I love maps, Janisse. The last one of NC's highlands for some reason really stood out for me. Maybe because of the alternate use of undulation and straight lines? Hope you're well this week. Cheers, -Thalia
I read this and felt inspired to draw my own maps for my work-in-progress. Switching to this visual method revealed to me my own sense of place. Deep gratitude for the prompt.
Hand drawn maps are becoming a thing of the past, unfortunately. Thank you for sharing yours! They are fun to see and it is wonderful you have saved them. Hand drawn maps also bring back many memories. It is interesting how and what different people will draw into a map of the same area. It is kind of like a look into their psyche.
You can walk to here on the birding trail. The parking lot is open.
Poetry Of A Place
In describing the place I consider the most beautiful place on earth (well at least the most beautiful one I can walk to) the spring water cascades down over steps of limestone, and sandstone and shale. There are fossils in the rocks. and geologists note their formation from when Iowa was a sea floor. The flow is so large in doesn't freeze at all, if the winter is mild. And then it goes over a waterfall into a pool and disappears. Gone. Back into the sandstone aquifer.
One of the steps of shale has the layer that was used as chalkboard for lessons in the one room school in the woods. Chalkboards the size of a large book, framed in leather, two joined by leather laces making four writing surfaces. Another layer has chalk deposits and they wash out in pieces that fit your hand.
So today's lesson on your chalkboard is to draw what you see. Find a piece of slate (about half-way between the spring and the waterfall) pebbles of chalk simply the white rocks spotted underneath a higher pool, and you are set.
Who is drawing the Cerulean Warbler?
Who the baby badger? The woodchuck, the passing coyote who stops to watch?
Who the trees? Who the wildflowers? Who the water, who the reflection? Your reflection? You are here too, and a part of this.
For today's lesson I will draw the snails, the many snails, snail babies in the water, and there in the rock the ancestor. For at this most beautiful place on earth, snails have found a home here, right here, for hundreds of thousands of years, so the ones in the water and the ones in the rock merge, they are one.
And my chalk swirls, and I draw life from the image in a rock, and I ask you all to take your art home, as do I. And I contemplate as I write this; how can a sense of place be more perfect than to be home for all those years? And how lucky I am to share for an hour.
I love the hand drawn maps--how many I've exchanged--giving and receiving-- through the years. Mostly scribbles that lead to canoe put ins and take outs. I wish I'd been smart enough to save them. Especially the ones between friends no longer alive.
When my kids were little my mother-in-law used to draw them treasure hunt maps that led them all over the house. They were tremendously fun and I think I kept most of them. So much imagination in those!
Thank you, Janisse! This reminds me of how much I have enjoyed drawing maps by hand. I drew a 3-eyed fish in the Savannah River near the nuclear facility back in 2004 while working on the first edition guidebook maps, back in the day of dial-up internet when the maps started their life on paper. Now it's the age of Dropbox, Illustrator, kml files.
Absolutely lovely treasures. Thank you, Janisse. Wishing I'd saved the many in my life. Taking a simple road trip with my 8 year old granddaughter end of August and we will use paper maps. Maybe even one of those detailed great big state atlas books.
What treasure of memories! It occurred to me that these personal handdrawn maps will disappear from our culture because of technology which delivers us exactly to our destination mindlessly- no need to pay attention as your preferred voice tells you - multiple times - to turn right, left or continue. Maps in general allow us to participate in our wayfinding.
Several years ago, a friend and I spent several hours walking in a neighborhood of London. As the sun began to set, we realized we had no idea how to get back to our rental. We had the correct street address but our phones did not work (a long story). We stopped two younger people, asking if they could point in the direction of the street we were looking for. Both lived in the neighborhood but did not know the street. They opened their phones and typed in the street and when it came up, they couldn't orient the map to our physical reality. They simply pointed to the map and told us to just " use maps" on our phone.
I love hand-drawn maps. A cool activity to do with students (maybe you can try it in a writing workshop) is to have them draw a map of their childhood home, neighborhood, or a place that was special to them. Always makes the thoughts and feelings flow.
Loved this post! And the poem - <3 is lovely. "Between Two Rivers" is a treasured book which I have had to buy more than once in order to keep it. It was my first, and such a memorable, introduction to both you and Susan Cerulean. Love you both (and your work) so much! <3
The Tall Timbers map brings back memories. Spent many days out there chasing Cooper’s hawks. One summer I tried to grow a beard so I would fit in better with the quail guys but it didn’t take. :-)
Little invitations to journey, to be a noticer of both the small and large landmarks that tie human to human and human to land. We are a few more miles up the West River from Amazing Planet.
I love maps, Janisse. The last one of NC's highlands for some reason really stood out for me. Maybe because of the alternate use of undulation and straight lines? Hope you're well this week. Cheers, -Thalia
I read this and felt inspired to draw my own maps for my work-in-progress. Switching to this visual method revealed to me my own sense of place. Deep gratitude for the prompt.
These maps are such a treasure! ❤️
Hand drawn maps are becoming a thing of the past, unfortunately. Thank you for sharing yours! They are fun to see and it is wonderful you have saved them. Hand drawn maps also bring back many memories. It is interesting how and what different people will draw into a map of the same area. It is kind of like a look into their psyche.
You can walk to here on the birding trail. The parking lot is open.
Poetry Of A Place
In describing the place I consider the most beautiful place on earth (well at least the most beautiful one I can walk to) the spring water cascades down over steps of limestone, and sandstone and shale. There are fossils in the rocks. and geologists note their formation from when Iowa was a sea floor. The flow is so large in doesn't freeze at all, if the winter is mild. And then it goes over a waterfall into a pool and disappears. Gone. Back into the sandstone aquifer.
One of the steps of shale has the layer that was used as chalkboard for lessons in the one room school in the woods. Chalkboards the size of a large book, framed in leather, two joined by leather laces making four writing surfaces. Another layer has chalk deposits and they wash out in pieces that fit your hand.
So today's lesson on your chalkboard is to draw what you see. Find a piece of slate (about half-way between the spring and the waterfall) pebbles of chalk simply the white rocks spotted underneath a higher pool, and you are set.
Who is drawing the Cerulean Warbler?
Who the baby badger? The woodchuck, the passing coyote who stops to watch?
Who the trees? Who the wildflowers? Who the water, who the reflection? Your reflection? You are here too, and a part of this.
For today's lesson I will draw the snails, the many snails, snail babies in the water, and there in the rock the ancestor. For at this most beautiful place on earth, snails have found a home here, right here, for hundreds of thousands of years, so the ones in the water and the ones in the rock merge, they are one.
And my chalk swirls, and I draw life from the image in a rock, and I ask you all to take your art home, as do I. And I contemplate as I write this; how can a sense of place be more perfect than to be home for all those years? And how lucky I am to share for an hour.
I love the hand drawn maps--how many I've exchanged--giving and receiving-- through the years. Mostly scribbles that lead to canoe put ins and take outs. I wish I'd been smart enough to save them. Especially the ones between friends no longer alive.
When my kids were little my mother-in-law used to draw them treasure hunt maps that led them all over the house. They were tremendously fun and I think I kept most of them. So much imagination in those!
Thank you, Janisse! This reminds me of how much I have enjoyed drawing maps by hand. I drew a 3-eyed fish in the Savannah River near the nuclear facility back in 2004 while working on the first edition guidebook maps, back in the day of dial-up internet when the maps started their life on paper. Now it's the age of Dropbox, Illustrator, kml files.
Absolutely lovely treasures. Thank you, Janisse. Wishing I'd saved the many in my life. Taking a simple road trip with my 8 year old granddaughter end of August and we will use paper maps. Maybe even one of those detailed great big state atlas books.
This was so fun. Thank you for walking me down the joyful path of analog.
These maps moved me. Thank you for sharing them.
What treasure of memories! It occurred to me that these personal handdrawn maps will disappear from our culture because of technology which delivers us exactly to our destination mindlessly- no need to pay attention as your preferred voice tells you - multiple times - to turn right, left or continue. Maps in general allow us to participate in our wayfinding.
Several years ago, a friend and I spent several hours walking in a neighborhood of London. As the sun began to set, we realized we had no idea how to get back to our rental. We had the correct street address but our phones did not work (a long story). We stopped two younger people, asking if they could point in the direction of the street we were looking for. Both lived in the neighborhood but did not know the street. They opened their phones and typed in the street and when it came up, they couldn't orient the map to our physical reality. They simply pointed to the map and told us to just " use maps" on our phone.
I love hand-drawn maps. A cool activity to do with students (maybe you can try it in a writing workshop) is to have them draw a map of their childhood home, neighborhood, or a place that was special to them. Always makes the thoughts and feelings flow.
Loved this post! And the poem - <3 is lovely. "Between Two Rivers" is a treasured book which I have had to buy more than once in order to keep it. It was my first, and such a memorable, introduction to both you and Susan Cerulean. Love you both (and your work) so much! <3
The Tall Timbers map brings back memories. Spent many days out there chasing Cooper’s hawks. One summer I tried to grow a beard so I would fit in better with the quail guys but it didn’t take. :-)
Little invitations to journey, to be a noticer of both the small and large landmarks that tie human to human and human to land. We are a few more miles up the West River from Amazing Planet.