's the ones who make them laugh that people remember."

(m_jou@citypaper.net)