I have enjoyed creating original maps for many years. When I
was in the fourth grade we studied about Christopher Columbus.
As part of a project I made a map of the Atlantic Ocean with
drawings of his ships in the middle. To make it look old I ripped
the edges of the paper and curled it up. It was fun to make pretend
maps for myself. I made maps for Treasure Island and maps for
George Washington. I discovered how to use an iron to scorch
the edges to make it look suitably authentic. On the way I became
interested in calligraphy and drawing with pen and ink.
It was the beginning of my fascination
with the art and science of cartography. The whole idea of making
a drawing that depicts a birds-eye view of the world I find intriguing.
There are so many different ways that different map makers used
to explain mountains, swamps and rivers. Old maps can tell us
about a different time and can show how things have changed.
Old historic maps are beautiful as art,
with ornate borders and lettering. Illustrations are more than
decoration, often giving graphic details about the natives and
flora and fauna of a region. The distortions of coastlines, due
to a lack of longitude coordinates, gives an old map a romantic
look. Now with satellite imagery and digital plotting, maps are
more dependable. We can read the neat lines and uniform symbols
on a contemporary map to find our way.
As an artist, I look for the middle
ground. I want to make a map expressive and readable in terms
of showing a place and time but give it that antique look I find
so fascinating. I want to create a map that is accurate but visually
interesting.
My native Chesapeake Bay region seems
an ideal subject for illustrative maps, and I have created many
of them. One of the earliest was printed in a signed and numbered
edition of 500 in 1982. Chesapeake Bay Tidewater Region was printed
with brown ink on a parchment type paper. When first sales proved
slow I began to watercolor each print until I had colored almost
the whole edition.
*Until the recent discovery in my studio
of a few copies of the hand colored map, it was thought this
edition had been sold out. Apparently these are part of my personal
reserve of the edition, these are low numbers, all below 50.
Each is signed, numbered and hand colored. Offers considered.
A couple years later I printed another
Chesapeake
Bay map, this one a color poster sized
18x24 edition, signed but not numbered or limited. Copies of
this are available at $30. (Includes shipping)
My interest in maps was brought to the
attention of local writer, John V. Dennis, and he asked me to
make full page illustrated maps for his book Great Cypress Swamps.
Some of the swamps proved to be a challenge as I struggled to
find a way to express contrasts of bog, floating islands, water
and firm land.
Since making the swamp maps, I have
made maps of hummingbird migratory routes and nature trails,
river systems and nesting sites for Mr. Dennis, The Chesapeake
Bay Foundation, The Nature Conservancy and others.
When developing the design for a mural
at Furnace Town Historic site near Snow Hill, MD I needed to
show the area as it might have looked in 1830. Rather than show
a limited scene, I decided to create a birds-eye view of the
area. Based on research and imagination, the result is a kind
of map, with painted curled parchment edges and shadows. A small
industrial town is busy with workers carrying bundles and a farmer
plowing his field. Children run and play or carry water and do
chores. Dozens of buildings and over 150 figures make this mural
popular with visitors. Children like to look at the different
areas and discover the little details; a cat chasing a mouse,
otters in the water, boys fishing.
After completing the mural in 1999 I
turned back to a project I have been researching several years;
Henry Norwood. When I read Norwood's account of his visit to
the Eastern Shore in 1650, mapping his travels was my first impulse.
As I studied satellite photographs and old and new maps, I gradually
added more details to the story through the maps. I found where
he was from and many of the places he visited. I pored over every
old map I could find to see how the Chesapeake area was viewed
through the centuries.
I found that the maps made by Captain
John Smith in the early part of the 1600s were still in use for
most of that century, and had been updated and improved and reprinted
many times. The settlers were established on the lower part of
the Eastern Shore early in seventeenth century but it was 1700
before maps were more than vague about the middle part of the
Delmarva Peninsula.
I was fascinated to see that one of
the maps made by Auguste Hermann for the Calverts of Maryland
is remarkably like the satellite photograph of the same region.
The satellite view is at just enough of an angle to distort the
image in the same way as the old map. Hermann was amazingly accurate
considering the level of technology at the time.
The design for the book cover is based
on the satellite photograph and created as an antique styled
map. There are few place names but it is made from Norwood's
viewpoint and generally includes only what he knew and is meant
only as illustration.
Cavalier's Adventure contains many maps
intended for information, and these are not as ornate. The page
size restrictions limits the amount of content possible so they
are designed plainly. The only exception is the Frontspiece,
another illustrative map of the region.
For an artist interested interest in
the history and heritage of a region, map making was a natural
direction. Drawing maps in an old style gives me a sense of connection
with those that made or pored over maps and dreamed of distant
places.
