On April 1st, 2009 I received an e-mail the author Jorn Seemann, a graduate student at Lousiana State University, requesting to use my piece “The Modern Geographer” in an upcoming peer-reviewed article for the 10-year-anniversary issue of the Brazilian journal Pre-Posicoes (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP). I was expecting to have to send him a larger version of the work, but to my chagrin the on-line version was able to work for publication.

O quadro O geógrafo não é apenas um objeto perfeito para uma leitura geográfica de imagens, mas também uma fonte quase inesgotável de inspiração para discutir o passado, o presente e o futuro da geografia. A composição de cores, objetos e sombras abre espaço para interpretações múltiplas. Provavelmente nenhuma delas corresponderia ao que Vermeer tinha pensado quando pintava o quadro. O significado original pode perder-se no decorrer do tempo, mas isso não invalida as nossas ponderações. De forma semelhante às iniciativas dos geógrafos de desconstruir os mapas, as obras de arte também podem ser re-significadas como “meios de encontrar [finding] e depois criar [founding] novos projetos, efetivamente re-formando o que já existe.” (Corner, 1999, p. 224). Um exemplo do presente é o Geógrafo moderno, de Nikolas Schiller (Figura 8), que mostra clones do geógrafo cercando uma mulher cujo corpo é uma estampa de fotos aéreas de Washington, DC.

Starting earlier this month those who are subscribed to my listserv were given the opportunity to purchase a map at the reasonable price of $100. I felt this was a great way to cheaply obtain the different maps I have created over the years. Since I have hundreds of maps to choose from, this monthly opportunity will last for years and ultimately become a great way to collect my maps.

Previously I used to point people to my ImageKind Store, but I wasn’t pleased with some of the cheap papers the maps were printed on, and have chosen to remove the middle man, so to speak, and have all the map purchases go directly through me. This way I can control the materials the maps are printed on, personally sign each map, and ensure the quality for each map that is produced.

For the month of August, the first Monthly Map, I chose was Washington Monument Quilt (above), which I first rendered on January 31st, 2006. Since the area around the Washington Monument was redacted in the 2005 USGS aerial photography, I felt it was a worthwhile piece to start with.

After sending out my initial e-mail about the offering, I had a friend contact me about purchasing the map and decided to document some of the steps involved in the process of ordering the maps through me….

Photo of the tube the map is shipped inside of.

Step One – Payment

You can either contact me about sending cash or a check or you can quickly & easily pay the $100 by credit card on my PayPal merchant account page. After I receive the payment, I will need your mailing address if you want the map mailed to you. If you live in Washington, DC, I can either mail it to you or meet you in person and hand-deliver the map. I’ve found it easiest to go through PayPal because it’s quick and safe.

Photo of the rolled up map next to the shipping tube

Step Two – Printing

After I receive payment, I send the map to the printer. For the time being, my Monthly Map Sale is featuring 30″ x 20″ prints on Kodak PerfectTouch Paper. Throughout the last 5 years I’ve had the best results on this medium, both in quality of colors and durability of the paper. It’s also the same medium I used when I donated 8 maps to the Library of Congress in 2006. In about 3 days or less, I receive confirmation that the map has been printed and is in transit to me or you.

Photo of unrolled map of Washington Monument Quilt

Step Three – Shipping

I can have the map shipped directly to you as well (without signature, date, or label) for faster turnaround or I can have it shipped to my house. After the map arrives, I remove it from the shipping tube (above), carefully flip it over, label the name of the map, label the date it was originally rendered, label the date it was printed, and sign the map (below).

After this, I roll the map back up into the tube, add a little extra padding to ensure the map will not be damaged, then I bring it to the post office. Three days later it should be delivered to your mailbox. Or if the map is purchased locally, we can meet up and exchange the map in person.

Photo of the label, date, and partial signature

THATS IT! I think the whole process is pretty simple. In all this process takes about one or two weeks depending on the speed at which the payment is received and how long it takes for the map to be printed and shipped.

I think the hardest part of it all will be choosing which map to offer each month! Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing this month’s map or have suggestions for future Monthly Map offerings.

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A few days ago I started on a new commissioned map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The client made it somewhat easier for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). Unlike the previous two drafts, today’s drafts feature a far-away view of the area immediately around the Sculpture Garden.

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::

The other day I started on a new commissioned map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The client made it somewhat easier for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). Like the previous two drafts, today’s drafts feature a close-up view of the area around the Sculpture Garden.

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::

Yesterday I started on a new commissioned map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The client made it somewhat easier for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). Unlike yesterday’s two drafts, today’s drafts feature a close-up view of the area immediately around the Sculpture Garden. Tomorrow I plan on posting two more drafts featuring the close-up imagery…..

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::

Today I started on a new commissioned map. The client desires a map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Earlier this afternoon I e-mailed a series of eight draft maps so that they could select which one they liked best. The client made it somewhat easy for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). However, I made the choice somewhat more difficult by providing a map of the location at different spatial scales. The two drafts shown here reveal more of the area around the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art, while tomorrow’s drafts will show the area close up. Over the week I plan on posting the rest of these draft maps, and like my previous commissioned map, the final map of the series will be the one that gets printed out.

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

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: rendered at 900 X 600 :

The last two maps I created for this commission feature identical tessellations of the area around the Sandy Spring Friends School in Maryland, but shown at two different spatial scales.

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: rendered at 900 X 600 :

These two maps feature identical tessellations of the area around the Sandy Spring Friends School in Maryland, but shown at two different spatial scales.

: rendered at 900 X 600 :

: rendered at 900 X 600 :

These two maps feature identical tessellations of the area around the Sandy Spring Friends School in Maryland, but shown at two different spatial scales and rotate 22.5 degrees.

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I was looking at the Wikipedia entry on Aerial Bombing of Cities and came across the World War Two aerial photograph above. It shows the absolute destruction of the Nagasaki, Japan after the atomic bomb known as “Fat Man” was dropped from the sky and detonated in the heart of the city. Below is a screen grab from Google Maps showing a contemporary view of ground zero:

…from life to death to life… Its rather amazing how much development has taken place since the war ended over 60 years ago. I just hope this type of bombing never happens again.

In August of 2007 I posted the Quicktime Movie of Dupont Lenz Quilt Animation on this blog. I had not joined YouTube yet, nor had I released the contents of this website to search engines, so only recently have I begun to port some of my animations to other websites. Today I decided to upload the animation to Facebook and to YouTube.

The animation uses same layout from my map “Dupont Circle Quilt 2005.” The 30 second animation features two 15 second segments of the same imagery shown from two different perspectives. The modified aerial photography of Dupont Circle in Washington, DC is magnified using transparent glass spheres to create unique cartographic perspective.

Like the highway collapse of I-35 in Minneapolis, the partial collapse of the MacArthur Maze, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and the Columbine shootings, I’ve decided to make a map of the area around yesterday’s Metro crash site. Earlier today I downloaded the imagery of the site and found something I wasn’t expected. Not far from the actual crash site there is a Metro train on the tracks. While its not as interesting as the Ghost Cars on the I-35 bridge, I found it interesting that of all the locations for the Metro train to be when the plane flew over in March of 2005, the Metro train happens to be VERY close to the actual site of the tragedy.

So I just got done going through all of the 2006 blog entries counting up all the maps I made this year. It turns out that I made 206 maps in 2006! There are a few maps that I did not publish on my website, so the number is technically higher. I wonder if that is a record of some sort? Most maps made in one year by a sole cartographer. Well, it might be, but then again, my maps are not your traditional maps!

Check the complete listing after the fold…

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This map turned out perfect. The swaths from the airplanes that took the original photographs create an interesting color differential around the center and the site of the World Trade Center fell directly on a seam (check the details).

View the Google Map of lower Manhattan.

View Rendering Details:

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

I’ve decided to venture over the Potomac River and make a few maps of the Washington, DC hinterland. Up next will be Rosslyn and the CIA building.

I don’t know why I decided to make maps of the Pentagon & CIA, but I figured why not just focus on a couple buildings? Most of my maps are comprised of specific areas instead of specific buildings, so in some respects, while they are not technically different, these two maps are a slight departure from the norm.

View the Google Map of the Pentagon

: detail :

View the rest of the details: