I’m going to start posting images that inspire me and snippets from my notebook. I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile and I think I could really benefit from it right now, because my head feels like it’s going to explode from all of the unorganized thoughts.

I stumbled upon David Maisel at the beginning of the summer. It was on one of the many blogs that I’ve been reading (I cannot live without Google Reader) and I was instantly hooked. The photos above are from Terminal Mirage and The Lake Project. The photos are aerials depicting areas of the landscape that have varying concentrations of chemicals.

Nick Butcher of Programmable Press. He did a print with the Decoder Ring Design Concern in Austin, TX and there’s a gallery featuring some in progress shots of the print – here. All of the images above are actually his paintings. I love the different whites and the texture.

The map images are from Ace Jet 170, a great design blog that has lots of found type, vintage maps and all that good stuff. I’ve been looking at lot a maps and aerial photographs lately trying to pick up on the visual language. Road are surprisingly difficult to fake. When it looks wrong, it looks wrong and I can’t say that I can pinpoint why at this point. I guess the fascination with maps/aerials started as a new way of looking at landscape. I wanted to work with the idea of fictional locations and constructed landscapes – something less literal than what I had been doing. So I’ve been working on pieces for my show this summer (at Artifacts) which is going to be called Truth or Fiction. I haven’t quite hit my stride yet, which makes me a little worried, but it’ll be okay.

One of the problems I’ve been having is that I have so many different thoughts and ideas that I’m having difficulty focusing on one thing. It’s like the concept is all there (or maybe not?) but I can’t get it organized enough to write a decent statement or anything. I’ve been writing down all the thoughts when they come to me. Here’s a selection:

- fictional locales that could be taken as reality, real places. vintage, old world maps in combination with aerial views, a hybrid? not completely literal.

- in transit, in between two points/places, not at the final destination

- what is the significance of fictional locations/maps?
–personal connection: an effect of my upbringing/childhood to create worlds for myself
–a reaction to the uncomfortable – telling lies, half-truths &c., dissatisfaction with an environment leads to creating your own?
–hides discomfort. a method of projecting confidence when it’s not really there? (how would the viewer know if you’re actually telling the truth?)

- maps that lead nowhere/are cyclical, maps that are confusing/are not able to be read or deciphered, maps that are combinations of places/based off of memory of the location &c.

I really want to see if I can do an independent study next semester with a printmaking faculty and work on some etchings. Given that I have only worked on etching for less than a month, I might be wrong, but it feels like it could be the right medium. Or at least the right medium in combination with something else. (It’s always hard for me to limit myself to a single medium.) I’m not even sure if that’s something I could do. I guess I should look into it instead of just talking about it. That’s all for now.