For the first time in River Clay history, the festival shirt was designed with an artist’s influence behind it. This year’s limited-run shirt brings together an Alabama artist’s sculpture, a hand-drawn design, and details inspired by Decatur.
Where It Started
This year’s design draws from Confluence, a sculptural work by Alabama artist Jamey Grimes. Jamey takes melted plastic, the stuff most of us throw away, and shapes it into large-scale pieces you’ll stand in front of for a while trying to figure out. Confluence was his abstract response to the Mississippi River: the water, the ecology, the history, and the people who depend on it.
Jamey is a Tuscaloosa artist who studied both painting and marine biology, and water runs through nearly everything he makes. He returns to River Clay this year as a demonstrating artist, working live on site both days.
From Sculpture to Sketch
We handed the idea to a Huntsville-based designer and asked for something harder than a logo drop. Study Jamey’s work. Understand what it’s doing. Then make something that belongs to Decatur.
Designer Allison Richter spent time with his catalog before ever picking up a pen, tracing how the layers fold and catch light, and how the movement never quite repeats. Then she drew it by hand. Not traced, not filtered. Drawn, so the line quality carries the same restlessness his sculptures do.
From there, she folded in Decatur: the river that shaped the city, the shapes and landmarks locals recognize without being told, and the details that make this one place and not just any place.
The Palette
The colors came last and were chosen deliberately: rusty orange and white on green and gray. Warm, grounded, a little weathered. It’s what October in downtown Decatur actually looks and feels like, and it’s the palette River Clay has carried all year.
The Finished Shirt
The hand-drawn work was refined into the final design you see here, printed on site by hand during festival weekend. Green and gray, short sleeve and long sleeve.
It’s a limited run. No restock, no second printing, and no next-year version of this design.
See the Festival T-Shirt
Explore the finished design, view the shirt options, and find the purchase link on the Festival T-Shirt page.
View the Festival T-ShirtJoin us October 24 and 25 in downtown Decatur.