In Athens, Lasthenia of Mantinea was a woman of the Stranger (outsider) class. She shunned the protection of legal status typically sought through association with a male Athenian of the Citizen class. Instead, she dressed as a man; and openly attended Plato's Academy.

The eponymous botanical genus Lasthenia encompasses species that live primarily within the California Floristic Province, many endemically. Also known as "goldfields" and usually gregarious, they are short, small, bright yellow flowers, though the modest L. glaberrima and L. microglossa may exhibit nary more than the central disc definitive of the Asteraceae family.

Lasthenia graphic t-shirts are designed in Oakland, "Athens of the Pacific", and printed locally (Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville). Whether fixin' down in the Town, risin' up in the Oakropolis, or just chillin' out in your present locale, Lasthenia designs may be worn openly, or modestly, in class, with class, or otherwise.

Founded by three peeps from Oakland, Lasthenia draws a thread from the classical through the wool of the current. Across time, across paths, our breadth of draft is the multiplier of our optical fiber. The original liberal arts, the skills of freedom, brought forward a patterned fabric of what matters and why, with blueprints for a better tomorrow built by mind and membership. We can all spin workable thought from its Promethean origins, and refine the craft of sharing a yarn, and participate — with a wee welcome weft of levity, self-aware style — in weaving incrementally more vision into the inevitable tapestry of our communion.

You know it's all around you, this life, in its shade and its redemption. We're all just looking for a nod from another soul, a reflection in humanity that makes our experience real for the social psyches we navigate by. "Yeah, I felt it, too." "There's actually a word for that." "By my life, I see your world."

Our experience: yours and mine. You don't even need to join. You're already part of the show. Just recognize, already.

We believe that a society requires a healthy ecology, an enfranchised electorate, and healthy economies of both commerce and ideas. To these ends, we apply local, environmentally conscious production in order to strengthen our community while safeguarding our customers and our environment. Through our products, we strive to enrich public awareness of art, justice, and our shared history and common struggles.