Mom est.1993 Grandma Est.2021 Shirt

Artist April Sunami, at her home on the East Side, designed a T-shirt honoring important Black women in her life that will be soldnationwide by Lane Bryant.For more than a decade, Columbus artist April Sunami’s message of empowering Black women has been seen in galleries and on murals.ut soon, thanks to New Albany fashion retailer Lane Bryant, one of Sunami’s works will be wearable.The “April Sunami Affirmations Artist Tee,” a white shirt emblazoned with a Sunami illustration of a Black woman with words entwined in her hair, will go on sale Thursday . It’s part of a series of shirts Lane Bryant is releasing in honor of Black History Month in February“It’s a weird thing because I’ve never done merchandise,” said Sunami, 40, an East Side resident. “But the cool part of it is I’m really interested in work that is accessible to everybody. Art is for everybody, it’s not some lofty, elitist thing.April Sunami wears the T-shirt she designed for Lane Bryant.The project came out of nowhere for Sunami, who got a message on her Instagram page (@ajsunami) last summer from Heather McGarry, Lane Bryant’s associate vice president of marketing, public relations and social media.McGarry said the idea to create a series of shirts honoring Black women came from the social unrest of 2020 that began after May 25, when George Floyd died after being pinned to the ground by a Minneapolis police officer who put his knee on Floyd’s neck

Mom est.1993 Grandma Est.2021 Shirt

“We thought, `What can we do as a fashion company?’” McGarry said. “A lot of times we get feedback that we shouldn’t be playing in politics, but we’re a women’s brand, so we want to be able to empower our demographic — all of them, not just some.”She said several Lane Bryant officials had seen Sunami’s murals around Columbus — her most recent is located along Mount Vernon Avenue — so McGarry reached ou“I just told her it should have something to do with affirmation and should mean something to her,” McGarry said. “But beyond that, I did not want to direct her.”A Lane Bryant model wears the T-shirt designed by Columbus artist April Sunami.What Sunami came up with was a Black woman with 12 words entwined in her long hair: Brilliant, Nurturer, Beautiful, Sister, Survivor, Protector, Daughter, Warrior, Loved, Powerful, Blessed and Daughter.“I began to think about women who mean a lot to me: My mother, sisters, mother-in-law, friends, and then I thought about different words,” Sunami said. “I thought it might be something that might resonate with people, because I’m certainly not the only one with a mom who is powerful.”McGarry loved it, calling it her favorite of the eight shirts in the series. (The others highlight messages more than artwork). It also is the only one, she said, designed by an independent artist rather than one of Lane Bryant’s designers“It gives an authenticity to the art,” she said.McGarry said early customer response has been good — Lane Bryant has shared it via a “sneak peek” to select customers — and said she hopes the publicity will help make Sunami nationally known.Sunami said she was “super excited” to have done the project. For one, it enabled her to stretch as an artist. But mostly, just the fact that Lane Bryant called her was significant, she said.“They know my work and they know it deals with women of color and hair,” she said. “So the fact that they wanted to feature that is good.”