Globe Article on Beth and Seth Marois

Fit to a tee
Local designers make art of the old cotton standby


FAMILY DINNER FOR ONE
There was no plan for the kittens to take over the T-shirts produced by Family Dinner for One. They just managed to cast their cute, furry spell over the husband and wife team of Seth, 30, and Beth Marois, 28. The pair make tees that simply say "Kittens!" and others that show naughty cartoon kittens, complete with black bars over their eyes. But please, don't assume the Somerville designers subscribe to Cat Fancy magazine.

"My point of view is mockery," Seth says with a grin. "For instance, for the past few years, I've found warning symbols to be very funny. So I created a line of shirts that warn against things like putting your head in a microwave."

Seth and Beth started Family Dinner for One two years ago, when Seth realized it was much easier to get his art on T-shirts than into galleries. They focus on tees that play with familiar images but present them in unusual ways. One tee sports a lobster playing with a ball of yarn. Another series borrows the genial chef found on most pizza boxes, but instead of a pizza, he's sporting nunchakus, or a great white shark. The line is aptly titled "Pizza or die."

"A lot of kids get out of art school and don't know what to do," Beth says. "Most of the people we know who make T-shihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrts are also fine artists."

www.familydinnerforone.com