Printing, painting and playful pattern-making take center stage at the artist’s independent Cleveland design studio
Photo by Kory Gasser, Courtesy of Time Change Generator
Step through the orange-framed front door and take in the graphic-patterned jackets, patchwork star pillows and whimsical pottery in the Time Change Generator (TCG). Daniel Bortz’s world layers playful patterns in his designs and collaborations, displaying them alongside works by like-minded artists. After several years of developing his visual style in Los Angeles and Oakland, Bortz has returned to his hometown of Cleveland to open his gallery and retail concept space in the Tremont neighborhood.
Photo by Julie Wolfson
We caught up with Bortz at TCG while he was preparing for Complexcom 2025, taking place in late October. When thinking about a name for this studio and gallery, Bortz found inspiration in reflecting on the influence of time on his work. “Like traveling, the work itself is a vessel for reaching people,” he says. “Opposed to one piece of art that hanging on a wall, we can wear a jacket across time zones.”
Courtesy of Time Change Generator
His studio specializes in creating accessible art from their screenprinted fabric, like a two-toned, geometric zippered pouch adorned with the brand’s flower clock label. “This language of abstract shapes is inspired by nature and all sorts of things [that] have been with me for 16 years or so,” Bortz says. The street art-inspired pattern, the first he designed for TCG, evokes a Matisse-Marimekko-Bauhuas vibe.
Photo by Kory Gasser, Courtesy of Time Change Generator
Bortz created the TCG studio as a vehicle to share ideas and collaborate with fellow artists and makers. Recent projects range from murals with Momo, clothing for Post Malone, a Nike collab and a massive star pillow installation for a Phish music festival in Mexico. Artist collaborator projects include Stepanie H Shih’s Molotov Cocktail hoodie, TCG Galaxy X Esenes cargo pants and REVOK’s tape loop patterned shirt, plus more work with Ben Cleave in Los Angeles, Woody Othello in Oakland, Zander Schlachter from Brooklyn, and Hannah Jewett in New York. “There’s an insanely long list of people that I want to work with,” he adds.
TCG prints fabric, makes clothing out of it and saves all the remnants, sorting scraps for making bags and pillows. “We’ve also done sewing parties where I invite lots of people to come to the studio and bring their own sewing machine,” Bortz says. “We’ll have people of all ages, like quilters and all sorts of different sewing levels. And we collage together the scraps, take that [fabric] and make products from it.”
Courtesy of Time Change Generator
In the store, star pillows feature many TCG fabric designs collaged into a patchwork of pattern and color. “We are very low waste and we’ve made hundreds of those scrap pillows,” says Bortz. The studio uses offcuts for the small pouch bags, pillows and other shapes. “All of the cut and sew we do—where we print the fabric and then locally produce products—is [within] a four mile radius [of] selling and printing and everything.”
Photo by Kory Gasser, Courtesy of Time Change Generator
On a clothing rack, a No Doubt shirt peeks out. Bortz admits to being nostalgic about 90s music, inspiring surrealistic interpretations of his favorite bands. Thematic imagery includes cloud-shaped clocks, graphic eyeballs and animals in all shapes and sizes, like fabric snakes, rabbits, frogs and cats. Fruits are another common theme, from a strawberry motif to a series of citrus peels—he documented every clementine that he ate in a month and created a repeat peel pattern.
Courtesy of Time Change Generator
For Complexcon, Bortz will launch seven new designs. A vibrant orange fire print will hang across the TCG booth, commercially available as bandanas, while new hoodies have a sun spot-printed body with hand-painted hoods and pockets. “There are a lot of fresh ideas,” he says. “Collaborating with other people—anybody in my orbit, throwing ideas at me that might bubble up—makes it really fun.”
Time Change Generator is open Thursday through Sundays and will be at Complexcon in Las Vegas 25 to 26 October.
Inside the Colorful Realm of Daniel Bortz’s Time Change Generator
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