QUEST Volume 13, Number 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006

Original T-Shirt Designs

Who:

Jared Aronson, 23

Where:

Gilford, N.H.

DX:

Duchenne muscular dystrophy

What:

Aronson, who was MDA’s New Hampshire “Poster Child” when he was 8, taught himself to draw and has always dreamed of sharing his artwork with the world. In December 2004, he started his online business, Madhouse T-Shirt Designs, named for the “madhouse” in which he grew up with five siblings and seven dogs. Aronson, who uses a power wheelchair and a ventilator, has sold nearly 70 screen-printed T-shirts with his original designs for $15 each.

	Jared Aronson

He also sells the shirts at crafts fairs and is looking for new ways to market them.

How:

To come up with ideas for designs, Aronson drives his power wheelchair up and down his driveway for creative inspiration. He used to put his ideas on paper with pencil and ink, but now uses a laptop computer. Able to move only his thumb, he uses a trackball mouse in his lap and a Photoshop program to sketch out his artwork. A long and tedious process, each design takes about 20 hours to complete before it’s taken to Tracing Graphics, a screen-printing company in Alton, N.H.

Jared Says:

“I haven’t let my disease get in the way of my dream of being an artist and having my own business, and I hope to motivate others in my situation to follow their dreams despite their setbacks.”

Visit www.madhousetees.com to check out Aronson’s T-shirt designs.