I had my last meeting with my mentor last week which was great. This past Saturday my advisor Deb came to my studio, and we were able to discuss my work and I handed in my last papers which was a relief. We further discussed maps and the idea of creating my own maps, and moving away from the set symbols used in maps we see everyday. What makes my map personal? I'm looking forward to spending time next semester experimenting with drawing my own maps, something which makes me a little hesitant but I want the challenge. Pushing my mediums of choice further and allowing myself to explore these current ideas more. Now just the critical theory reading and some more printing before the residency. After speaking with both my mentor and my advisor I am excited about where this new work can go and I can't wait for more feedback from the residency. I spoke with Deb about starting to make my own maps so I plan to try and sketch some before the residency. Since I'm going home for the holidays I plan to photograph at my childhood homes. Lately I've just been thinking about ideas discussed with Deb and Laura around my work and where I want this work to go. How maps fit into my process and project.

I can't believe it's December already where has the time gone. As I continue to think about maps in connection to my work I fine my self looking at the details closer and closer. Last night I spent more time tracing over maps onto transparency paper with sharpies. Taking out all the other information that while I love I'm still challenged with how it will fit with or next to my images. I'm working on where these transparencies can take my work by using just the lines of the maps information to make connections to my imagery. It was interesting as I spent more time analyzing the maps of places where I have lived I began to see small things I may not have realized or noticed before. Things that were different when I was a child like the space and time between towns and cities. I also began to think of tracing the lines as another way to think about travel and the roads/lines I travel to get to family and one place to the next.
How different the roads look when all the other information is removed. There is so much information in maps it's interesting how there is still some sort of information left by the line a crossing or way of making the path I have travelled. How then do these lines look when layered a jumbling of color and line makes me also think about my life currently going in a million different directions. Yet still with some sort of focus or endpoint. As I trace the maps I focused on highways in one color and water on most of the tracings. Just breaking down where the highways interact is so interesting. The other piece was how close I have been to water my whole life perhaps a silly fact but one I think I have taken for granted. Above are two examples I have scanned in with nothing done to them yet.
I found this quote in Real Simple magazine the other night.
"When I speak of home, I speak of the place where–in default of a better–those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should cal it by the same good name notwithstanding." -Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
The quote makes me think of home with my family...then I wonder which home? Regardless it comes back to ideas I currently think of that home is where you make it, where the people you love are around you. Thinking about different places especially as I come into the holidays with lots of travel on my plate before the residency begins.