T Shirts!

I met Mary and Nabil at the "Bizarre Bizarre" - a big hodgepodge of vendors in the South End a few months ago.  I fell immediately in love with Mary's work - she blends images with Arabic words to create a sort of conversation about our world, human beings, Arabic language, cultural exchange and other things.  I saw these three shirts and said to myself: They will be mine.

Says: Kiss Me I'm Irish

Says: "Breakfast"

Says: "Glasses"

This happened right around the time that I was starting to think about silk screening some of my own T shirts.  I came up with a few designs (which most people agreed were awful) and was still trying to work out something good when I met Mary and Nabil.  I had already been thinking about having my name in Persian on my shirts...it was a little too perfect.  So I ran the idea by Mary, she was excited about it - and the rest is history.  I am now the proud owner of 100 shirts with guitars that say Nima Samimi in Persian (read it "backwards" now, don't confuse yourself.)

Here's my big box of shirts

My friend Ania

With her partner Ralf

Mary was kind enough to let me make a short movie of her silk screening operation (if you're like me and you love learning about how people make things, this one's for you.)

You can see the rest of Mary's work on her website,
http://www.mothwritten.com/.