I love washing windows. Look at that blue sky and that smile.
Best pic ever of me washing windows. Lila Glascoe Francese took it. She runs Ojai Home a real estate staging company. I love my life as a window washer in Ojai. The clientele here are amazing. The homes are mostly beautiful and well appointed. And when Lila hooks them up PROPER they look amazing.
Here’s another design based on the Squeegeelution Squeegee Revolution Power Fist. I call it SqueegeeMania. Enjoy.
Are you ready to mumble?
When it comes to washing windows I’m pretty good. But when it comes to t-shirt designs, sometimes I’m just plain BAD. Here’s the Squeegeelution Design and the late Jacko bustin’ out the fresh Squeegeeheehee moves.
SQUEEGEE HEE HEE
Currently there’s a contest going for Squeegee Power design, Take the Squeegeelution design from the post below and integrate it into your own design. Have fun, take chances, be crazy. Check the contest details here.
Bring me your tired, dirty windows.
So I have recently inked a deal with Window Cleaning Resource dot com supply house to market, promote and expand on the Squeegeelution design. I wanted to work with Chris and Alex and the WCR team because I’ve appreciated the fun, youthful and active sensibilities they bring to the industry. Together we can bring this iconic design to a wide variety of products and promotional materials and give a new level of awareness to the window cleaning family.
So, to get things started we’re doing a design contest that allows window cleaners the opportunity to create a design around the Squeegeelution and submit it to WCR for printing on a limited edition t-shirt.
The contest begins today. Here’s a link to the contest and below I’ve posted a nice big png version of the design that you can right-click and save-as for manipulation in your favorite image design program such as Adobe Photoshop.
fellow squeegee wranglers, right click, save as, then get artistic.
Collab shirt with WCR
A new super limited Squeegee Power shirt came out this week on Window Cleaning Resource.
And then Robinson Solutions out of Palma De Mallorca whipped up a salad of delicious windowashing post quotes on his massive world wide window washing blog this morning.
Love Glen Muse
Then I went to Glen Muse to wash windows and there were girls dancing and a guy guitaring in a giant crystal merkaba in under frondy fairlyland leaves. and they spoke of ceremony and hit drums that the chanted Ojai while I was on a ladder washing a leaded glass oval over the front door. I was smiling, later I met one of the Merkaba whoopers, named Pray or perhaps Prey, I din’t inquire as to the spelling of his “name.” But man he sure did warm up the strings on the baby grand inside and sang hard and passionate in a epic Broadway sort of way. And the girls danced in that flaily free form arm waving way they do there and I smiled while I worked.
later in the Asia house, I’d seen a young woman through the foggy crankety-arm 80s Andersen windows in the breakfast nook. Her hair is chestnut and ironed long like a Baez ballad and she is gone when I enter. I can hear her vocalizing in the back somewhere and I wash the front room and then off through the kitchen, over the sink and then the bay of the nook where she’d been set. Once I’m done with the nook, I head back to the bedroom and say hi to her in the bathroom. She quotes Emmerson to me I think, something about moving with the flow of the time of nature. I apologized for intruding on her toilet, but she was dressed and fussing with eyebrows or something and I don’t suffer nomads with strict manners. They’ve lived on the road, through the forests of Bolivia and the beaches of Santa Cruz, to the intentional communities that apparently exist here and there, they can handle a smiling window washer asking permission to pass and wash the glass. And she granted. And we visited briefly and I moved on.
It’s a vortex. Always dynamic, loose and wildly creative souls floating around there. Guess that’s why Mario called it the Hippy Playboy Mansion. When you buy or rent, please let them know you were referred by Chris T. Wilson.
I spend a fair amount of time thinking while I’m washing windows and I often listen to audio books and podcasts while I’m slinging squeegees. And as window cleaning technology and business moves toward advances in efficiency like the water fed pole, the more I feel strongly connected to the old-fashioned craft of using simple hand tools to clean a window and clean it well. I feel somehow compelled to turn the window cleaning process into an act of Will, an alchemical undertaking and a mystical devotion.
In part I do this to keep the process as completely removed from the idea of “work” or “routine” as divinely possible. From a metaphysical standpoint, I’m sure a lot of guru wisdom shits could be devised around the benefits of saying a prayer for/to/with each window you wash. Seeing a customer’s reaction to her clean windows certainly suggests to me that some blessing has taken place. So I’m going to continue working on my window cleaning mantras and see how they affect the lives and realities of my fortunate clients. Basically, that’s a distraction to keep me awake at the wheel of my fancy janitor life.
Which brings to mind Barn the Spoon in his work shop window in Hackney hand carving spoons all day. He said in the below linked interview, “When I’ve made a good spoon I feel good within myself.” So I’m co-opting that for my work as a window cleaner. Hence the title.
At the end of the day, if I wanted my window washing “business” to really make more money and grow, I should buy a wfp. Just like Barn could buy an electric lathe and other expensive industrial tools and crank out spoons at a much more consistent and rapid rate. But in the process he’d compromise the very process he’s going through; a deep sense of tactile connection to the action and outcome. Maybe they call that making art.
Is it pompous to say window cleaning is art? Or that not buying a wfp makes me some sort of purist snob? I certainly hope so.
Squeegee Power!
via http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/11/13/barn-the-spoon-spoon-carver/
I was supposed to be working on another project, so I decided to make a new t-shirt incorporating the Squeegeelution design into the traditional “I <3 Place” concept. I love living in Ojai, I love screen printing and I love window washing. I’m a squeegee freak I guess.
Get it custom made for your town.
Since I screen print, I would like to offer this design customized to your territory so you can show off your regional pride and your sweet squeegee power skills. Do you washing windows in New York? I can make “I Squeegeelution NY.” Or where ever you may be. I’m thinking it would be like a 5 shirt minimum for $100. Or 2 tees, 1 long sleeve, and 1 Hoody for $120, plus shipping. I use Gildans and Jerzees at this price point.
If that sounds appealing or interesting email me: chris@windowashing.com and we will work out the details.
Every day I'm dreaming of how I can make the world a little brighter.
I’m imagining how cool, groovy, sweet and powerful it would be to turn every window cleaner, washer or other squeegee enthusiast onto the powerful revolutionary image: Squeegeelution.
Today I mocked up a Squeegee Fist coffee mug and pretended to drink from it while I mugged for my self portrait.
If you would like to see this happen, let me know: chris@windowashing.com
I’m also willing to print any custom color t-shirt with the Squeegeelution design.
Let’s put squeegee power everywhere.
She definitely has a job in Ojai.
Driving through the town of La Conner, Washington on a very recent Pacific Northwest road trip, I caught a glimpse of a familiar site: a window washer in a parking lot of a house turned retail space.
What made it slightly less than familiar is that the washer was a she wearing a Ninja BOAB slung from a simple cloth belt. She was tall and thin, with a pony tail and a fiery red tatoo on her shoulder. I had to stop and go say “hello.”
Solid basic technique makes windows very happy.
Miranda Teel has a thing for glass. She’s washed windows professionally and for hire for several years now. Local janitor suppliers don’t cut it, so she buys her squeegees and supplies from Windows101 in Seattle. But in addition to that she’s a staffer at the Pilchuck Glass School. She’s a glass artist. That’s pretty cool.
She was kind enough to visit with me for a few moments and graciously accepted a SqueegeePower Decal and a few pics.
Shining, clean, sparking glass. Now that's something to smile about.
First came the idea, then I took this picture of my fist with a squeegee and that became the "Squeegeelution" design
I was really pleased to get an email recently from Jan Hanson of TimeSolution.dk in Skovlund Denmark. He said he liked my ideas about window washing and being a light worker and then asked me if he could order some “Squeegeelution” t-shirts. We worked out the details and now Squeegee Power t-shirts are being sold to window cleaners in Denmark.
This got me thinking, ‘hey, maybe these shirts can be sold all over the world…’ So I’m doing research and finding window cleaning suppliers in other parts of Europe, then I’ll move on to Australia, Asia and Africa. I want every window cleaner in the world to see this design, love it and own it.
I’m so grateful for J.Racenstein for taking the leap and spreading the Squeegee Power message to their customers. And that the word has made it to Scandinavia.
Thank you to my veritable brothers and sisters who raise a squeegee-fitted fist each day in a clarity solidarity.
Please contact me by email chris@windowashing.com if you would like to get a custom printed “Squeegeelution” t-shirt, long sleeve, hoodie or huck towell. I will make it for you and mail it right away. Also if you can recommend reputable international window cleaning suppliers that I can sell samples to, I would really appreciate it.
POWER TO THE SQUEEGEE!
