Celebrating Martin Luther King and Robbie Burns

Posted by Ellen Hamilton on January 14, 2021

January 15th is the birthday of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. One of Yellow Dot Shop's missions is to acknowledge the different cultures that live side by side in the US. I aim to carry items on the culture and history of African Americans, Native Americans and British Americans. For King's birthday, I embarked on my first two-color printing project that would require tightly registering the colors. I created this image of the Reverend starting with a photo and refined it down to simple shapes. I hand-inked the letters. It's a short print run of six posters and eight fabric banners, for framing or as wall art.

Dinner to Scottish Poet Robbie Burns

January 25th is the day that Scots celebrate the birthday of their beloved poet from the 1700's, Robert Burns. It's a nice tradition of having a hearty meal at the end of January, after the holidays are long gone. Haggis, mashed turnips and mashed potato are the required basics. We've celebrated it the last few years. It's customary for dinner guests to recite Burns poetry like "Address to a Haggis." Single malt whisky goes well, and traditional desserts of trifle or cranachan which include berries and cream.

I put together this little Burns booklet for our own dinners. It had the menu and list of attendees. I updated it for general use, saving the images, brief history of Burns, and two of his poems, in both Scots English and standard English. You can see it in my British Collection with Scottish and British items and books.