Matthew Churney, 47, has been cutting elaborate patterns into his T-shirts for the past 20 years. He’s also occasionally made pieces for other people–including Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain.
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Matthew Churney: Razor-cut work. People, if they want to get fancy, would call me a fabric artist. It’s nothing more than drawing, but with a razor blade. I’ll do letters, figures, an eagle, the shape of a snake that was detailed enough to see scales and the tongue and teeth. There’s no limit except for the imagination or what the basic structure of something will allow.
MC: A lot of the T-shirts I work with already have some artwork on it. I just look at the basic shape or if there’s any kind of action going on, any particular direction. Like I had a Triumph shirt that had outspread wings, so I did lines across going straight up like a bow.
LA: Do you have a day job?
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Stephen J. Serio.
