1 September 03

A Map Book

The Ecotone Wiki is running a collective post today on Maps and Place. Please stop by and check out all the entries and please feel free to participate either by linking to your own post about maps and place or by joining the discussion!

map_book.jpgBelow is the text of an artist’s book I made a while ago as a present for my father, who loved maps and the understanding they conveyed. He could study a map of a place he had never been (Spanish military maps were superb, almost as good as the British Ordnance Survey Maps) and decide that THIS place would be a good spot to camp in (we wildcamped throughout the 1970s and 1980s in rural Spain). He was always right, down to the abundance of firewood he predicted just by looking at an unfolded sheet of paper.

We had our moments, my father and I, but talking about maps always makes me realize how much I miss him…

map_book_int.jpg

Map Book

I never told
anyone
THE SECRET
that Jennifer
& I looked
for years
in the Casa
de
Campo
on horseback
& amid the
ruins of
countless
Castilian
castles
for
an iron
RING
we were certain
would lead us
to buried
TREASURE
but we had
NO MAP

It took years
to discover
that the
Treasure
lies in the very
art of being
able to read
a map
at all.
(Thanks Dad.)

Posted by at 08:18 AM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. That’s really nice and inspiring. I wondered what some of the images in your book were of. I have sometimes made monoprints or etchings of my locality – “my” locality, with personal punctuations of the landscape. I have an idea that making a book takes more courage than working on a single sheet of paper. I think I might try working on a large sheet and folding it up map like.

    — Coup de Vent    1. September 2003, 12:19    Link
  2. I love reading about your life in Spain. It brings back floods of memories for me. I wish I could relive them. My Dad loved maps and compasses also – my sister and I have inherited the desire to search out the ruined abbeys and stone circles marked on the Ordinance Survey maps – we could spend days doing this whenever I visit her in England.

    — Jenny    1. September 2003, 13:38    Link
  3. The book looks great, and I just wish I could see it and hold it in my hands. Did he like it?

    — beth    2. September 2003, 10:49    Link
  4. Beautiful piece. On an aside, I think the Ordnance Survey maps are fantastic – such detail and accuracy. I am sure they would even show the cows in the meadows if the animals kept still long enough.

    — Geoff    4. September 2003, 14:35    Link

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