All In The Family
By Heather Gaghan

It started thirty years ago with a man, his screen-print operations company called Heartland Apparel, and a “Happiness with a Labrador” T-shirt. That man is the father of Jeff, Scott, and Ben Gray—the new owners and you guessed it, brothers. Today, Creative Apparel Concepts based out of Minnesota, continues to bring new and unique clothing products to market. With over 15 years in the industry, the brothers decided they wanted and needed a way to combine their talents, so four years ago they began their business together— following their father’s decision to close his doors after thirty years in business. Scott, who oversees product development and sourcing says, “We all work very well together—not to say we don’t have our share of spats—and we really enjoy bringing new products to market.”













Joseph Carr is the artist who enjoys helping the Gray brothers design the new products. Born in Gettysburg, PA and raised in Dallastown, PA, as one of eight children, his love affair with art began at the age of six when he and his sister made drawings for their ailing grandmother. “…the joy my illustrations brought her got me hooked on art for life!” Joseph enjoys many mediums from simple illustration to painting, sculpture, and photography. He has also spent time in theater from performing, to set design, make-up, and lighting.

His career was jumpstarted when the owner of a screen printing business saw a sign he had illustrated for a local sub shop. Joseph was hired as an art separator, preparing other people's artwork for screen printing. The magic started when, during a slow week at work, he illustrated a white tiger and cub using a technique called stippling which is an illustration composed of small dots. The final piece was the maximum 18” X 24” size of the available screen printing area, and was bought by Siegfried and Roy to be sold as over-sized sleep shirts at their Las Vegas show.

Shortly thereafter the company Carr had been working for bought out the company they were designing work for and he was made Head Designer and Art Director. Joseph says, “Since the beginning, my artwork has been slated mainly for sleepwear, and mostly comprised of animals. To tell you how many dogs and cats that I have illustrated over the years would be next to impossible. I've always loved animals and nature, so it was pretty fitting that my job called for that type of work.” Joseph remembers his family always having a “four legged companion.” He recalls one of his favorite memories of a New Year’s Eve “when my friend's had a black Lab, Molly, had given birth to a dozen puppies just a few days earlier. Early in the morning of New Year's Day, I snuck downstairs to the pup's room and they crawled all over me, fighting to give me little puppy kisses. I felt like a big old kid--a memory that I will always treasure!” Although he has no furry companions to speak of at present, Joseph says his friends do and “I am usually the one to take care of them while their "parents" are away. One of my good friends even rescues Golden Retrievers—she has four blonde beauties of her own!”

Unfortunately, Joseph’s growing career was temporarily put on hold when after only 9 years, the company he was working for as Head Designer and Art Director suffered from mismanagement and went under. Carr wasn’t on the unemployment line for long because a month later he received a phone call from Heartland Apparel out of Minnesota. They offered him some free lance work and within a month, a full time position. Joseph recalls, “I was not interested in moving away from my family and friends, so we worked it out that I could work from PA and send my artwork to Minneapolis.” The artist is still living in PA in a small town right outside of Harrisburg and says he remains “very happily employed” approximately 6 years after Heartland was turned over to the Gray brothers and changed into Creative Apparel Concepts.

The artist says his art process has evolved through the years. “I have always started out with thumbnails(rough sketches), then sketching full size on vellum or tracing paper so I could flip the illustration to make sure proportions are correct in mirror image. Initially, almost everything I did was in stippling, using technical pens for the black ink and airbrushing for the color screens. As our screen printing department became more advanced, I graduated to full color illustrations that are reproduced by 4 color process printing. Currently most of my work is done in water-colors, but I also use colored pencils and even markers. As Creative Apparel has been growing, I've been doing less t-shirt designs and have moved on to all-over fabric prints. I still do most of my work by hand, but I am continually learning to use the computer for my artwork. The computer especially comes in hand when doing an all-over print. I also use the computer to add any type to my designs after scanning them in.”



It would have been impossible for Joseph’s work to not have evolved over the years when hearing about his impressive list of customers. Some of the more mentionable names include: The Mirage, MGM, Warner Brothers, Universal Studios, Six Flags Theme Parks, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and Disney. A baby elephant shirt that Joseph designed for Ringling Bros. was the best selling t-shirt they ever sold. A Winnie the Pooh design he illustrated for Disney was their best selling Mother's Day tee ever sold in their parks. Carr was also recently honored to do a shirt and fabric print for Smokey the Bear's 60th anniversary.

It seems that as long as Creative Apparel Concepts is around, Joseph Carr will definitely know what’s coming next—more PJ’s and hopefully many more Labradors!! Check out the new Life’s a Ball Flannel PJ’s in our Apparel Dept. and see why you’ll glow with approval.