The life and inspirations of a busy artist are visible on every surface in a studio on the second floor of an AsiaTown warehouse. Colorful T-shirts and jackets hang on a garment rack in the back room, and an oversized star-shaped pillow lazily lounges on a couch. Sketches, cartoons and poems written in black sharpie marker are taped to the ducts, and canvases and bandanas are pinned in neat grids on the wall. One poster reads in bold letters: “Time Change Generator is a Vehicle.”
It’s a vehicle driven by local artist Daniel Bortz, who has put his print on almost everything in this room — and especially on the two long tables that take up most of the space. Each accommodates 32 yards’ worth of fabric, which are screen printed with repeating designs. Later, those rolls of fabric are cut and sewn into Time Change Generator’s unique lines of clothing.
Today, one length of fabric features a wavy green-and-gray block pattern filled with groovy botanical shapes, while the other features a simple red, white and blue box fan. Overhead, similar-looking, real-life box fans dangle from the ceiling; they help dry the freshly printed ink.
“In seven years, it’s been getting better and better,” Bortz says. “Our audience is very organically growing.”
In a tour around the space, the artist periodically reaches out his tattooed arm to hold up button-up T-shirts, jackets and long stuffed snakes, quick to share a story about each item. Most creations were fashioned out of the fabric yardage that’s carefully stamped on the tables. Some were pieced together out of leftover scraps. Each funky design is based on sketches and patterns imagined and drawn by Bortz and his far-reaching collaborations within the Time Change Generator space in Cleveland.
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(Photo courtesy Kory Gasser)
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Before moving back to his hometown and opening Time Change Generator in 2018, Bortz got his start in California’s arts scene, first as a student at the California College of Art and later as an artist living in Oakland, making money by selling prints and T-shirts on the street and showing work at indie galleries. His style was first informed by his youth in Cleveland, spent skating, exploring Cleveland’s neighborhoods on the RTA and tuning in to ‘90s bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails.
In his professional life, he’s had the opportunity to create large-scale artworks on buildings around the world with renowned muralist Momo. He made a handful of outfits for Post Malone and did design work for Nike. Notably, Bortz put together an immersive installation for a Phish music festival in Mexico earlier this year — crafting large star-shaped pillows out of his fabric for festivalgoers to lounge in.
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(Photo courtesy Daniel Bortz)
Since returning home, Bortz has found community in Cleveland’s fashion and textile scene, befriending Faan Ware founder Aaron Jacobson, clothing designer Malcolm Dakar and Cent’s Pizza owner Vincent Morelli.
Given his variety of projects, it’s not easy for Bortz to pinpoint his eclectic artistic style. Repeat elements like psychedelic cosmic symbols and dot patterns regularly pop up in his work. But other times, the artist notices patterns around him, these visual gifts that inspire the idiosyncratic designer — like the box fans, or the time he took particular notice in a tile floor of a 100-year-old Detroit restaurant, which later transformed into a repeating grid pattern on his screen printing tables.
“It’s between intentionality and just, like, exuberance. Like, ‘Oh my God, I have to turn this into a print.’ I’m still just ecstatically exploring all the possibilities that are at my fingertips,” Bortz says. “It’s like this arsenal that never stops building. There’s just always something I need to make.”
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In Cleveland, he’s noticed an uptick in local fashion design and also in ethical clothing manufacturing. It leans into the city’s robust history in garment production, which was at one point one of the city’s leading industries.
“This was one of the biggest textile and clothing manufacturers in the world at one point, and a lot of those remaining spirits are still lingering. There are a lot of people who are really interested in the industry of it all, and it really has the potential of returning to that in some way,” Bortz says. “Especially where we're headed as a country, local manufacturing could come back.”
But it can be tough to make it in Cleveland — where selling handmade, oftentimes locally cut-and-sewn, sustainable clothing can come at a higher cost.
“There’s so much love in what we do. We care about every little thing, the way everything is done, the way that we talk about it,” Bortz says. “It’s all really sacred to me, and so it's been financially really hard to stay afloat as a small creative studio.”
Yet, despite the challenges, the studio continues to expand with every creative exploration — one of Bortz’s favorite accomplishments with Time Change Generator.
Residencies and collabs managed out of the warehouse space have brought new worlds of artistry into Northeast Ohio, with artists like Jason Revok from Detroit and Zander Schlacter from Brooklyn, New York into the fold — and all right here in Cleveland.
“I really want to be a hub for contemporary artists coming through Cleveland, to stop and either work together, or just connect,” Bortz says. “I think Cleveland has the potential of being more prominent in contemporary culture. Everybody that builds things in the city, there’s a really beautiful spirit to it, and I’m happy to be a part of it.”
(Courtesy Kory Gasser)
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