Ever since 2021 and the re-model, there has been a student store within the school. With that not only comes food, drink and snacks, but also t-shirts and sweatshirts all for the students to buy. It’s also right in the middle of the school in the hallway, which is easy to access.
However, there are probably questions like: who makes the shirts and sweaters for the student store? And how do we get clothes? The answer to that is the print shop team taught by digital art teacher Randy Maves.
The print shop class has been so beneficial to the students here for several reasons. One of the main reasons is because of the clothes and designs they make for the school. The class spends every class just doing the process of the print shop. They make sweatpants, shirts, t-shirts and hoodies, and they hope to make keychains in the future. The print shop class has made it all with designs from the students.
Maves expressed that the clothes being made here in the school is a pretty cool fact.
”I love the work they do and all the merchandise they make,” Maves said.
One of the main reasons that Maves is doing this is because he wants to teach the essential skills of printing to the students. He says that he hopes the students hold onto the skills to do it on their own.
Senior Obi Matney states that he has developed work ethic, printmaking skills and experience with working in a team in the class.
”It’s fun and helps me build skills,” Matney said.
The process of printshop is pretty long, and there’s even several different ways to print. There’s print with stencil, light print and oil print. These different types of print can change the look of a design by a noticeable amount.
The first step they take is grabbing a piece of clothing. Next they grab a screen with a design of their choice on it, and they put it on the clothes. Using ink to push the oil over the screen making the design on the shirt. They then let it sit and put it through the dryer, which cures it. The final step is putting it through the laminator and selling it.
Maves states that this is a really easy process to learn and get used to, and it’s really great because if someone wanted to, they could make their own print shop at their home and use the business skills learned alongside the printing skill that the student learns.
One of the suppliers that Maves uses is Ryan net and on there he can buy screens, ink basically just whatever he needs.
With Maves doing the print shop and giving the clothes and designs to business teacher Frank Fields, who runs the student store, this process creates enough profit for him to support the art classes. This was one of the goals Maves had set in the beginning.
According to Fields, he started the store to give kids the opportunity to get business skills.
