After praising the canvas prints I recently received, I decided to order two more maps. The way I see it is that these maps will be paid off using the grant money because they are not cheap!! They should arrive in a couple weeks and with their arrival I am going to shuffle the artwork on the walls of my house around. I now have more work ready to hang than wall space available in my house!

I chose the Superdome Quilt – 1st Derivative #2 (or just Superdome Quilt #2) because it’s been Imagekind Curator’s Pick for awhile and because I think it fits the “Mars Gravior Sub Pace Latet” concept I’ve been playing with recently. I also chose Charlotte Spheres simply because I really want to see what it looks like printed out. The optical experimentation on that map should show up very nicely. Both will printed at 32″ x 48″ on Epson Piezo Pro Matte Canvas. This is the largest size that Imagekind has for stretched canvas.

: rendered at 9,000 X 6,000 :

Using a portion of Charlotte Spheres #1, I created this derivative map. I noticed that there was over-projection in some parts of the first map, so I under-projected this map to reduce further pixilation. The result is one of the most exquisite quilt projection maps yet! It has a nice assortment of aerial photography at multiple scales and the geometric designs of the original buildings standout quite nicely. I look forward to getting this printed eventually because it’s quite fun to look at.

Speaking of printing, I spent some of my hard-earned funds on a 60″ x 40″ canvas print of Federal Triangle Quilt #4. This is the largest printing I’ve ordered for myself. I joined Imagekind exactly one year ago and not once did I ever get around to purchasing one of my maps at it’s largest size and on the most expensive media. It’s not like I didn’t want to, but I just wasn’t sure which one to purchase. I have a $2,500 check arriving shortly from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities and I intend on purchasing quite a few more! Very excited.

One disappointment was how the canvas hangs using Poster Hangers. I hung it vertically and the sides of the canvas bend inward. I knew this was going to happen somewhat, but I was expecting so much bend– like a full two inches curving inward. Another interesting observation is how the texture of the canvas adds to the quilted nature of the projection technique. When it comes to quality and longevity of media, I think I’m going to do most of my future printing on canvas. It costs more, but I think it’s worth it.

Also arriving last week was Imagekind’s Sample Media Kit, which contains samples of all of the company’s media that my maps are printed on. It costs $15, but you get $15 off your next purchase, so it’s kind of worth it. My evaluation of the kit was rather simple: does it reflect too much light or does the paper/canvas tear? The winner, and what I printed Federal Triangle Quilt #4 and Israel / Palestine 1993 on, was the Epson Piezo Pro Matte Canvas.

View the Google Map of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina.

View the rest of the details:

: rendered at 15,000 X 10,000 :

About a week ago I noticed someone from Charlotte, North Carolina looked at my website multiple times. One time while they were exploring my website the person did a search for “Charlotte” and since I had not made a map of Charlotte yet, they didn’t find anything….

Using the same Lenz Projection elements used in Pentagon Spheres and Dupont Circle Lenz Quilt, I developed this unique map. However, unlike the Pentagon Spheres map, I arranged the height of the spheres in a different pattern and I used a diamond quilt projection for the background.

I am quite pleased with the results. Specifically, I like how the magnification varies perfectly on the left and right-hand side of the map. Below you can see a close up detail of two identical locations that were magnified differently. The magnification process is quite processor intensive which made this map take over 10 hours to render– the longest render time since I purchased my MacBook last year and I didn’t even render it at my standard size.

View the Google Map of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina.

: detail :

View the rest of the details:

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

So I made two Raleigh maps, but I totally screwed up on the second. Instead of intersecting two different planes, I only had one plane. I can’t believe I rendered such an incomplete map, but alas I did. I’ve opted to not post the second one because of it’s inherent error. Maybe I’ll get around to making another….but not anytime soon.

View the Google Map of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina

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