Page 39 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2016

AS WELL AS DESIGNING shirts and hats Merrill is also an accomplished painter. TOP: Cool Blue Crab, ABOVE: Bass and RIGHT: Katrina Blues.
later and this time Merrill took Bell up on his offer. Merrill helped design Bell’s apparel for his company, SeaTurtle Sports, and the two still talk today.
Arguably one of Merrill’s most influential paintings has been “Delta Tunes” which shows one of his iconic guitars alongside a colorful home in the Delta. “I asked my wife to name my painting, and she said “Mississippi Roots” would work,” said Merrill. He loved her suggestion, but was immediately inspired by the title for an entirely different reason: the vision of a clothing line. The name “Mississippi Roots” brought to mind another of his paintings, “Brickyard Bayou,” that shows a red alligator in the bayou. The scene features a tree with roots buried deep in the soil — Mississippi Roots.
The tree in that painting went on to inspire Merrill’s Mississippi Roots Clothing Company logo. Merrill’s wife loved it. “We went from that, and the following week I met a guy who was just starting a screen-printing business,” said Merrill. “I told him
I was launching a new brand and asked him to do some shirts for me.”
Once their initial shirt order was created, Merrill and Hawk attended a Mardi Gras pre-party wearing their new shirts. “We did it to be funny,” said Merrill. “We hadn’t told anyone about it, but at
this party we met the owner of a local boutique.
She asked where we had gotten the shirts, and we explained that we were launching a brand.”
The following Monday she ordered 100 shirts, and as the year progressed Merrill’s company was featured in more and more stores across the Coast.
A year after the inception of the clothing line in 2014, Mississippi Roots evolved into Roots Clothing Company. The company continued to expand from festivals and local stores to larger “big box” retailers. “In 2015, my wife and I were walking through Shoe Station when she suggested that I ask the manager about carrying our shirts,” Merrill said. “We had seen a lot of great response to our designs, so we put a portfolio together to send to their corporate office.”
Their portfolio earned them a meeting with the company’s vice president and lead buyer, and an order was placed within a few weeks. “Now we’re in all of the Shoe Stations from Florida to Louisiana,” said Merrill.
Today, Roots Clothing Company produces state- inspired t-shirts and hats in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas. Their designs can be found in shops across these states, as well as more than 35 festivals per year.
merrillart@aol.com
www.ryanmerrillartwork.com www.rootsclothingcompany.com
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September 2016 • SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living 39