Vera Bar Moodmat
A painted bar portrait with dark red tentacles wrapped around both arms, die cut on twelve inches of recycled rubber. Art by Sean Dietrich, artist series run of 150.
The Print
Nobody at This Bar Is Alarmed
She is the whole composition and she is completely calm. Pale skin, dark red hair cut into heavy blunt bangs, a plain yellow tank top, and one hand raised beside her face holding a lit cigarette. Her eyes are half open and pointed somewhere past the frame. The pose is the ordinary end of a long evening, painted the way a portrait gets painted, with the skin tones built up in warm and cool passes rather than filled in flat, and it is drawn well enough that you could believe it was hanging in the bar it depicts.
Then you follow her arms. Dark red tentacles wind around both of them, thicken past the elbow, and spill forward across the bar top in front of her in slow loops that run out to the edge of the mat. They are the same deep red as her hair, which is not an accident, and they are rendered with the same brush the rest of the painting got rather than dropped in as a graphic. Whether they are hers, whether they are holding her, or whether she simply stopped caring is left entirely open. The picture makes the joke by refusing to react to it.
The surface is the last part of it. Ochre and mustard washes fill the background with the visible tooth of aged canvas underneath, so the color sits uneven and the edges of the figure breathe rather than snap. There is no reactive ink in the print, so a blacklight leaves it where it is. What you get is a painting on rubber at twelve inches, and it is one of the few mats we carry that would look right on a wall with no explanation attached.
Designed By
Sean Dietrich
Credited by name on the maker’s own page, which is why he is named here. Nothing biographical is claimed beyond that. What the print shows is a painter working in warm earth palettes with real brush handling, comfortable enough with a straight portrait to spend most of the surface on a calm face and then let one strange idea run through it without ever raising the volume.
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On Video
See It In Hand
Photos only get you so far. This is the actual piece, shot in our hands, so you can see the scale, the finish and how it behaves in real light before you buy it.
Made in New Jersey Since 2009
Rubber That Already Had a First Life
Moodmats started with scraps from old wetsuits and discarded scuba and surf neoprene, material that was headed straight for a landfill. That became Lava Rubber, and Lava Rubber is what every Moodmat is cut from. The feedstock now comes from wetsuits, gaskets, weatherstripping, seat molds, and other clean scrap that gets collected or donated. More than two tons of it moves through the New Jersey shop every month, gets pressed into sheet stock, then die-cut and screen printed. Keeping that material out of the ground has been the point from day one.
Closed-Cell Neoprene
Closed-cell rubber does not drink up what you spill on it. Water, reclaim, and terp splash sit on the surface instead of soaking in, so a wipe with soapy water puts it back to new.
It Stays Put
The rubber grips whatever it is sitting on and grips whatever you set on top. A rig that would skate across a glass table or a finished desk stops moving the second it lands on a Moodmat.
Tough and Self-Extinguishing
Heat resistant, self-extinguishing, and built out of material that already survived a first life. This is not a printed coaster that curls after a month on the table.
Where People Actually Put These
It Does Not Have to Hold a Rig
A Moodmat protects a surface and grips what sits on it. Whether that thing is a banger, a camera, or nothing at all is up to you. They are called Moodmats for a reason. Pick the one that matches how you feel and put it wherever it belongs.
Rig and Glass Pad
The job it was built for. Keeps glass off hard surfaces and keeps hard surfaces off your glass.
Display Surface
Figures, models, controllers, dice, cameras, watches. Anything worth setting on something intentional.
Wall Art
Plenty of these never touch a table. Hang it, frame it, or pin it behind the setup and let the print do the work.
Desk and Everyday
Trivet for hot pans, landing spot for keys, pad under a pet bowl, cushion on a camp table.
Why It Matters
Runs End. Prints Do Not Come Back.
Moodmats print in runs, and runs end. Once a design is out, it is out. Artist collabs and drop exclusives regularly land in quantities of ten to twenty five pieces, which is why the people who collect these track drops, trade them, and frame the ones they will never put a rig on. If this specific print matters to you, the time to grab it is while it is still on the shelf.
A Run of One Hundred Fifty
One hundred fifty is the whole production for this design. There is no hand inked number anywhere on the piece, so the run size is what we quote and we are not going to invent a position inside it. Moodmats rotates artist collaborations out of the catalog when a run finishes and does not go back and print a design again, which is what makes the number worth stating at all. We have one.
No Reprints
Moodmats does not go back and run a sold-out design again. When this one is gone from our shelf and theirs, the only way to get it is from somebody who already has one.
Worth Hanging
A print this limited does not have to earn its keep under a rig. Plenty of these end up on a wall, in a frame, or stacked with the rest of a collection.
The Details
Specs and Care
| Size | 12 inches at the widest point, approximate |
| Shape | Die-cut to the artwork, irregular outline |
| Material | 100% upcycled closed-cell rubber, Lava Rubber stock |
| Screen printed, full color, standard ink | |
| UV | None. Standard ink only |
| Artist | Sean Dietrich |
| Edition | Run of 150, not individually numbered |
| Origin | Made in New Jersey, USA |
Wipe it down with warm water and a little dish soap, then let it air dry flat. That is the whole routine. Do not run it through a washing machine or a dryer, do not scrub the print with an abrasive pad, and do not rest a lit torch or a glowing-hot banger directly on the surface. Use a stand or a puck for anything still at temperature.
Straight Talk
Know Before You Buy
Upcycled Means Variation
The rubber is reclaimed scrap, so base color, speckle, and surface texture shift slightly from sheet to sheet. Two mats of the same design will not be photocopies of each other. That is how you know it is the real material and not virgin stock.
Heat Resistant, Not Heatproof
The rubber is self-extinguishing and handles warm gear without complaint. It is not a torch pad. Park anything still glowing on a proper stand or a quartz puck, not on the print.
No UV on This One
Standard ink, full color, no reactive application anywhere in the print. A blacklight does nothing to it. Plenty of Moodmats do light up under a lamp and this design is not among them, and we would rather tell you now than have you set one over it and wait.
Die-Cut Means Irregular Edges
The cut follows the painted composition, so the outline bulges where the tentacles run out and pulls in elsewhere. The listed twelve inches is the widest point across rather than a uniform footprint, and the narrow sections are the thinnest rubber on the piece. Measure your space if it is tight and keep your rig toward the middle.
These Are the Maker’s Photos For Now
One of these is on our shelf and the image on this page is not a picture of it. It is the manufacturer product shot, so read it as an accurate look at the print rather than at the exact sheet. Reclaimed rubber shifts in base speckle from mat to mat, which matters more than usual here because the background is a soft wash. Our own photos are on the list.
Set the Mood
Recycled rubber, made in the USA, printed with art worth looking at. Free shipping on orders over $75, and every order ships from a veteran-owned small business.
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