Our Featured Work:

Our Story

“We want our art to build human connections through consideration and dialogue.”

Our names are Audrey Tuten and Carolyn Tuten-Wetherbee and we are social artists. We generate graphics and catchphrases based on themes and events that we witness in society. Currently, our primary medium for our work is textiles—articles like organic cotton t-shirts, and natural fiber totes. Our hope is to make people think, to generate awareness about key topics, and promote conversations. 

Our professional backgrounds paved the way for our art. We are a duo comprised of a graphic designer (Audrey) and a social worker (Carolyn). These two talents mesh well together in our creative sphere. We founded our brand, UrbanDudz, in 2013. It was then that we first created some of our graphic t-shirts. The original subject we focused on was environmental issues. We considered how to best disseminate a sustainable message and immediately thought of t-shirts featuring innovative slogans and imagery. The medium is a great way to create dialogue, as it allows the wearer to identify with the spirit of the message and for the viewer to respond. 

We grew up in a very creative family. Our mother was a jewelry designer and our uncle was a talented illustrator. From the time we were children, we painted, made crafts, and experimented with different materials like clay and fabric. Our family was also an outdoorsy bunch; we regularly went camping, fished, and spent as much time in nature as possible. In short, creativity has been a part of our core long before we even began UrbanDudz. 

UrbanDudz is influenced by street art and social issues. Some artists that inspired our brand are Shepard Fairey and Banksy. Much of their work disrupts the norm, with the outcome of baiting contemplation and sparking discussion. An element that we admire in Banksy is his provocation of alternative perspectives. In contrast to Banksy and Fairey’s work, the Life is Good brand influenced our work too because of its focus on positivity. We try not to get intensely political or divisive; overall, we want to lean toward positivity. We see daily the excess of negativity that surrounds us and we do not wish to contribute to it while drawing on and advocating for important issues. 

One example of our work is our “Don’t Judge” artwork. We wanted to start a conversation about the prevalence of bullying in schools; our hope is that kids accept their peers and do not rush to judge people based on their appearances. The idea was actually conceived from a teenage family member, who talked about his discomfort with how kids at school would criticize their peers based on their clothing. With the help of his perspective, we came up with the idea for our “Don’t Judge” t-shirts, which have turned out to be a popular product launch of ours.  “Do Me Right” is another UrbanDudz design. The idea behind it is the environment—taking care of the planet and making sustainable choices—but the words are attention-grabbing and a bit provocative. This is the fine line we like to walk with our work; our goal is to attract attention through our graphics and catchphrases but we hope that attention then fosters meaningful conversations. 

The primary obstacle we face in pursuit of our art is promotion. We have worked on a website but the  challenging part of website-building is generating traffic. We tend to have more success at fairs and craft shows. We attended the recent WaterFire Art Mart and had a blast; we loved meeting people from across the country and other artists and learning about their work. 

We are always brainstorming, which means plenty of texts, calls, and coffee shop meetings where we discuss the execution of our ideas. Audrey’s home is our creative hub. There, we format our ideas through sketches. We work at a computer station to design graphics and images. There is a prototyping area with printers, cutting machines, and a hot press to do one-off designs. For screen-printed work, we partner with local Rhode Island screen-printing shops; this is one of the few processes that are done off-site. All of our products are made with eco-friendly materials. Overall, we are a very grassroots collaboration, even coming down to the small details like attaching clothing tags by hand. In each step, we put heart, soul, and elbow grease into the products. Our work is motivated by a passion for love and spreading awareness. 

The ultimate goal of UrbanDudz is to encourage humanity. We want our art to build human connections through consideration and dialogue. Many of our conversations about social issues today happen online. Though we recognize the importance of these online conversations, there is something incredibly powerful about connecting in person through active discussion; these are the experiences that tie us back to reality. Our tagline is fashion with a passion for change; we want our art to be appealing and accessible to all, and we hope to affect people and society by sparking change-making emotions and dialogue. 

More soon, 

Audrey and Carolyn