mary e. robbins :: moth written

the beauty of ugliness.

good morning!  today is the final day to enter in the wee cap giveaway, and the same goes for the moth designs  shirt giveaway found on longwinterfarm's blog.  thank you for all of your comments and entries thus far...you motivate me to knit more and design more shirts, and surely there will be more giveaways to come.  the comments will be closed tonight at midnight, and winners will be announced tomorrow.  thanks for reading!

in the night it was quite windy. and apparently warm as well because upon opening the door for our morning walk just a mere thirty minutes ago, this is what i saw.  melting.  lots of melting.  gray skies, limbs and twigs strewn, mud emerging, melting ice rivers bubbling beneath the snow piles, birds singing, sand crunching under my boots.  the beauty of the ugliness.  i musn't speak too soon because surely the snow will come again before the final melt.  but i couldn't be happier that the ugliness is on its way, truly.  bring on the muddy pant legs, the endless floor sweeping, the constant washing of our white dog.  i'm ready.

just look at the shovels there, resting on long snow blanketed earth.  its time for you to rest for the summer, shovels.  i want to bring out the rakes and garden tools.

and gus is really ready for a proper run, to reclaim his title as 'dirtiest dog at the playgroup.'  much too clean looking these days. 

hoping you are enjoying this fine saturday morning, the last day of february.

to be so relaxed.

my good friend and fellow greyhound owner kerry sent along this video this morning and i enjoyed it so much that i just had to share it here. at around the last 25 seconds of the video, it gets very good, so be patient and watch the whole thing if you can. this greyhound is also named gus, and although he shares the same name as my dog, it seems that the similarities end there.  if i were to come within 10 feet of my gus with a vacuum he would bolt out of the way with such speed and calamity as to cause himself injury.  he is afraid of the vacuum, and not at all ashamed to admit it.  a wuss by any other name would be as wussy.

on an unrelated note, i was so happy to see that the moth designs logo had been added to the artist list on the renegade handmade shop home page.  if you are in the chicago area, be sure to head to the renegade handmade shop to check out the very finest in handmade, now including (*blush*) a selection of moth designs arabic tees and onesies.  hooray!~

thank you, wonderful people of renegade!  xoxo

beautiful peeps.

just a couple of days ago, nabil and i received the annual holiday photo card from the DC hot commodities.  you may be familiar with the regular commenting on this blog of dear pal darby, aka DJ bent, pictured in front on the left.  darby and the rest of the hot commodities traveled this winter to spain, where they spent a day zombie-ing it up in galicia.  nothing says 'ring in the new year' like fake blood, castles, and a grimace.  oh how i love you, amazing commodities.  thank you for all of your love notes on the back of the card!

darby and selina (pictured in the blue pants and awesome aqua keds), aka bent and mothershiester, are the hosts of gender fatigue, a weekly radio show broadcast from the dc area.  check out their awesome blog and if you are in dc, see if you can find a party where these folks are, likely to be dancing up a storm and spinning great tunes.  if i were even two hours' drive from dc, i'd be heading to the palace as often as i could.  alas, maine here i am, so far away.  but i hope to apply for dc crafty bastards this year--a road trip may be in the works.  woot!

thanks for the card, beautiful dc peeps.  hob wa boussa kebira...

food and npr, the daily sustenance.

taking photos of my food once again.  with the familiar hum of NPR in the background yesterday, i made above salad--lentil bulgar salad, again from mollie katzen's moosewood cookbook.  really folks, i can't say enough good things about this cookbook.  if you do not own it, it's time.   while it may seem that i am perhaps exaggerating, i assure you i am not--i feel energized and i daresay healthier when i eat the above salad.  this salad and tabouli.  it must be the bulgar and fresh parsley combination--mmmm.

but of course i couldn't let myself go on feeling too healthy, no?  i needed to make a pie and dump some sugar into the system.  so i attempted the maple walnut pie, page 204.  and actually--not nearly as sugary as other pies i have made, and with 4 eggs and two cups of chopped walnuts, it packs a good protein punch.  (can you hear the gears of my justification wheels spinning??)

and my vintage dormeyer mixer in action.  go wee mixer go!  expensive kitchen aid mixer eat your heart out.  less than 10 dollars of vintage machinery in beautiful old chrome.

a bit about my work.

i haven't posted much about the actual process of screening that i do for moth, certainly not recently and not much in the past,  for that matter.  the image above is of a custom onesie made for a dear old friend from NYU, ms. kirsten olson.  i noramlly stick to arabic custom requests, but kirsten requested this custom onesie in portuguese and swedish for friends of hers in a cross-cultural parenting relationship--how could i resist?  for old pals? --anything ♥. 

while working on kirsten's onesie i got to thinking about my process and once again daydreaming about all of the equipment i hope/plan to purchase with the continued growth of moth designs.  most silkscreeners burn their screens--meaning for each design, they apply emulsion to a screen and expose it to unfiltered UV light to create a permanent stencil on the screen.  up until a few months ago when i built my own exposure unit,  i had never even attempted to burn a screen.  in order to save screens and be able to use them for multiple prints, i have cut all of my designs by hand with an x-acto knife into denril, a thick plasticy paper.  that is exactly what i did for the above print.  all of those letters were cut by hand into denril with my trusty ultra sharp.  this process was how i originally learned screenprinting as the meetinghouse director at friends camp, and lends to my very simplistic, graphic style.  creating my work this way has allowed me to create many custom tees without having to commit an entire screen to one shirt, and thus it has behooved me, really.  cutting a stencil for an arabic name tee is much faster, simpler, and more economic than burning a screen.  and as evidenced by the ink marks and knife gouges all over its surface, i have screened all tees on my kitchen table. 

but--for larger production runs, like those i will need to commit to for upcoming shows in 2009, it would help immensely to have a press and flash dryer at the very least.  i keep hovering over listings for presses on silkscreen supply sites...finger posed shakily for purchase above the mouse.  but i hold off.  it will happen,  and until then i appreciate my very simple way of screening--as hands on as you can get.

i hope to share more about my process here--a tutorial perhaps?  we have a video camera...i need to buy the usb connector to upload onto our computer but as soon as i have it, videos are in the cue for sure.  i recently stumbled upon this interview on etsy with 1AEON, and instantly related to his path as a silkscreener.  DIY, simple, ink covered.  i loved seeing the video and hearing his story.  from the bottom up, he's doing very well on etsy. 

rambling a bit here.  anyway.  one thing i wanted to mention is that aforementioned pal ms. kirsten and her partner in crime john have a lovely little company called ilampe.  check them out for uber-cool eco friendly lamps made from upcycled found materials.  love them.  can't wait to send this onesie her way!  thanks kirsten.

heart attack snow.

thank you to all who read and responded to longwinterfarm's interview yesterday--i am amazed and touched!  for those of you who have not seen the interview and would like the chance to win a free moth designs t shirt, head on over to the interview.  a speedy recovery to longwinter's grammie--wishing i were there to cook a big pot of soup for you all.  be well.

my neighbor put it best this morning when i met her outside as she was finishing up clearing her driveway--"this is heart attack snow."  being february in the northeast, we are not surprised by this continued precipitation and cold, and forgive me for speaking of it so often!  nevertheless, despite our years of practice and training, the beauty and pain of winter are equally fantastic.  this morning failed me not.  all drab snow piles were refreshed with a new coating of heavy white.

i do worry for my family members and neighbors, however--it is no easy task at all to clear this, just to be able to get out of the house.  heart attacks do happen.  slip and falls do happen.  i am bewildered to tell you that i fell (yet again!) this morning, landing on my wrist--more frustrated than anything else.

but.  with a little silly jumping around in the snow with gus, and a slow deliberate clearing of my own driveway and walk, i am feeling better--the work is good for my body and i feel that i have accomplished something enormous already today, all before 9:30 am. 

and perhaps you didn't know, but we mainers don't actually need to see stop signs in the winter.  nope.  we don't.  so we let them become covered in snow and encrusted in ice, only all the more proficient on the road come spring when they melt and re-emerge.  just a little taste of february life in maine for you...enjoy.

sunday morning mezza.

last night mum, dad, sister, brother in law, and both nieceys joined us for dinner and it was wonderful to have everyone here round the old robbins family dining room table.  i spent much of the day cooking yesterday, preparing a mezza, or spread of appetizers and salads to accompany the main meal.  among the items i made were a few new recipes--this walnut pate topped the list of firsts.  yum.  the recipe came from mollie katzen's moosewood cookbook--a favorite.  and the best thing about having guests for dinner?  next day leftovers for breakfast.  mmm.  the pate goes very well with sesame crackers or pita bread. 

and in the quiet, late hours of the night and early morning, after my family had all packed up their sippy cups and bid us adieu, i sat and answered the interview questions of dear longwinterfarm, who offers a great series of 'sunday friend' interviews on her blog.  i am honored to have been featured, mandi--thank you!  longwinter celebrates the handmade life and its community members with gusto, and i am so thankful to have met her and call her my pal.  so for more information about moth designs and yours truly, head over to her blog and see!  thanks, dear heart.

i am also very touched by your excitement for the hat giveaway--there's still nearly a week to leave a comment for your chance to own this wee cap, so go forth and comment away!  thank you for reading, and for your sweet thoughts on the article, moth designs, and the hat.

also--one more thing!  i have made a promise to myself this year to be much more organized about my photographs, and have upgraded my flickr account to pro for this very reason.  the photos on this blog are now linked to flickr, and you can see more photos there, if you like. 

now.  i must wash some dishes and such.  lovely sundays, all!

a giveaway (!) :: the new wee tab cap

last night i knit this wee cap.  this morning i decided to make it the first ever blog giveaway.

yes, this wee cap could be yours!  simply leave a comment at the end of this post--any ole' comment.  the comments will be open for one week, until the end of february.  on march 1st, the random number generator will find me a number from among your comments, and ta-da, a winner will be born.  the hat will be yours.   so, what do you have to lose?  leave a quick comment to say hello, salaam, bonjour, buenos dias...and if you are saying hello in any other language please teach me how! i will happily ship the hat anywhere, worldwide.

i loved knitting it so much--i made it up as i went along.  the details:  knitted in seed stitch on 16" bamboo rounds, size 13, with two strands of super soft vegan friendly acrylic yarn, not in the least bit itchy.  that button?  vintage, given to me as a gift by maryam of the hand of fatima, many moons ago.  that neckwarmer?  one that i knit for myself several weeks ago, the likes of which you can find at the shop.  my head is 22.5 inches round the largest part, and the hat fits me well, but it stretches quite a bit.  it has only been worn just this once, for the photo, by me, with my (very) short hair.

it could be yours!  best of luck ♥,  and thank you for reading.

thank you. and ice.

i first must thank all who contacted me yesterday with your warm words of support and enthusiasm for moth designs and the interview printed in the portland press herald.  being extremely self-critical, it helped much to hear from you and warmed my heart immensely.  i even received a call yesterday afternoon from an 81 year old gentleman living in cumberland, maine who had read the article and was interested in the work--what a lovely and sweet surprise.  we had a nice chat.  in addition to his interest in the arabic language themed work and arab culture, he was also interested in finding someone who can teach him calligraphy.  i wished i could have flown my good friend mokhtar bouba here to help him--alas he is off on a fellowship in jordan--too far to commute for lessons :).

i was feeling so carefree and light that this morning on my walk with gus i forsook my normal ice-shimmying for a confident stroll, and what happened--?  i slipped and fell flat on my back, cracking my head on the pavement.  it's a good thing i am a bit ras-qash...hard headed. :)

i thank you again.  and happiest of fridays!

in print.

on saturday, john rolfe of the portland press herald contacted me about conducting an interview for his weekly column SHOPTALK, to run today.  and so we did, and here it is--ta-da!--printed.  this is a screen shot from the online version, and you can click on the above photo to head over to the full article at the portland press herald website, or you can see a much more forgiving black and white photo in the printed version of today's paper.

it's a bit hard to talk about yourself, i think, and convey your message, and i think i am learning as time goes on.  i fear a bit from the article that i come off as unappreciative or disparaging of my homestay family in india--by no means is this the case.  i had a wonderful time in india and i am fascinated by its vast diversity of language, religion, and history.  also by no means were the experiences i had in morocco perfect--all cultures are complete with their strengths and weaknesses, as they are only a larger reflection of the individuals within them.  i sometimes fear that my work will be misread as 'pro' one thing or another.  certainly i cannot deny the fact that my personal life leads me to be especially vested in arab/african culture and the issues faced therein.  but the larger message here, through the small lens of my arabic-language themed work, is that we are all human, for better or worse.  we come from different lands and histories and languages, but we all have words for the things we all see, and feelings we all feel, the events in life we all experience. 

thank you, john rolfe, for taking the time to interview me--it is an honor.  and to doug jones, the photographer who visited yesterday morn--i so enjoyed meeting you and speaking with you.  here's to talking and learning!