“Why ruin such a nice jacket?” and “Does it mean your heart is in the sky?” These are just two of the many reactions I’ve had to my de-logo-fied black fleece jacket.

A year ago, Miriam Dym, a visiting artist at the Oakland Museum of California, transformed my jacket at no cost through her Logo Removal Service. The jacket, a hand-me-down made with the prominent logo of a popular brand (which I can’t recall) now has a baby-blue rounded rectangular patch sewn skillfully into a hole over the left breast.

I hadn’t anticipated or desired any reactions; I just saw the opportunity to stop advertising a company every time the fog rolled in. But the feedback has been interesting, and far-ranging. My son’s first reaction was a simple “No,” but many people have responded at length, as if to a Rorschach test inkblot. The Rorschach test, initially developed by Hermann Rorschach in 1921 to aid in the diagnosis of schizophrenia, is now widely used as a psychological test to reveal unconscious thoughts and emotions. A woman looked at my jacket and said, “I see the peaceful sky surrounded by a threatening black storm.” Then we had a good discussion about how stressed she felt by the demands of her work and home life. A man who knows me well told me, “That looks like an open window over your heart, we know what that means…” Then we talked about the joy and pain of being open hearted.

Litmus, used as early as the Middle Ages, is a chemical mixture that indicates whether a substance is acidic or basic. In school, many of us learned about acids and bases by dipping strips of litmus paper into lemon juice (an acid, which turns the paper red) or soapy water (a base, which turns the paper blue). Starting in the 1950s, “litmus test” took on a figurative meaning in political discourse: a person’s opinion about a single issue as a means to reveal something of a broader or more fundamental nature. My blue rounded rectangle sometimes serves this role. Opinions come to me unprompted, often with politico-economic baggage: “Yep, that’s how the rich get richer in our capitalist system—saturating our unconscious with logos and advertising everywhere so we buy more stuff we don’t need!” Or, “Hey, I think that’s a North Face jacket. I have one like that, and it has the logo right there. It’s great—and it has that extra pocket on the upper arm. I’m happy having that North Face logo on mine.” Conversations follow these litmus-tested declarations, of course.

My daughter doesn’t like the way my jacket looks. She wants me to buy a new jacket, and since she is cognizant of my logo aversion, she says, “Just buy one without a logo.” I tell her, “Easier said than done.” And then I think: I like my Rorschach/litmus jacket, and when it wears out, I might find another second-hand jacket with a logo, and seek out an artistic delogofication from the Logo Removal Service.
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Miriam Dym’s Logo Removal Service: http://www.logoremovalservice.com/