It all started in a Pennsylvania high school in the 1980’s…think…”Fast Times at Ridemont High.” 😉
The year was 1988, and Chris Kline was watching a friend screen print his own t-shirts. Chris loved skateboarding, drawing, air brushing….and was now fascinated with the concept of his friend being able to reproduce the same image over and over again by screen printing. He knew nothing about screen printing, but went to the high school library and checked out a book on “How to Screen Print.” Chris wasn’t much of a book worm in high school, but he taught himself how to screen print by looking at the pictures in the book and following along!
This one moment started a Chris’ life-long love for learning and perfecting the “Art of Screen Printing.” He started screen printing t-shirts for friends in high school, and that evolved into a full-time screen printing business that he had for over 20 years!
In 2008-2009, the economy took a bad turn, and Chris lost over 50% of his business. He picked up side jobs and continued screen printing here and there, and in 2011, he had this idea to host a local art show focused on screen printing with other artists, and he called it, “Push, Pull, Print.”
The goal behind hosting the art show was to PUSH creative boundaries, PULL ideas out of each other through collaboration and PRINT!!!
Chris invited 20 local artists (who had never screen printed before) to screen print their work with him onto different mediums. One of the 20 artists asked Chris to help screen print a photo of a farm animal onto fabric, and then he would made it into a pillow. After some time, they realized they were onto something and they started a business, “Eric & Christopher!”
Today, in 2023, “Eric & Christopher” is a small but mighty team of talented artists, sewists, screen printers and creative folks who make thousands of pillows, totes and tea towels each week – all designed by our community of curated Artists!
*Fun fact – our company is in a 100-year-old sewing factory! These old brick walls once housed the hustle and bustle of men and women making military fatigues, serving the needs of the U.S. military.
