My self portrait is inspired by a family property in the mountains of Northern California where I spent much of my childhood (pictured above). Many important events in my life are associated with this place and I have mapped my emotions and states of being onto different parts of the landscape, or my interpretation of it. In order to express some of the thoughts and stories behind my associations, I decided to outline paths, rivers, and mountains with my words and memories.
As shown in some of these sketches, I initially pictured this map in a rectangular shape. I had to start my draft over recently, however, because I am currently favoring the round layout, shown in a rough sketch above, because it would represent my repeated return to this place at different stages in my life. Further, many of the things depicted in this map are things that have not yet come to be, or will occur again in my life and I feel that the round map would reflect that.
I was inspired by the Denis Wood chapter, “Maps Blossom in the Springtime of the State”. The idea that struck me was that maps are often representations of things we may recognize or know, but are portrayed in ways that tell us something we didn’t know before, or could not know without the map. Keeping this in mind, I wanted to map a place that I have in common with my family members, but in such a way that only I could conceive or perceive it. For this reason I chose a familiar place and inscribed my experiences and associations (ie death, love, fear), as well as narrative accounts of my memories onto it, making myself visible in the space.
I am also considering using different paper to create depth and texture. I was inspired by the collage maps by Chris Kelly (Observatory, Map Circle) which use cut-outs of different images to create a unified but unique composition.
Another artist I was inspired by was Mark Anthony Mulligan (Minni Pearl Dale) whose map has a distinct, hand-drawn style. His use of images and writing evokes a sense of a place-memory being recalled years later.
I plan to print the outlines of my map using photoshop and add the rest in by hand using various materials.
