Kathryn Rodrigues

Kathryn Rodrigues, a Chicago based artist, says that maps are an enormous inspiration to her and her work.


Where Land Ends and Sea Begins #3, 2007. Mixed media.

By the time I was beginning high school, my family had moved ten times. This transient lifestyle left me with a deep interest in geography, memory and cultural identity. I see maps as being the intersection of these three subjects. They are able to reflect both home and abroad, the known and unknown, belonging and longing. It is precisely this ambiguity that continues to intrigue me. By referencing both visual and symbolic aspects of maps, I have recreated the process of investigating what and where I have come from, and the world around me today.

Germany. 2008. Photogram.


#230

Flounder Lee

Flounder Lee is an artist currently living in Indianapolis. He describes his work as dealing with "the intersections and interactions between things. The intersections between public and private, art and life, history and the present, among others, have always informed my work. I use mapping and indexing to recreate/reconstruct the space-time surrounding my life."

One of his current project is titled, Treaties:

"Treaties between Europeans and aboriginals were made and broken time and again. Many were never even recognized by the tribes that supposedly signed them. Even if they were never formally recognized, I plan on exploring the boundaries of these lands the treaties set out for my native ancestors by my European ancestors. After finding the historical reference maps and plotting the boundaries, with modern equipment such as a GPS, Google Earth, and a camera as my guide, I will go out and find these borders in the landscape and photograph both inside and outside the imaginary lines set down in these treaties."

Lee combines maps from the Library of Congress with his photographs:



72 (Indiana/Delaware, Potawatomi, Miami and Eel River Miami)


#216

Colombian Joe

Let a map of Colombia help you wake up this morning:


Colombia beautiful land by getuchito
For the Worth1000 Nationalism 7 contest.

More about coffee, and other exports from Colombia.


#215

Why Guys Won't Ask For Directions Part 2

Why Guys Won't Ask For Directions Part 1



From PostSecret.com, the repository of secrets on postcards.

Carto-Kudos to the first Carto-Commenter who can identify the city depicted on this postcard

Ding Ding Ding! Of course it is Bangkok. First place goes to Brian!


#202

Make Your Own Map Purse

Sonya Style is a do-it-yourself site of arts & crafts ideas, cooking, decorating and gardening, by Sonya Nimri.

Here she offers step-by-step instructions on how you can make your own map purse! Make one of the city are visiting and you won't need to carry an additional map.

I especially like the added touch of the toy car "latch".

Ohio on a Stick

Some of you may have noticed my recent experimentation with selling advertising space to Project Wonderful. It is an interesting model for buying an selling ads. That little ad box in the upper right portion of this page does not, I think, usually offend.If anything, the ads are often a little silly and irrelevant to the topic of this blog (online comics, fan fiction, t-shirts). I have so far made a grand total of $0.27!

Just imagine my suprise when, this morning, I looked at my blog and found an ad for "Original Map Paintings." The ad links to an online shop at Etsy, an online community where members can buy and sell "all things handmade".

The art featured in this shop is by Erik Maldre. He calls the two examples posted here Ohio on a Stick and Estonia on a Stick.

From the Artist's Statement:

The second reality is clearly defined by the title of each piece. "'Region' on a Stick No. 'X'" perpetuates beyond the representational notions of a map by suggesting that the represented region is a physical object unto itself. Ironically enough, the duality of representation comes full circle for the suggested physical object is still a representation of such due to its physically painted nature.

Erik, I love this stuff. If you had sent me a link, I would have plugged your site for free! (Like I'm doing now.) Although, as long as you maintain the Project Wonderful ad, your link will remain at the top of the front page...

Swarovski Globe

Milan Design Week 2008: Swarovski Crystal Palace



Via MocoLoco

ComplexCity

ComplexCity by Lee Jang Sub:



Artist's Statement:

This project is an exploration to find a concealed aesthetic by using the pattern formed by the roads of the city which have been growing and evolving randomly through time, thus composing the complex configuration we experience today.

I perceive the city's patterns as living creatures that I recompose to form an urban image.

This project which started from Seoul where I was born and have grown in, is expanding to other cities all over the world.

Via MocoLoco

Cows of the World, Unite!

In honor of May Day



Image created by John Rieger

Nothing to do with maps, but my favorite book about cows: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin.

When Farmer Brown refuses to comply with the their demands, the cows take action...




Thanks to Hunter for sending the cow map

North America Wired

Wire sculpture by Elizabeth Berrien

The artist, "often felt that the intricate, organic lines of our living planet and its features - continents, great river and mountain ranges would make a glorious translation into wire."

Indeed it does.


Via Her Majesty of Maps

Why Guys Won't Ask For Directions

From PostSecret.com, the repository of secrets on postcards.

Say Yes! to Italy

The other day, I wrote about Michigan, "the most anthropomorphic" state. If you know anyone from Michigan, you have probably experienced the phenomenon wherein the Michiganian points to a spot on his palm and says, "I was born here, in Pontiac," or "my family has a summer cottage here, in the thumb."

The most anthropomorphic nation is, of course, Italy. So, do Italians, when describing a location in their home country, point to their leg?



Made in Italy By ivanas
for the Worth1000.com "Nationalism 6" contest.

Additional clever photoshoped maps from Worth1000.com:

Brenda Jones at Rosewood

Thanks to Ms. Cartophiliac for dragging me out to the Rosewood Gallery in Kettering, Ohio, near Dayton. The current exhibit includes the fiber art work of Brenda Jones... with maps! Hurry if you want to see. It is only here until April 25.

From the Kettering-Oakwood Times:

Brenda Jones, of Cheney, KS, received her MA in painting and photography from the Wichita State University in Wichita, KS. She is currently teaching art at Wichita East High School and at Friends University in Wichita. Jones has received the Fullbright Award to teach and study in Argentina and the Japan Fullbright Memorial Fund to study the role of the kimono in Japan. The clothing articles are primarily aprons and jackets, which are reminiscent of women, remembered, imagined and known.

With each hand-sewn piece, she addresses women’s issues and feels more connected to her grandmother, who was an alterations lady for a major department store. The works are bigger than life sized and created mainly from paper, but include more unique materials such as tea bags, chopsticks, wax, seaweed, used coffee filters and used drier sheets.

... and maps!

I wrote to Brenda for more information, and she sent a photo of this piece, Willa's Milky Way, "Which is made almost entirely of maps... Nebraska/Colorado. It's really about Willa Cather (one of my favorite authors) and the traditional quilt block pattern "Milky Way"."



"Actually, I use maps in the work often to signify a geographic place where I was when those thoughts were going through my head. Also, I sometimes use them because they really give a place to the person I was thinking of. Or, sometimes it is simply because they symbolize some time of journey to me and most of the works do have something to do with a journey of some sort or another...whether it is mental or geographic."



Some samples of her work can be seen here on the Rosewood site, and additional work can be seen at her online gallery at ArtCloud.com.

Thank you, Brenda. Your work is a treat!

Apple and Potatoe Worlds

Kevin Van Aelst's color photographs "include every day foods and objects: bread, doughnuts, crackers, candy, floor tile, sweaters, and lint. These simple materials are arranged into shapes and patterns inspired by formulas found in science and mathematics, such as fractal geometry, chaos theory, biology and chemistry."

And geography!

Apple Globe, 2007, Digital C-Print




_________________________________________

Discovering that crunchy map reminded me to pull out and scan this advertisement I saved from a restaurant industry magazine back in the 1990's.

McCain Foods Limited, is the world's largest producer of frozen french fries.

Sadly, neither of these works of art can be found in any museum. Hopefully they ended up on someone's plate...

On the Road to...?

It has not been my intention to turn this blog into a "Maps as Art" blog... but it certainly feels like it, lately. There have been so many good ones that have come my way...

I have been reading You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination, edited by Katharine Harmon. This book consists of dozens of excellent examples of "maps as art". Many of them have been featured here and on other map blogs (such as Strange Maps). Buy the book, or see a large portion of it on Google Books. I would love to reproduce all of the images here, but that is more than a bit out-of-bounds. So I'll leave you with this colorful and entertaining painting by Howard Finster:

Howard Finster, All Roads One Road Headed the Same Way, 1978

Baptist preacher and renowned folk artist Howard Finster (1916-2001) devoted his life to art and his art to God... [Finster's map] generously offers many routes to a paradise that is detailed in its delights.

Folks who are not familiar with outsider art may not recognize the name Howard Finster, but music fans might recognize the cover art he did for the Talking Heads album, Little Creatures, which ironicaly, included a song titled "Road To Nowhere" AND a globe!

_______________________
Ms. Cartophiliac was an Art History major in college and completed her senior thesis on outsider artists. Thus, I have been introduced to the chaotic delights of outsider art. Our favoritest museum in the whole world is the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, where many examples of this art genre can be found.

Ms. Cartophiliac is the proud owner of this small Howard Finster sculpture. Unfortunately, we have been obliged to keep it safely stowed away in a closet. Our feline roommates are way too fond of knocking things off of shelves for the fun of it.

Preserving the Map in the Tent of Tomorrow

The New York Times is reporting today about efforts to preserve a half-acre terrazzo road map of New York State from the 1964-65 World’s Fair. "The map is hidden from public view on the floor of the abandoned, roofless Tent of Tomorrow in the New York State Pavilion, at what is now Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. The 130-by-166-foot map has cracked and crumbled badly."

From the Tent of Tomorrow website:

The Tent of Tomorrow was the world's largest roadmap. Sponsored by Texaco, this giant facsimile of the Rand McNally map of New York state was composed of large squares of polished Terrazzo. The Map was one of the most popular features of the World's Fair, especially among residents of New York, who"walked the map" looking for their home town. For the 1965 season, many more towns were added to the map at the request of fairgoers who noticed their town missing during the 1964 season.

Here'a photo of how it looked when it was fresh and new:



Here is one of the tiles today still in fairly good condition:



The Queens Museum of Art currently has a exhibit in conjunction with the pilot conservation program. The site includes an interactive locator map.

Heavy Metal USA

This weighty piece of geographic art is on display in the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University:



Artist: Ian Brennan

Via Dan Cohen's Digital Humanities Blog. Thanks again, Jerad

Bubblegum World

More map art. A bubblegum world... Better or worse than an Absolut World?

Bubblegumization, by Mike Estabrook. "Bubblegum and Wrappers on Canvas 2003. 60 X 84 in. This is a world map made entirely out of bubblegum and their wrappers. It is a pun on the globalizing of consumerist culture."

More of his work can bee seen at ArtCodex and re-title.com.

Map Impact

I am already a big fan of Worth 1000, an image manipulation contest site. It is always fun to browse their galleries and see what these PhotoShop wizards will create next. Of course, this image is my current favorite:



This entry, Map Impact, by "doehlman" was entered in the Liquid Assets 8 contest: "For this contest, you should swap any liquid with another object."

Creator Comments: A strawberry hits the big apple

Take Manhattan

For your entertainment, two views of New York City:

Places & Spaces presents "New York - Global Island" by Danielle Hartman. "This image of Manhattan presents New York literally as a global island. Country shapes are arranged into the form of Manhattan. The circular title reintroduces the shape of the globe. This map is inspired by the international diversity if New York’s residents." Based on 2000 Census Data.

_________________________________________________

From Appealing Industries, an animated GIF starts with a blank subway map and draws each line in the sequence in which it was built.





Via the Manhattan Users Guide.

Elisabeth Lecourt Map-Wear

In one of my very earliest Cartophilia posts, I commented on maps as art, by highlighting the clothing-art work of paper sculpture artist Jennifer Collier. Yet another maps-clothing-artist comes to my attention:



Elizabeth Lecourt uses maps to sculpt clothing. In the October 5, 2005 issue of Step Inside Design Magazine, Mary Fitcher said:

... Technically she's not a fashion designer, however, Elisabeth Lecourt (a French student of art in England) is turning heads with her intriguing line of map-wear. She folds and cuts individual maps by region to produce clothes not to be worn but rather hung. To date she has pressed and ironed 60 pieces of faux garments, mostly pleated parochial dresses and button-down shirts made out of modern maps. Universal by nature, her work is popular wherever shown...

Thanks to Ms. Cartophiliac for pointing me in the direction of this cartographic artist.

Be My Cartographic Valentine

Happy Cartographic Valentine's Day...


From PostSecret, an ongoing community art project where people mail
in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.


From mediatinker, an artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer, web guru, general know-it-all, or empress of everything.


From The European Heart, a sculpture project by Anton Krajnc.


From Ernest Dudley Chase, A Pictorial Map of Loveland (1943), as seen in You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katharine Harmon


From Art By the Yard, devoted to paper, fiber and book arts, the materials that comprise them and the artists who pursue them!


From Find Croatia, a web site dedicated to travellers and visitors to Croatia.

Ohio Quilt

One of my local boardgaming groups meets several times per month at Sew-In-Style, a Sewing School for adults and kids. They have a nice room in the back with big tables. I cannot help but appreciate one of the room's decorative quilt wall hangings.

Artist: Cheryl Richards

Mapping the Imagination - Exhibit

Mapping the Imagination, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
3 October 2007 - 27 April 2008

Maps are simplified schematic diagrams that employ a universal visual language through which we codify and comprehend our world. We all use maps in our daily lives as sources of information about places, routes, networks and boundaries. They offer us the means of describing and understanding the intangible too - everything from air routes and constellations to states of mind.

Although mapping is a method of gathering, ordering and recording knowledge, all maps are to some extent the products of imagination. No map is ever the truly objective description of a place that it purports to be. Every map is shaped - and coloured - by political, cultural and social conditions, and by the personal experience or imaginative projections of its maker.

This display includes maps made to inform or to entertain, maps enhanced by imaginative embellishments, maps that show imaginary places, and works in which artists have adapted map iconography to express their ideas and experiences of place.

Bloggers Read Blogs

I checked my stats and found that several more blogs have linked to, or commented about Cartophilia.com. As always, thanks for the plug. And now to return the favor:

I been getting lots of visitors recently from Gadling.com Not a "map blog" but a blog about travel (and travelers, must by necessity, appreciate maps!). However, we also have something else in common. One of the blog writers is named "Jamie" and s/he loves The Amazing Race as much as I do!

Contours is the Official Blog of National Geographic Maps, publishers of reference maps, outdoor recreation maps and mapping software, and professional mapping applications.

Recently they took a look at Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition, and they say the entry on Afghanistan made them cry. Can't say I blame them (but it is still funny, in a macabre way...).

Postcards from Bloggerville is published by a psychologist and writer who has a poetic apreciation of maps.

WHAT IS THE CENTER AND LAYOUT OF YOUR MENTAL GPS SYSTEM?

Do you carry an inner map of the world? Of your life? Of your body?

How do you or don't you use maps in your life?

What is your map of your yourself?

He She writes about many kinds of maps, of places... or persons...

Phillipe Boukobza takes a different tack with his Visual Mapping. He is interested in how ideas are mapped.

A mindmap sketch from John Clapp.

Paula Scher: The Maps

As I have commented several times, maps are more than "a how to get there guide". Maps as an element of design can be used to evoke an emotional response. When artists use maps as a theme in their work, I always want to take a closer look.

The Maya Stendhal Gallery in New York frequently features the work of Paula Scher.

"Renowned graphic designer Paula Scher [creates] intricate, colorful and obsessively detailed maps of different regions of the world."

World 1998
77" x 56.5"
Acrylic on canvas

Maps not only decorate but send subtle or subliminal messages

Today I finished re-reading How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier. In his epilogue, he summed up, in part, what this blog is all about:

Let me conclude with a cautionary note about the increased likelihood of cartographic distortion when a map must play the dual role of both informing and impressing its audience. Savvy map viewers must recognize that not all maps are intended solely to inform the viewer about location or geographic relationships. As visual stimuli, maps can look pretty, intriguing, or important. As graphic fashion statements, maps not only decorate but send subtle or subliminal messages about their authors, sponsors, or publishers.

Maps as Art

Jennifer Collier, of Stafford, England, creates "innovative textiles and craft pieces using natural and found materials". Naturally, I am partial to her use of maps in creating sculptures of shoes and dresses: