even stranger maps....

(Below) The Waldseemüller map (by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller), published in 1507, is the first map to use the name "America".

There is only one known copy, which is called America’s birth certificate, even though America is written on South America, not the USA. Amerigo Vespucci is pictured in the border.

I started playing around with this ‘birth certificate’ . I kept the frame but used a very exaggerated world map, inflating the USA while pushing other countries away.

I copied the various zephers from the edges and posotioned them around our borders. Now they blow (hot air?) at our neighbors. While I love the xenophobic zephers, this one isn’t going anywhere…..

This map of Goa, in India, is so inviting. I love the roads, outlined in RED. Let’s just take a quick look here…(I said to myself)

Occupied since prehistoric times, there are carvings in the stone just outside the city….

This 16th century print shows the busy city after the Portugese had taken over…

I had several lovely days blending red-outlined-roads with ancient petroglyphs, fussing with costumes and compostion and totally avoiding our ghastly reality. Eventually I stopped and realized just how far off-track this was…….but it was such fun.

Well then……looking at more maps from the 1600s, North America really does loom large, doesn’t it?

I can’t tell you what lack of cartographic skill led to these obese continents, but the hulking images seemed to reflect our national MAGA insanity…

So I made another attempt at an inflated America, pushing the other countries away.

Then I relegated the other countries to sidebars - just umimportant decorative framework for us. (Why is there a huge island off the west coast? Because some early maps had California as an island. Which I should NOT have copied here, but that’s really one of the lesser mistakes).

I was also replacing the ancient Roman gods with ancient cartographers…

…and then, abandoning all sense, lurching ahead in my Photoshop wilderness, I replaced the torn crumbling paper of the country with sagging, shriveled old skin, puckered and scarred and GREEN.

This may actually be worse than the presidential debate.

Fortunately, I didn’t show that one to my critique group. I showed them the one below, with the keyhole tablets. There was a noticable lack of enthusiasm, apparent even on Zoom. One of the artists said “Diane, why don’t you forget the whole framework, and just use the center?”

Not a bad idea…..print out a simple outline image of the country as old paper, then sew on the keyholes.

In the meantime, I’ve started sewing the home tablets on the mappa mundi image. You’ll see that next week.

Stay safe,