Wood and Map Quilts
The Art of Understanding Place
vintage USGS maps, color pencil
h 72” x w 42” x d 1.5”
Collaborating Landscape Architect Ed Hilliard.
Communities start with the ground they are built on. Having an understanding of Place is integral to designing and sustaining resilient communities. This visual interpretation was inspired by vintage, black and white USGS maps and the common bed quilt, where the makers gather disparate pieces of material or information, and creatively reassemble them into a greater whole: the gestalt. Colors were chosen to represent man made patterns and to describe various physiographic characteristics including elevation, drainage, slope, solar aspect, and ridge lines. The goal for this work is to impart meaning and give careful consideration for the way decisions effect the evolution of the ground.