{ON THE MAKE} T-shirt Cutting Performance Art of Adam Saaks

The goal, while searching for roots a midst artists working in the soft sculptural medium of t-shirts, was bookmarking a video witnessed long ago of a guy who turned cutting-up-t-shirts into a performance art. The suave intuitive speed and accuracy of his scissor-moves was memorable; coming naturally to him like a fisherperson filleting a fresh catch for a Valentine's dinner. His scissors, must have been sharpened daily and professionally.

The foggy look of memory lane made the google search terms experimental: "t-shirt happenings, artists cutting t-shirts in public, t-shirt performance art" and sure enough, on YOUtube, the name of Adam Saaks championed the list.


Adam plays up the performance by choosing a woman from the crowd to work on who has an intently staring, angry-looking boyfriend. And he's so sassy with his provocative cuts! There are many more videos, often time-lapsed showing multiple cuts on a shirt from start to finish.

The weaving technique that he uses is called "ladderweaving." His variable is the length of the cut to create variegated, webby-looking shirts that hold together with very little knotting. Use this as a search term on YOUtube to catch some tutorials if you are interested in this "home-spun" idea.

-Madam Chino