Halifax: Woodenbullets hits the bull’s eye
Friday night hits and fine art student Shakeel Rehemtulla is plunked down in front of his sketchbook, adding a page to what has become his T-shirt diary. The artist behind silkscreen company Woodenbullets, Shakeel has assigned himself the weekly task of conjuring up a design that puts the previous seven days to paper. The illustration turns into a small run of 30 to 50 shirts (from $25) that will hang from the racks at Halifax’s Farmers’ Market (1496 Lower Water St.) on Saturday morning.
Halifax-based Woodenbullets, created by Rehemtulla and Carey Jernigan, ditches silkscreened-tee expectations by having a little meat behind the crisp and refreshing designs in the form of a week’s worth of inspiration and a hands-on production process. An insomnious affair, the production consumes the designer’s apartment for the night: the second bedroom becomes his studio, the bathtub is his temporary washout station and his heat press is running from the same power as the oven. Come morning, the new designs are ready to be sold and most of the shirts find a new home by the time the Market closes.
A former graffiti artist, Rehemtulla has found in Woodenbullets a way to put his art on the streets without any risk of getting in trouble. And, judging by the fresh, magnetic designs this company has already churned out, I’m looking forward to several more doses of this young designer’s weekly bouts of artistic expression.
Woodenbullets’ T-shirts can also be found at Lost & Found (2383 Agricola St., 902-446-5986), NSCAD’s student and alumni shop, Seeds Gallery (1892 Hollis St., 902-492-4043) and online at woodenbullets.etsy.com.
