The antiquated cartographer

This post’s title just sounds like a Casanova-like, monocle-wearing gentleman- but really it’s about a great site I stumbled upon (via StumbleUpon), simply known as (and I quote only about 1/4 of the shit between the <title> tags):

“Antique Maps, Old maps, Vintage Maps, Antique Atlases, Old Atlases,antique maps, old maps, vintage maps, antique atlases, old atlases, vintage atlases, antique charts, old charts, vintage charts,antique sea charts, old sea charts, vintage sea charts,antique maps of America, antique maps of the world, antique maps of Asia, antique maps of Australia, antique maps of Africa, antique maps of Europe,antique America maps, antique world maps, antique Asia maps, antique Australia maps, antique Africa maps, antique Europe maps,old maps of America, old maps of the world, old maps of Asia, old maps of Australia, old maps of Africa“

Ridiculously self-explanatory, inn’it?

And what’s what, most of them are for sale. However, if you don’t want to drop an undisclosed amount on a flimsy piece of ancient parchment detailed with out-of-date borders and laughable proportions, you can always click-to-see the high-res scans/photos of each map, and download/print at your leisure.

The Biggest Drawing In The World: Updated

On the 17th of March, 2008, Swedish artist Erik Nordenankar sent off a briefcase containing a GPS unit with the express transportation company DHL. 55 days later, the package returned to Stockholm with its journey around the world recorded on the GPS. What the data translated to was a giant self-portrait of the artist, which had traveled through 6 continents and 62 countries and comprised of one 110,664 km long stroke.

On his site, you can find his travel instructions given to DHL (which is extensive, and also available as a poster-size PDF), a video of the briefcase’s journey (and at times even Nardenankar himself accompanies the case wearing a ‘VISITOR’ DHL vest and pushing giant pallets of cargo around in their warehouses and planes), and of course the drawing itself. Below is a video showing highlights of the trip:

Truly a remarkable piece of work, and sort of reminds me of Chairface Chippendale’s failed attempt to carve his face in the moon, though obviously more successful.

UPDATE:

Thought a pretty neat idea, this project has been (to my understanding) logically debunked over on MetaFilter.

Beagle notes:

If you blow up the map by clicking on it, the scrolling line of the drawing becomes a series of straight line segments. The end points of those segments match the coordinates in the “instructions to DHL” chart/poster, which can be blown up as a PDF via the link below it. So, if this is to be believed, DHL followed instructions to make a long series of pointless flights (refuelling in mid-air?) all over the world. Not to be believed, clearly.

By the way, DHL, FedEx and the rest don’t ship stuff point to point like this. It all goes through hubs. I don’t know where DHL’s hubs are, but anything you ship by FedEx in the US flies to Memphis overnight, gets sorted, and flies out to the destination airport. So a series of multiple shipments would result in a starburst-shaped drawing, not a portrait.

Dave Faris comments on the unbelievably short amount of time it supposedly took to complete the project, given Beagle’s observation above:

Not to mention time. If this is some dude’s senior project, he had to have conceived it in, oh, 1969.

The Creative Process of Finding A Motif

Tonight I’ve opened a new blog in the saturated ‘blog-o-sphere’ to rekindle my creative impulses, and to help shape them into a focused initiative.

Tonight I was introduced to Charlie Harper’s (1922-2007) amazing geometrical wildlife illustrations. To make a point, and to parallel this blog’s creation with his work, let me introduce you to a immediate favorite of mine, Quail Safe:

Harper’s work is, at first glance, complicated; while at the same time maintaining an amazing simplicity. To me, this seems to call for extreme control and careful planning. He must have spent years crafting his style, working through various stages of impulse and refinement, until he arrived at the misleadingly simple technique.

When I first saw this piece, I thought ‘I wish I had come up with that style- so simple and yet so elegant’, as though it was something that immediately came to him when he touched pen to paper. It was only after browsing a few other pieces of his that the obvious occurred to me- that this was a complex execution of elements he had worked out over a good span of time. This is what I call The Creative Process of Finding A Motif.

I’ve always understood, but rarely took into account, that an artist’s style is cultivated as he grows. No one (or extremely rarely, in the case of exceptions) does one start with such a solid, personal vision in mind that they don’t alter it in the course of things. Perhaps one might refuse to abandon their style they begin with, but this can only be seen as stubborn and stunting.

And so to draw on that process as a parallel to this new blog, I’m starting with a veritable mish-mash of styles running through my head right now, and only over the life of this blog will they come to be refined. Right now, this blog is purposeless- in the sense that it has every purpose open to it. I will post interesting videos, articles, and other such bytes as well as personal work, journal entries, and random entities. Only over time will that motif come out of the e-woodwork, you could say.

If no one follows this blog, its main purpose will not suffer. It will remain my favored tool in this round of the creative process. If anyone chooses to stick with me, my experience can only be augmented. It’s not clear how things will shape up, but until then (and beyond) I’ll certainly enjoy it.

Cheers.

for more information on Charlie Harper, check out the resources (found on this Drawn! article) below:

Charlie Harper on Wikipedia
Audio interview with Todd Oldham
Charlie Harper illustrations fanclub on Flickr
Video interview on Handmade Modern