Map of Heaven ...

Over on Jill Berry's Personal Geographies blog, she's talking journal maps and such, and I thought I'd share an early map I made ... it was one of those odd collaboratives I often get invited to.

The instructions from the organizer went something like this:  Make a map of Heaven / Nirvana / the Great Beyond. Make it literal, figurative, spiritual, scientific, historic, tragic, comic or from a great height, but take it and run with it. Make a huge map that can't be refolded, make a laminated pocket map for heavenly tourists. Make an X marks the spot map for pirates. Make a bus map for the Always-Standing-in-Line thinking: "Where in Hell is my bus?". Make a map of the stars in another Universe. Make a map of the Galactic Railway. Make a "How Things Work" map with woolly mammoths. Make a map of Atheist's Heaven. The possibilities are endless. After your map is made, make it interesting to handle ... hexagonal, circular, dodecahedronal, make Buckminster Fuller proud! Just think, if only Lucifer had a map, maybe that whole Heaven/Hell divide never would have happened. Send me enough copies of your map to give everybody one. Deadline: All Saints Day (Ahem!).

Wish I could remember who organized this one ... it was years ago through Nervousness.org (which, to this DAY, I still miss, although swapbot is a pretty good replacement).

My "plan" was an aerial view of Heaven as a labyrinth in greenery ... and the basic layout was slightly eccentric concentric ovals with breaks between the hedges ... so it would be fingerprintish in nature. The idea being that Heaven is as individual as You Are (as noted in the lower right corner). I had a lot of fun filling in what you would find as you got closer and closer to the center of the maze.

Meanwhile, over on Jill's blog, she's asking people to post maps on our blogs and link over to hers for a giveaway, and while you're there, be sure to listen to her being interviewed by Rice in the Voodoo Lounge. I love all the questions about research ... I do a WHACK of research for all my art projects as well, even if only 10% of what I discover makes it into my final creation, so I could certainly identify with Jill's process. I finally got a copy of Jill's Personal Geographies book as well ... so I am definitely *steeped* in maps at the moment.

Time Traveling Twins ...

As quoted from Wikipedia: "In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity, in which a twin makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find he has aged less than his identical twin who stayed on Earth."

You Are Here ...

In my case, these twins are books I created for the Sketchbook Project. And before you ask, Yes, it was twice as much work to make two, but given my personal rule ("Always Make Two") when it comes to artwork, I couldn't *not* make two.

Since the Sketchbook Project people encourage participants to be creative, to think outside the book if you will, the first thing I did was disassemble the book as supplied and create my own internal pages, as well as creating my own blank book to keep. The books are divided in three sections: (predictably) The Past, the Present and The Future. The Present is a single page, while the Past accordions out to the left, and The Future accordions out to the right, each filled with stuff I've thought about, written about and imagined about time travel, the passage of time and the effects of time on the human experience.

The Past  ... how far back do you want to go?

I've been reading Science Fiction since I was a kid, which wasn't really typical of girls where I grew up. I'd like to point out that I was reading Science Fiction, not Fantasy. As soon as a story introduced a Wizard, a Dwarf or Magic I was OUT OF THERE. I attribute this to reading Dune before Lord of the Rings .. in fact, I never got even made it through LotR, or any of its many brothers.

The Future ... how do you prepare for the unknown?

Anywho ... when I saw Time Travel as an option for a theme on the Sketchbook Project, I knew it was for me. I spent a few months re-reading my favourite SF books on the theme, and making notes and diagrams. I think I probably have enough material in my notes to *actually* time travel when the technology finally gets invented. I even attended a lecture on "The Art and Science of Time Travel" at the British Library while on vacation in London last summer. I was in heaven ... 5 fabulous panelists (including Audrey Niffennegger!), a packed audience (250+) and 2 hours of all the Time Travel you can handle ... one of the best nights of my life. I obviously need to get out more ...

PS ~ I've only shown you a bit of the final books here ... but the twin that's part of the Sketchbook Project's touring exhibit will also be digitized in their online library ... not sure how they're going to deal with the whole accordioning thing ... but, hey, they said be creative ... I assume they'll let me know when the images are online and I'll post the link here on my blog. Now ... off you go, into *your* futures ... :)