about

For 11 years, I taught English inside a high school in south central Indiana with very few windows. The cinder blocks were painted a white shade of white and for laminated posters to really adhere to the walls, glue gun glue worked best. Most teachers used lots of tape and all that tape did was take that white shade of white right off the walls, where underneath there was a beige shade of beige. I'm not sure what color was better, but what I am sure of is the walls needed some dressing, so I dressed my walls. I dressed them well, ready-for-church/private school well.

Perhaps the most beloved dressing in my room hung to the right of my clock. It was an image of a cow that had a glazed look on its face. Beneath it's neck were the words FOCUS. It was simple advice for those Indiana juniors and seniors who loved looking at that clock. It was a simple reminder for them to think about their existence and stop wasting their time looking at the time. It's a word I would regularly use as I paced back and forth in my room as kids started to fade. And that image was so good there by the clock because that is not a look anyone wants on his/her face - glazed eyes, looking nowhere, alive but not alive.

So I had an idea to get that cow on a shirt for myself and some friends. I had dabbled in some pretty super DIY screen printing in my early 20s under the guidance of the great Matte Cathcart. I knew the steps, but I didn’t have the gear.

I spent some time on Craigslist and quickly found a decent press and some screens and some squeegees for $80. I treated myself with my hard-earned teaching salary and started getting back into the process late into the evenings when all of the papers were graded.

Pretty quickly, I figured it out. Pretty quickly, I started treating myself to more gear (always on Craigslist back then. There is always somebody out there getting out of screen printing, kids! never pay full price! Facebook marketplace is the place now!), and pretty quickly, I thought, I should open up an Etsy store. Pretty quickly people started buying some shirts. And then people started requesting custom gear, which forced me to teach myself how to print things I had never printed.

So here we are now. I resigned my teaching position in 2019, a very difficult thing to do because I loved my time in that classroom, and I've been giving this badknees thing a full-time go.

Over the years, we have moved from a smaller space to a bigger space and bought more equipment than I could have even imagined. I have had amazing team members over the years and a grateful for every one of them. Having amazing people help me has allowed me to grow this thing into something that feels fairly solid. 

And the residents of Bloomington, Indiana, (Bloomingtonians!) have really showed up for us. While most of our business is online (Thank you online person/shopper!),, we have tried our hardest to create a great brick and mortar experience and a space for other artists and musicians to show off what they do at our markets we have been hosting in our parking lot. 

We're always cooking up new stuff and ideas and the best way to keep up on it all is through our Instagram and Facebook pages. We are getting better at TikTok, so if that is your thing, check us out over there. And if you like this badknees stuff, sign up for our email list/club and we'll keep you updated with new stuff and fairy regular discount codes. 

And if you've made it this far, my goodness. We think you should definitely be part of our Sticker and Letter Club, a club in which I, badknees Jim, write you a letter and send you a sticker once a month, for a year, for just $12. JOIN THAT CLUB HERE!

And if you love shirts and want monthly shirts for just $10 each, sign up for our shirt club. JOIN THAT CLUB HERE!

And if you need some background music while you surf chew on some JFBRONTOSAURUS. It is another badknees venture. It is badknees. It’s just called JFBRONTOSAURUS. You’ll find out why if you listen to every song ever recorded and memorize the lyrics and then sing the lyrics along with this songs. There are a lot of songs, though, so it might take you some years. If you prefer hard copies of JFBRONTOSAURUS, head on over to LAUREN RECORDS. you can find JFBRONTOSAURUS on the cassettes. And if you're in Bloomington, we have been playing shows fairly regularly, mostly at ORBIT ROOM, one of our favorite Bloomington bars.