Thursday, February 16, 2012

Books about maps

 From being a child I have considered maps as much potential reading matter as novels. It is to me magical how a labelled dot 'Marrakech'  ''Cape Town' ' Rio De Janiro'  could tell me so much about possibilty and adventure. I spent many a happy an hour pouring over an old family atlas, backed with aubergine hessian and containing such non existent places as Tanganika and Rhodesia. Even now it is rare I fly without ripping out the route maps in the in flight magazine for later enjoyment. And of course as a child the sketch maps in the cover of the Milly Molly Mandy books were almost better than the stories themselves.

One of my resolutions this year was to buy at least one art book a month. ( It's February and I have bought three and recieved two as gifts as my choice so I'm doing OK!) I think the next purhase should now be map related don't you? 

 

I already have this one ( and have pulled it out and placed it my bed) and I have been  researching  my options for a companion.

 

 Paula Scher featured in Map As Art but reading this article and looking at the images makes me want to see more of her images in closer detail. 

 

 

You Are Here seems to be about non- geographical maps, promising maps of moods, marriages and mythology.

 

The Amazon blurb for thos books states: In March 2008, graphic designer Kris Harzinski founded the Hand Drawn Map Association in order to collect just such drawings of the everyday. Fascinated by these accidental records of a moment in time, he soon amassed a wide variety of maps, ranging from simple directions to fictional maps, to maps of unusual places, including examples drawn by well-known historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton, and Alexander Calder. From Here to There celebrates these ephemeral documentsusually forgotten or tossed aside after having served their purposegiving them their due as artifacts representing stories from people's lives around the world?

Or, maybe I could keep my cash in the bank and just hang out on the Creative Mapping Blog ' a blog dedicated to the creative use of maps in art.'

3 comments:

Deborah Boschert said...

Yowza! So much to see, buy, read, study, ponder...

Brenda said...

I saw the Paula Scher Maps books at the De Young gallery shop in San Francoico (swoon) but didn't have room in my suitcase. It is a beauty!

Kristin L said...

Oh yes, lots to ponder. I have already been thinking that my map should be a map of the mind of sorts. I can totally relate to the cover of the Paula Scher book. With all the places i've been, might have gone to, and will go, my mind is a layered maze that feels just like her visual. Looks like IO need a trip to the library nor bookstore.