turn-of-the-centuries

You Warm My Winter

2012-01-14T13:13:00.002-05:00

Winter Break time has allowed my mind wander some and go where it wants to go. Love - go figure. I've noticed Valentine's stuff at the grocery (some say they've seen Cadbury eggs at some shops - what?) so I know I am far behind the marketing machine. This is not marketing. It's from the heart. <3

I woke up with some ideas this morning and have designed this little sentiment into a special note card - for your Valentine or your sweetheart any old wintery time.

Envelopes are slate or natural, sealed with a big red heart printed on the back flap. You can get one HERE in my shop.

Wedding in Pulaski Square

2011-11-12T08:28:00.000-05:00

I've waited many months to tell the story of Melanie and Kenny. It's a good one.

Today is their wedding day. A year and a half ago, they lived in Savannah, just a few blocks from my apartment and a few doors down from my office. I must have walked past their door several times a day. But we never knew each other. They enjoyed walks down Barnard Street, through some of the city's loveliest squares. Their favorite was Pulaski. I think it has the best trees.

I moved to a very small town near Washington DC. Shortly after, I received an order through my etsy shop for a Savannah postcard pack. I was surprised to see the shipping address was in the small town I was in! In fact, while the order was made, I'd been out for a jog and ran right past that house. Uncanny.

Melanie and I had moved from Savannah to this small town about the same time, living within a few blocks of each other again. This time, we made the connection! She sent the postcards to her beau, Kenny, who was stationed in Afghanistan to remind him of their good times in Savannah.

One of the postcards featured the block where they'd lived. Some months later, we used this image to design save-the-date postcards for the wedding of Melanie & Kenny. The wedding would take place in Pulaski Square.

Marvelous moments were captured and created by photographers Jade + Matthew who documented the whole wedding in splendid sequence. Look for the lovely images of vows exchanged under the boughs of Pulaski Square, about halfway down the post.

Later, Melanie commissioned me to make a special drawing of Pulaski Square, featuring their names and wedding date. What a fantastic idea! She kept it hidden for several months until today when she will present it to her new husband as a wedding gift. See the little heart of branches at the top?

I love this Savannah love story! It makes me so happy to have been a small part of it.

Dec. 2011: This special Pulaski Square image later made great note cards for wedding gift thank-yous.

SCAD Museum of Art OPENING

2011-10-27T13:33:00.000-04:00

Approaching Savannah from South Carolina, SCAD Museum Lantern in the skyline; Talmadge Bridge over the Savannah River (l) Oglethorpe Ave. into the West Boundary (r)

Main Entrance in one of the elliptical arch openings of the old freight house, directly below tower (l) Approaching main entrance on Turner Ave. (r)

The brick wall of the freight house, collapsed over time, gives way to the concrete wall beneath (l) Glass "jewel-box" encases another arched opening, Light sculpture by Stephen Antonakos mounted within (r)

Museum facade along Turner Street. New concrete wall rides above brick, housing second floor classrooms. Entrance lantern, right.

Entrance lantern (l) View from terrace behind tower, overlooking courtyard to railroad stack beyond, the other skyline element in the West Boundary (r)

Museum galleries, a procession of large spaces, punctuated by brick walls of the old freight house.

Student Green, courtyard between the Museum and the School of Building Arts, louvered wall of the "soft" gallery" beyond (l) within the "Soft gallery", sculpture by Kendall Buster

From Terrace, views west (l) and east (r) of the courtyard

Courtyard, south gallery, lanterns

Museum Courtyard during a Savannah Film Festival event, 10/29/11

This week marks the public reOPENING of the SCAD Museum of Art. Art and people fill the spaces of a former 1856 Central of Georgia railroad shed, abandoned for decades. The rugged ruin of the brick shed contains a new structure of concrete and glass suited for display, protection and education that carefully emerges from the brick walls to accent the formal beauty and natural, elegant weathering of the old building and announce its new function as a museum of art. Inside, the fresh new walls cut away at key moments to reveal the historic brick structure. The ruin, the outer shell, and the new interior shell are aesthetically opposite but in a dynamic complementary relationship: the interior concrete shell stabilizes the ruin and the ruin, the historic brick shell, lends context, variety and memory to the crisp new museum.

The museum is a testament to the capacity and tenacity of the Savannah College of Art & Design President Paula Wallace and her team to get things done and do them right, staying true to a vision that emerged in an initial design charrette with architect Christian Sottile and his team at Sottile & Sottile in 2008. The evolution of the museum design, from charrette to final master plan, from concepts about the museum's place in the city to the paving materials for the public realm, is compiled HERE. The veracity and validity of these images now, at building completion, and their frequent reminders throughout the project, are a testament to the architects' process which emphasizes the civic, humanistic, material and memorable qualities the museum must embody. The building must engage in a dialogue of formal and material contrasts and honor the public realm by designing the pedestrian experience. The fruition of these design concepts now stands on the west side of Savannah's historic downtown. Just look for the semi-transparent glass lantern that marks the entrance like a beacon.

601 Turner Boulevard, Savannah, Georgia.
http://www.scadmoa.org/

Architectural Evolution of the SCAD Museum of Art

More information:
http://architectsandartisans.com/index.php/2011/10/in-savannah-contrasting-old-and-new/
http://www.scad.edu/news/2011/museum-exhibitions.cfm#

Breakfast Club (& Sketching) on The Lawn

2011-09-16T11:59:00.000-04:00

My first entree to a Lawn Room.

The Breakfast Club: boys, bagels, beer.

Right, The standard gear for journeys to and from the community bathroom, by way of the arcade, and the standard issue rocking chair which suited me just fine.
Left, the list of this room's tenants by year - all the way back to 1895.

There is an abbreviated bathroom in one corner and an abbreviated kitchen in another, the bedroom and study share a corner, and the living room centers around a handmade door table. The large flatscreen sits on the fireplace mantel. Just as Jefferson envisioned.

And now we get to work, drawing Pavilion III, using our simple tools for gauging proportion.

Our friend, Marina, is engrossed in giving a trial tour. She is one of 300-400 hopefuls to try out and one of about 60 to be called back for an interview. When she passes the interview, she'll be one of a select group or official U.Va. tour guides.

The Lawn must be mowed. And we find ourselves adjusting our seats to avoid being mowed.

On-Site Sketching: The University: Pavilion II

2011-09-09T12:51:00.001-04:00

Another overcast day, mostly, to complete the drawing of Pavilion II began last week. One of the delights in sketching at this particular World Heritage Site is the peripheral community that comes and goes throughout the morning - students, families, tourists, tourists from different countries, student tour guides practicing their tourspeak (as pictured above.)

The sun breaks through the clouds triumphally...and it gets a lot hotter and harder to see...but I finish the drawing.

On-Site Sketching: The University: Pavilion II

2011-09-02T12:38:00.001-04:00

Lucky to have an overcast day while drawing Pavilion II as the sun is just above its pediment, on the other side of the clouds.

We are focusing on drawing correct proportion from sight, occasionally using our pencils as perspectival measuring sticks and squinting like architectural sketchers do. It will be interesting to see, when completed in the same drawing language, the differences and similarities between the ten unique pavilions.

This morning, while walking up through the range gardens, I approached the lawn through a passage between student rooms and found myself at odds with the column - only one in the long colonnade that frames the lawn, connects the pavilions, and provides covered passage along rooms - that sat in the middle of my view toward the lawn. Instead of framing this entrance opening between two columns, one column bisects it. I caught a hint that this is one of Jefferson's moves at breaking the rules of classicism in its own language.

On-Site Sketching: The University: Pavilion I

2011-08-26T17:38:00.005-04:00

Ten Pavilions are interpersed among the student rooms on the Lawn, punctuating the single-story colonnade with classrooms, housing for professors and houses for various university clubs. Jefferson solicited designs from Capitol architects William Thornton and Benjamin Latrobe for the Pavilions, each a different temple front intended to teach the Orders, and masterfully composed these architectural "specimens" into a living and learning environment reminiscent of the Greek agora.

What we wish is that these pavilions, as they will show themselves above the dormitories, shall be models of taste and good architecture, and of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the architectural lecturer. Will you set your imagination to work, and sketch some designs for us, no matter how loosely with the pen, without the trouble of referring to scale or rule, for we want nothing but the outline of the architecture, as the internal must be arranged according to local convenience? A few sketches, such as may not take you a minute, will greatly oblige us. —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Thornton, 1817

Having only a cursory knowledge of the Classical Orders, I thought if fitting to channel my desire for in-place sketching toward the lawn, with the aim to sketch each of the Pavilions and come to know these temples in their variations. A weekly tradition.

ATLANTA Streetscapes

2011-08-12T12:03:00.002-04:00

We toured Atlanta by day, watched Gone With the Wind by night. We wanted to know the story of the burning of Atlanta, on the ground. Where would we find buildings that survived the burning, if any? Turn of the Century, early Twentieth Century architecture illustrates the city's comeback in the Fox Theater block, with the Georgian Terrace Hotel directly across from the theater on Peachtree Street. What a dynamic space. I could only imagine it glittering before and after the shows in the twenties, womens' jewels and gowns glittering with the art deco chandeliers and marquis bulbs.

Virginia Highlands presented another cohesive block, seemingly built at once in a boom, but to resemble accretion over time by varying the rooflines and details from shop to shop in the early twentieth century languages of craftsman, art deco and traditional styles.

click larger

A manicured drive strip "garden", Virginia Highlands

Revisiting SAVANNAH: SCAD Museum of Art

2011-08-11T09:30:00.003-04:00

(top left) January 2011 August 2011

One of many highlights of the trip was a hard hat tour of the SCAD Museum, under construction, by its architect, Christian Sottile. I last visited the Museum [construction site] in January 2011 when the entrance tower was just framed. The welders were busy with their torches 60' above ground. Over the duration of my visit this week, I was fortunate to see the tower clad in semi-tranluscent structural channel glass. When I arrived, from the Talmadge Bridge, I was awed to see the tower punctuate the Savannah skyline, then its perfect - and serendipitous - alignment with Oglethorpe Avenue on entrance to the city - this time, in glass, about one-quarter installed. By the time I left Savannah, the tower fully encased.

January 2011 August 2011

Though there are daily detail coordinations between the architects and the builders, it was amazing to see the Museum essentially just as designed while I was working in the office. To see the drawings we labored over - from the initial weekend charrette sketches to the beautiful hand-drawn plates which detailed how the 1850s brick ruin would be cradled by the smooth, modern concrete box, how the elliptical arch openings of the old train shed would be showcased in clear glass 'jewel boxes', how this civic building would bequest permanence and elegance to the public realm - come to life in restored original 'savannah grey' brick, concrete and glass was truly extraordinary.
Working for client with a vision of excellence and a high regard for creative expression and problem-solving was key. Savannah College of Art & Design tells the story HERE.
Read MORE and watch the VIDEO on the Design of the Museum.

Revisiting SAVANNAH: Flaneurism

2011-08-11T09:29:00.012-04:00

10 days in Savannah to Work, Visit dear friends and Enjoy being a flaneur in the best city in America to be a flaneur. {Thanks to Patrick Shay for introducing the french term which encapsulates the love we have for cities like Savannah with a rich pedestrian, architectural and cultural milieu.}

The beach is also nice...not as nice as Jamaica, but Tybee Island certainly has its charms - and always, its weddings. Just like Savannah!

I enjoyed the always-inspiring Monumental Ideas in Miniature Book-Making traveling exhibit at SCAD's Alexander Hall, under the bridge, with a friend and fellow book-maker, illustrator, interior designer, fashionisto, Kipper Millsap.

John Taylor Arms, Revisited

2011-07-28T00:58:00.011-04:00

Out of My Window, 1916, John Taylor Arms

I'm feeding my curiosity about John Taylor Arms, piqued after visiting the show at the National Gallery. A friend gave me a book on his work and career for my birthday: John Taylor Arms: Plates of Perfect Beauty, Jennifer Saville.

Arms worked as an architect, even built his own firm with a partner, until about 1916 when drawing and etching outpaced his desire to design and build. 'Out of My Window', above, drawn from his New York architectural firm office, is a seed of that desire which expanded to a prolific and highly respectable career as an etcher and advocate of the graphic arts.

Sunlight and Shadow, 1915, John Taylor Arms, Lescure, Une Tour des Remparts, 1928

Dol - Old Houses in La Grand Rue, 1919, John Taylor Arms

An Old Courtyard, Italy, 1920, John Taylor Arms

Castles in the Air, Lithograph, 1921, John Taylor Arms, "La Giralda", Seville, 1924

Mont Saint-Michel, 1926, John Taylor Arms

Le Puy, 1928, John Taylor Arms

I love the perspective of this work which reminds me of seeing hill towns while flying over Italy and France and drawing villages nestled onto the steep rocky Adriatic coast from the hiking trail above them. It seems a precious thing to see a town in its entirety from such a vantage point, the town offered up to view by the obliging landscape, and a sketching seat just right for this encapsulated view.

Study in Stone, Cathedral of Orense, John Taylor Arms, 1933

A progression toward greater architectural detail and meticulous lines is evident in Arms' European works and seems to reach an apogee in Venice.

Shadows of Venice, 1930, John Taylor Arms

(drawing) The Enchanted Doorway, Venezia, 1930, John Taylor Arms (etching)

Venetian Filigree, 1931, John Taylor Arms

La Bella Venezia, 1930, John Taylor Arms

The waterscape reminds me of 'la bella' Venezia. Il Canal Grande La Piazza S. Marco.1928

The Grolier Club Library (Sketch), 1941, John Taylor Arms

As an ardent advocate of etching as an art, Arms took his art to the people in a series of over 150 Demonstrations where he etched and printed before a live audience on a portable press in libraries, museums, before TV cameras, the New York World's Fair, a Manhattan store window. Most demonstration prints, like 'The Grolier Club' above were created in about 2 hours, though he often spent over 1,000 hours on a single print in his main body of work.

I'd like to ask him how the transition from practicing architect to artist evolved, his thoughts on the practice of architecture, I'd like to watch him draw on-site amid all of the distractions and discomforts then translate that drawing onto a plate with painstaking precision. If you could have a conversation with a dead, great someone...

Some of his thoughts give a glimpse into those wonderings, as quoted in John Taylor Arms: Plates of Perfect Beauty, Jennifer Saville:

On the power of Gothic Architecture, They were born of an age when man's need for the expression of his spiritual ideals drove him to heights of architectural conception to which he has never since attained. The devotion and aspiration that went into their construction is echoed in every line and detail and mass. From the architects who planned them down to the humblest stonecutter who carved the most inconcpicuous of their mouldings, we feel a spiritual and imaginative fervor which has no parallel in the history of building...All were animated by the same motive -- the sense of spiritual dedication which counted time as naught so long as the end was attained.

On and the quest for spiritual and technical, I like to think of a work of art as having two principal aspects, namely the spiritual and the technical...Between the two there is no comparison in importance. It is the thought which a man has to give the world that makes for him his place in the minds of posterity, not the language....Better the true artist who is a clumsy technician than the most accomplished virtuoso who has nothing to say.

It is true that I have always been deeply, absorbingly interested in technical expression....I wanted, and still desperately want, to be a great etcher, though I know now I never shall be. Spiritual conception and power of imagination cannot be acquired, technique can.

I have always believed myself to be, fundamentally, a mystic, in spite of the hard, bright literalness of my work. It got hard and bright not because I felt the Gothic spirit could best be expressed by literal representation, in hard, bright, imitative terms, but because, steeped in mystical wonder at, and devotion to, Gothic art and the spirit that produced it, my interpretation of that spirit came out in those particular terms. A contradiction, you will say, for mysticism cannot be expressed in literalness. But there you have it, that is what has happened in my case.

Dorothy Arms, on her husband John Taylor Arms, drawing the Cathedral in Rouen, There simply was no sequestered nook, no half sheltered corner into which he might withdraw himself in partial seclusion; only a small pavement too narrow to hold the jostling crowds who used it, parallel tracks on which the trams passed each other at frequent intervals, an 'island of safety' perilously inadequate,and the open square into which came carriages and taxis, carts and great camions from four different directions....Four days of intensive work under the worst possible conditions succeeded. The passing traffic sent grit and choking dust on to the drawing and into the eyes already half blinded by the glare, and heads cast black replicas of themselves which jerked confusingly across the white paper as their owners peered at it from different angles. People getting on and off the trains tripped over the knapsack and bumped against the stool in passing.

On the importance of Art, For each and every one of us there exist, somewhere in the vast field of prints, certain pieces of paper on which certain artists have lavished loving labor through the medium of copper, wood, or stone, in black and white or in color, to which we immediately respond, whose message stimulates us; which, in short, give us help and encouragement and inspiration, and satisfy those inner cravings, common to all men, which are of the spirit....Either in calm or storm [one can turn to prints] for spiritual refreshment and rejuvenation, for intellectual stimulus and emotional enjoyment, [they are] a veritable ever-present help in time of need.

On tradition and modernism, To love beauty and, loving it, to seek to express it -- therein appears to me the function and the duty of the artist. Of course my 'modern'' brethren laugh at me for this and point out that such a belief is entirely demoded, that it belongs to another day, and it quite out of step with the fast moving and sophisticated life of our time.

A great tradition builds itself up through the ages, made up of all the individual contributions of all true artists, great and small. Each one takes that which has been handed to him; from it he extracts what he best can use; to it he adds his little contribution; and upon it he marks the stamps of his own individuality...What does it matter whether he is called 'radical' or 'old hat;' the great tradition goes on, enriched in each age by the labor and devotion of countless men.

On-Site Sketching: European Flashback

2011-07-27T08:16:00.005-04:00

My recent sketching outing brought out my big sketchbook and a retrospective look at my own process of learning to draw as we leafed through its pages, warped by rain or pressed plants, a little dog-eared. Travel in Europe, at home in Virginia and Savannah, and a cross-country road trip across the US presented opportunities to figure out a landscape or a path or a building, rather, to illustrate/document my perception of it. Here are a few ON-SITE:

I went to Europe with the architecture students and professors in 1998. I really struggled to LEARN how to DRAW my perception. To make a drawing that was more than my photograph, that communicated how I perceived the place. After many frustrating attempts, tis was the first close encounter, drawing the path I walked in St. Malo (France) and the changing facades and views and I moved, with three still vignettes on the side.

This is where it really CLICKED. About halfway into my three-month tour, exploring the small towns around the southern end of Lago di Lugano in southern Switzerland, I walked up the steps from the main road/highway, drawing the stepped path and adjacent side elevation of the building. Turning left onto the quiet lane behind the street-fronting shopfront buildings, drawn in plan, with a perspective of the stepped path up framed by the opening through neighboring buildings. Back on the streetfront where I began, a small cobblestone road climbing south and retaining wall - and the loggia of the shopfront building - in perspective. From the loggia, a section through the building. Down the back lane, in plan, to the edge of a three-story building, section. Standing at this corner, the view up splintering stair paths further into the village, and down, a tight squeeze through building walls under an arched opening.Descending from the hiking path through steeply terraced rocky coastline from where I'd drawn the rooftops view of Monterosso, I drew the walls and doors and other paths as they unfolded from the stepped path I walked into town, as well as the perspective view up and out toward those mountains which enfold the village.

Ascending a stepped path from the harbor heart of Vernazza, second in the Cinque Terre chain of villages along the Adriatic coast.

I found a quiet church yard in Positano, Italy, 1998, sketching in-the-round from the center of the square. A small cat sought my attention and eventually climbed up my leg to perch where my bag, slung over shoulder, rested on my hip. It rode with me as I walked slowly around the yard, drawing the facades that enclosed it.

Lucca, Italy, 1998. Old Roman colosseum, fully enclosed by a ringed block of shops and flats. I tried to trace the movement of the shadow in the courtyard.

I made this drawing on-site at a dynamic intersection of streets in Paris, in 2000, during an futbol game which I overheard from the bar.

On-Site Sketching: Charlottesville

2011-07-25T12:06:00.006-04:00

We tried our sketching hands on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall today, taking advantage of the absence of vehicular obstructions in this pedestrian-only zone, the shade of the tree canopy, the empty cafe tables perfectly set for a drawing vantage - not to mention the great architecture. Our task was to draw a manageable portion of the facade, focussing on correct proportion.

The occasion brought out my big sketchbook and a retrospective look at my own process of learning to draw as we leafed through its pages, warped by rain or pressed plants, a little dog-eared. Travel in Europe, at home in Virginia and Savannah, and a cross-country road trip across the US presented opportunities to figure out a landscape or a path or a building, rather, to illustrate/document my perception of it.

I rarely draw on-site as the drawings have become more complex. A Composition, a ______-scape rather than a Sketch. The experience of drawing on-site is so authentic. If I am seeking understanding, a spatial perception of a place, then being there is essential. Field drawing in Jamaica reminded me of this authentic experience, and I aim to do more on-site sketching.

Let's go.

Unpacking Treasures & RELICS

2011-07-25T09:24:00.006-04:00

Since most of my things have been in storage for the past year, unpacking has been an interesting discovery of things saved, remembered, curiosities that were too curious to discard in Savannah, some things that probably should have been left at home in Savannah, pieces of Virginia back home in Virginia. And some things that could be called relics for their relative obsolescence...which makes me feel like time and me are passing each other at different speeds as we both move forward. A look backward...A very nice watch my mother gave me, not worn since the advent of cell phones that resides in a favorite candy tin - peanut butter ginger chews,

a good luck horseshoe from Reba,

a small steel origami model from first year studio that nested in another larger version,

a rusted quarter,

a handstitched ipod coozy from Afton,

a cupcake ballerina from Back in the Day,

an old clay pipe from Pamplin Virginia,

one of the sweet bridesmaids earrings designed by Julie,

pine-scented oil.

particularly good shells and rocks

a small collection of dead butterflies in a cassette

Walden, c. , from John LeBey's house

Colonial Williamsburg, c. 1936, from John LeBey's house

2010 planner with a spread created during a boring airport layover of saved text messages on a now-discarded phone

foreign money

TLR camera necklace pendant, vintage matchboxes

my grandfather's pens and measuring stick, acquired after his funeral

a "game" I designed in my college Building Sustainability class depicting climate-responsive vernacular building methods around the world

What are these? Slides!

What are THESE?? black and white file negatives! Several binders full of them... What to do with them?

prints and sketches of places in Virginia

my childhood stamp collection

a box of almost all of the letters and notes I've saved

In photographing these things, I can at least consider discarding some in my desire to have less possessions. But it is kind of nice to go through them and remember...

BOOKS and What to Do With Them ?

2011-07-25T08:57:00.003-04:00

I'm finally unpacking the precious but not absolutely essential things that survived my comprehensive editing of possessions when leaving Savannah and have been holed up in storage for the past year. It is exciting to uncover and remember the things that hold particular meaning in my life's chronology, like books: perfect gifts from friends, must-have guides to beloved places, memoirs and biographies of heroes, creative works which inspire my work. However, finding a proper place to keep them and use them is a challenge. I've been forced to edit once again, selling about 30 books. The weight of 50+ books on my wooden file cabinet is probably not sustainable. There is a built-in shelf in the hallway, useable now that we've repainted the apartment but fit only for the smaller books. Buy a bookcase? Perhaps someday...

Coincidentally, while worrying over books, I enjoyed this post by Paris Market. You will, too!

Nesting in Lewis Mountain

2011-07-25T08:05:00.000-04:00

Step off the busy thoroughfares near the intersection of Emmet Street (US Route 29) and Ivy Road (State Route 250) and you'll discover narrow roads winding up, down, and around the small hills of Lewis Mountain, a neighborhood of 1930s, 40s, 50s cottages under a lush green canopy. The trees are tall, ivy creeps upon the walls and fences, steps and paths cut the ground in stone. This quiet community feels like a hideaway retreat and belies its proximity to major roads and the Grounds of the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson's Rotonda is a ten minute walk away. This is my new neighborhood.

The Washington DC Temple in the Clouds

2011-07-17T22:21:00.002-04:00

A commission to draw the Washington DC Temple gave me an opportunity to use pencil on nice thick paper, and I really enjoyed it! I appreciated the inherent qualities of pencil in layering and shading which I did solely with vertical freehand lines in varying densities and pencil weights. The sheet size is 12" x 15".

This view, from the 495 Beltway, is so elegant as the building spires punctuate and extend so tall above the tree line. In graphite, it appears to be reaching from clouds. Heavenly.

BALTIMORE Streetscapes

2011-07-17T12:04:00.073-04:00

We set out for Baltimore to find architectural essences in its streetscapes. I had not been to Baltimore in about 15 years and took in a good dose of nostalgia for a city I never really knew but served as a symbol of urbanity as I was just beginning to think about cities and buildings. Baltimore, the CITY in my youth, where we'd go on a Saturday night, drive in from the county and lock the car doors as soon as we glided off the highway into downtown, usually finding our way to Fell's Point to listen to a friend's band play at a waterfront restaurant and feel the nightlife energy walking the old streets layered with history and spilled beer.
I had an informed list of neighborhoods to see: Bolton Hill, Hampden, Little Italy. After scouting these vital neighborhoods, I left with the first image I encountered as the highway route first shuttled us through downtown: 400 Block Baltimore Street, the strip club district, a.k.a. "The Block." I'm intrigued by the juxtaposition of the architecture of commercial classicism, emblematic of a thriving American city at the turn of the century, now hi-jacked by low-rent convenience stores, fast food, and strip joints. Business up top, Party down below. I will draw these buildings in their wealth or ornament, seemingly well-preserved on the upper floors, exterior, and blur the street level going-on. I'm also intrigued about the potential for dialogue about preservation and urban economies by capturing this moment in the history of this Block.

Real DRAFTING Supplies in Frederick MD

2011-07-15T17:25:00.000-04:00

Just in case you thought architects no longer use drafting tools, visit Drawing Board Plus in Frederick, Maryland. Find the perfect scale or triangle. Try to remember the last time you saw vinyl or DECAdry transfer letter sets. And, in case you are looking for something a little more obscure...such as replacement bolts or screws for your mechanical compass, a human figure stencil - jointed for a variety of positions - or a 48" x 96" cutting mat (that's like a parking space for a smartcar) they have a CATALOG. They don't have a website, it appears, but these awesome ladies are happy to help if you give them a call.

The GOTHIC SPIRIT of John Taylor Arms at the National Gallery of Art

2011-07-11T22:12:00.009-04:00

The Gates of the City, John Taylor Arms

I was enamored by Arms' images of New York, where he began by about 1916 to transition from working as an Architect to an Architectural Artist, re-presenting the gothic structures that fascinated him with the precision and understanding of an architect. I've just finished reading The Great Bridge.

Cobwebs, John Taylor Arms

An American Cathedral, John Taylor Arms

But, he moved on...
"I can admire the skyscrapers of New York, that unbelievable city which is a very gold mine for the architectural etching but I do not love them and I cannot etch what I do not love."

...to GOTHIC Europe.

Towers of San Gimignano, John Taylor Arms

Stockholm, John Taylor Arms
Venetian Mirror, John Taylor Arms

I was not too disappointed my friend was late to meet me at the National Gallery of Art because I needed a lot of time to absorb the drawings and etchings of John Taylor Arms. I had to stand two or three inches from the work in order to even see all of the miniscule lines that create such depth and texture in Arms' compositions. I can't fathom how he drafted/drew the Grand Canal on site in Venice with such accuracy and precision at such a small scale.

Helen Keller visited Arms' studio and, in his guestbook, wrote of the "Luminous and artistic minds" she encountered there. Light to the blind.

You cannot see the luminous detail online, so you MUST go to the John Taylor Arms Exhibit at the National Gallery, west wing, and bring your magnifying glass.

Lewis Baltz PROTOTYPES at the National Gallery

2011-07-11T22:00:00.002-04:00

"Architecture, real architecture, always life is reduced into 2-D representation...I've avoided this dilemma in my own work by using only sub-architecture." Lewis Baltz

Baltz's images are modern building facades encorached upon by natural elements of decay. They translate to two dimensions readily and elegantly in the way he has framed them and in the minimalist medium of black and white photography. They are largely flat. A view beyond the plane of the wall is rare and conscientous. So, at least banal buildings are good for black and white photographs.

T-O-T-C MOVING SALE!

2011-07-05T14:44:00.005-04:00

Well, I'm off to Charlottesville Virginia to start the graduate program in Architectural History at the University of Virginia. I'll keep up business as usual at turn-of-the-centuries, with added insight!
What a great time to get some personalized stationery, recipe cards, note cards, birthday cards, thank you cards, architecture & cities prints, maps - how about a limited edition book of architectural drawings, This is Savannah Vol. 2 - all at 30% off, and help me lighten my load! SALE is On until JULY 15.

SHOP Turn-of-the-Centuries

THANKS!!!

JAMAICA: Great Houses

2011-06-30T18:41:00.000-04:00

JAMAICA: Field Drawing

2011-06-28T18:47:00.002-04:00

JAMAICA: Falmouth

2011-06-28T17:44:00.005-04:00

The locus of our activities - drawing, designing, deconstructing and constructing - in Falmouth was 10 Albert Street. We walked to work at our "site" about six blocks from our "home" at the Baptist Manse, headquarters of Falmouth Heritage Renewal. We caught glances and occasionally comments as we trudged in concrete-stained pants or carrying our large drawing boards. We were seen jogging in the mornings before breakfast, looping Rodney Street to Cornwall to Market, and again until we tired. Some cheered our exercise efforts, some laughed! I think we were *noticed* in the neighborhood.

I took a detour with my sketch pad frequently throughout our four weeks. Trying to be less conspicuous, I enjoyed overhearing household conversation in Jamaican patois, children playing, a variety of music on the radios. The barrier between the household and the street is permeable in places where buildings "breathe", ventilated rather than air-conditioned. Sometimes, residents approached me to ask what I was doing, and I explaining our Field School experience, particularly our partnership with Falmouth Heritage Renewal (FHR) in re-building the house on Albert Street. They asked if their houses could be helped, and I explained the mission of FHR and the great work they are doing to preserve historic buildings in this town, celebrated for its treasury of Georgian architecture and vernacular board houses built by free blacks in the 1800s. I've learned that, though some outsiders appreciate Falmouth's architectural heritage - scholars, preservationists and, last but not least, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line who chose to build their gated wharf here, named 'Historic Falmouth' and developed to imitate the Georgian architecture of Real Falmouth - the stewards of Falmouth's heritage are its residents. For more on the dynamics of tourism + preservation & sustainable development in Falmouth, see the outstanding report Oasis on the Horizon (University of Virginia - Brady, Redfearn, Nelson & others)

The goal of this ecoReMOD project is to make one historic board house, built without plumbing, VIABLE by preserving the house (in this case, salvaging and re-building, due to extensive termite damage) and adding new kitchen and bath facilities designed to complement and not obscure the board house. Making the historic house liveable SUSTAINS not only the house, but the town of Falmouth. This is likewise the mission of FHR, "to accurately preserve and restore the historic buildings of Falmouth, Jamaica while improving the lives of its residents." Though Falmouth is designated an historic district, enforcement by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust will not prevent demolition, but resident owners who VALUE Falmouth as an architectural, cultural and economic resource can choose to adopt an approach of SUSTAINABILITY through PRESERVATION. Whenever a resident decides to preserve an historic house and build necessary facilities incrementally, instead of demolishing an historic building altogether and replacing it with a modern concrete house, the architectural heritage of Falmouth is honored, one building at a time. I hope our presence and our work in Falmouth scored a few points for preservation.

My documentary detours led me to examine the neighborhood urban scale by attempting a rooftop plan of the historic blocks we traverse daily. I was impressed by the roof forms of Jamaica, the likes of which I'd never seen in combination quite like this before. Many small roofs traditionally cover a historic house in Falmouth, many hip roofs especially. Roof forms meet edge to edge within the footprint of the building. I thought, with my US mindset: This looks like a real challenge to a watertight building! and, More expensive to build, with a greater number of members and complex forms! I learned: In an environment threatened by hurricanes, a composition of many smaller roofs fares better in the storm. Better to replace one small roof than to lose your entire building with the lift-off of one large roof. Additionally, it's possible imported lumber was hard to obtain in greater spans. I learned a little about roofs in my detours, and thought a lot about the preservation of the real historic Falmouth as I listened to the neighborhood patois.

JAMAICA: What I Learned...

2011-06-27T11:31:00.014-04:00

I left my (digital) (life) for four weeks. I went to Jamaica and immersed myself in the Universiy of Virginia Falmouth Field School in Historic Preservation. I'm collecting my sketches and photos and thoughts - to share - soon.

...meantime...

The Field School included a design/build component known as ecoReMOD2.

Check them out - and Donate to the fund for future projects.

We (lived and) worked with FALMOUTH HERITAGE RENEWAL.

Check them out - and donate.

We attended the Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) CONFERENCE

Field School Research and Drawings will be CATALOGUED at the University of Virginia.

MY PHOTOS of the Field School, Falmouth, Plantations.

BROOKLYN Neighborhoods

2011-05-19T16:33:00.003-04:00

Brooklyn's Neighborhoods. Their names conjure images. Their streets show both a Brooklyn sameness and a uniqueness that hints at neighborhood pride. This Drawing is an homage to the neighborhoods and the architecture - and a helpful tool, after many visits to sprawling, beautiful and gritty Brooklyn, to get the neighborhoods straight!

The neighborhoods are named and framed over a vintage map background. Hand-drawn Brooklyn streetscapes from a variety of neighborhoods frame the map.

Find the BROOKLYN Neighborhoods PRINT

HERE in My Shop

I {Heart} Philly

2011-05-11T15:48:00.000-04:00

These balloons bobbing above my booth lifted my spirits, along with the gorgeous day, good fortune, beautiful surroundings, and lovely people of center city Philadelphia.

Taking a strawberry break.

A street fair is ideal here, on a perfect day in the heart of center city. Tables surrounded the Old Pine Street Church block and neighbors and passersby stopped to look, chat, buy all of my Phildelphia prints and postcards. It was good fortune that the block I selected to draw for my first Philly streetscape drawing was in pointing distance, directly across from the front facade of the Church. A few residents of the block were excited to purchase the prints and invited me to tour their homes and make additional drawings. So I am planning Philly: Part 2, another trip to see more of this phenomenal city and make some special custom architectural drawings.

Here is one of the homes on the 400 Block of Pine Street:

We were bewitched by the butterfly stair. Almost all original floors, door, hardware in the 217-year old 4-story townhouse.

I heard the legend that runaway slaves were housed here en route to Camden NJ. Then I saw the tunnel that led from the basement of this house, under Pine Street, to the Church. And the hidden stairway that led to concealed attic space. {wow!} The paintings at the entry were also purported to be the work of those slaves, reminiscent of their ancestors' homelands.

I think the t-o-t-c Print of the 400 Block of Pine Street looks perfect in this home whose front facade also happens to be the center of that streetscape drawing. I loved exploring the neighborhoods of South Philly, too, getting a cheesesteak at Cosmi's Deli and having a mouth-watering look at the venerable Termini Bakery. And a quick but comprehensive driving tour through the Italian Market, Boathouse Row, and many other spots that beckon me back to Philadelphia!

All Thanks to my good friend, Beth. Check her out on etsy!

PHILADELPHIA Pine Street: Postcards, Too!

2011-05-05T23:22:00.000-04:00

Find them HERE in MY SHOP

PHILADELPHIA Pine Street

2011-05-05T23:10:00.008-04:00

The 400 Block of Pine Street in the heart of the City of Brotherly Love exhibits a diversity unlike most blocks I've seen. A plethora of architectural styles will make you wonder where in the world you are, but look for the flags and stoops and you'll know it's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

An 1842 city map in pale blue lies behind the streetscape drawing, and the block is marked with - what else? - a flag. This is the town of Betsy Ross (whom I played in the fifth grade play) and a legendary history of patriotism. This streetscape, drawn in spring, has a surprise in the center. It's bursting with pink blooms that will litter the street with pink petals.

I'll be selling these prints and all the other prints, postcards, and books Saturday May 7 at the 38th Annual Old Pine Street Church Flea Market & Neighborhood Festival. If you happen to be in Philly...

Or, find the PHILADELPHIA Print in MY SHOP

Off to Philly!!!

PULASKI Square: Postcards, Too!

2011-05-04T08:27:00.006-04:00

Find them HERE in my SHOP

Pulaski Square in Green

2011-05-03T13:44:00.018-04:00

I always took a moment to gaze or glance at Pulaski Square as I biked around or walked through it. No statue or fountain adorns its center, just a mass of thick bushes. But the TREES! They are magnificant, arching just perfectly to form a high, ballooning canopy of live oak boughs and moss. Not only the leafy ceiling, but the grass is truly greener here, too. I hope I've paid homage to Pulaski's greenness with this newest Print. The perimeter architecture of this Square is prim and content to nestle in the boughs as the trees completely overwhelm the square, and the ward - for effect.Pulaski Square is welcomed into the small but growing collection of SAVANNAH SQUARES Map-Drawings. << Find Pulaski Square Print FOR SALE in my SHOP >>

Though I had a few photos of Pulaski, the drawing would not have been possible to create from this distance without the help of my camera girl on the scene, Ashley Bennett. Big Thanks!

NEW! Personalized Stationery

2011-04-26T14:28:00.010-04:00

Out with the first crop of Personalized Stationery created with typography as graphic and, on some, a small sketch of a favorite, meaningful object - like dogwood blooms, a sea urchin, or a fancy floppy bow! These are A2 flat note cards, perfect for a quick note or thank you or thinking of you. Matching natural/ivory envelopes. Also available in Letter (8 1/2 x 11) sheets with matching no. 10 envelopes.

<< Find them HERE in my SHOP >>

Peek at Maine

2011-04-14T11:01:00.001-04:00

I've been working on a really neat project for the past several weeks, streetscape drawings commissioned for a coastal town in M A I N E. One of my favorite places in the US, I've pretended to be there, immersing myself in photographs while drawing the buildings in my studio in Maryland. I'll be sharing more when the work is finalized...

Captain's Row ALEXANDRIA VA: Postcards, Too!

2011-04-13T23:19:00.000-04:00

Available in the SHOP

Captain's Row ALEXANDRIA VA: First Print

2011-04-13T10:03:00.007-04:00

I drew the 100 Block of Prince Street, north side, Alexandria Virginia, two months ago. It is known as "Captain's Row." I also appreciated "Gentry Row" of the 200 Block Prince Street, same side.I dubbed the Athenaeum (the former Bank of the Old Dominion) the "Centerpiece", like a hinge between these two Rows. This idea is the framework for a series of two streetscape prints. The first Alexandria print is "Captain's Row." I would like to find a place for it in Alexandria, but it's always available in my SHOP.

North Carolina Cabin Map

2011-04-07T13:49:00.009-04:00

Mr. H. built his cabin high in the North Carolina mountains, just below the ridge and the outcropping known as 'Eagle Rock' from which the blue ridge panorama stretches all around. It's a beautiful place, commemorated in this illustrative map, custom-made for this special spot of ground. I designed a pattern from four of my hand-drawn trees, combined with loose watercolor, to blanket the map and the map border reflects back the blue ridge views.

Nesting Doggies

2011-04-07T12:36:00.000-04:00

Olive & Owen. For my favorite doggie-loving friend.

They really do 'spoon' like this!

FLW: Pope-Leighey House

2011-03-21T13:06:00.003-04:00

Frank Lloyd Wright's modest yet emblematic home for the young family of a newspaperman was rendered vivid for us by an amazing guide, this fellow in the bright red sweater vest.

Its preservation story is interesting and explains its current setting on the grounds of Woodlawn, an early 1800s plantation, home of George Washington's nephew and Martha Washington's granddaughter which adjoins Mount Vernon - seemingly odd neighbors for this mid-century "Usonian House, a manifesto of Wright's belief in American design for the people, unburdened by past architectural traditions."

The Pope-Leighey house was built in 1940 in Falls Church for the Pope family of middle-class means. It is easily recognizable as a cousin of Fallingwater in its natural site, materials, emphasis of compression and expansion of interior space, built-in storage for minimal possessions that is part of the architecture and many other of Wright's trademarks. The house was to be demolished in the 1960s due to the widening of a highway through Falls Church (Route 66.) The second owner of the house, Marjorie Leahey donated the house to the National Trust. A site was secured at Woodlawn, sculpted to imitate its original Falls Church site. The house was dismantled and re-built here only to be dismantled and re-built again in 1995 after it was discovered that it was sliding and sinking in the clay soil and that it was not correctly positioned in the first place. The cost was $500,000; compare that to its initial cost to build in 1940, $7,000.The house is built of natural, untreated cypress from Florida and with bricks, wood and clay of the earth. Operable glazing fit to the corners visually and spatially expands the indoor living space outdoors. The horizontal wings on axis create a low profile, with roof overhangs exaggerated in some places. A banded clerestory and vertical lite pattern cut into the cypress siding further breaks the box and blurs it endges. The pattern is curious and, according to our guide, of unknown origin. (My guess is the abstracted outline of Massachusetts, with a shorter Vermont scrunched down beside.)

The Renewal of St. Elizabeths Hospital

2011-03-20T08:52:00.007-04:00

We could not enter the Kirkbride Building - just these glimpses through the front entry - but photographs by Ethan McElroy capture its pallid spirit. The GSA is documenting each room prior to renovation with HABS format photographs, we learned during an extremely interesting tour by DC Preservation League, with GSA and a Project Architect.

The Government Hospital for the Insane was instituted on this bucolic site in 1855 with the completion of this, the main building and stellar example of the popular Kirkbride plan designed by Thomas Walter, then architect of the Capital. Founded by mental health reformer Dorothea Dix, the hospital aimed to provide the "most human care and enlightened curative treatment of the insane of the Army, Navy and District of Columbia." In the mid-1800s the architecture of this approach called for individual rooms, dorm-style. The campus grew with the times, adding cottages and communal living quarters, eventually housing about 8,000 patients and 4,000 staff over 300 acres by 1940. Civil War soldiers treated here referred to it as St Elizabeths, the name of the area rather than the more ominous official name of the facility and the name was changed by Congress to St Elizabeths (no apostrophe) by 1916. Chipped concrete remains of tennis courts and walking paths that meandered among specimen trees with spectacular views back to the city. The rural life in view of the city and civilization was deemed ideal for convalescence. The still-bucolic campus is within the District boundaries, on the east side of the Anacostia River. One can look across the river, scan the landmarked skyline and imagine the residents of St Elizabeths convalescing here, taking walks, writing (like Ezra Pound who spent several years here - second story, second window left of main entrance), tending their gardens, and - perhaps less bucolic - submitting to treatment for their ills. The "excited" patients were segregated within the Kirkbride building, as were men and women, as were the races. A separate building on the western edge of campus housed the criminally insane.

A daughter of a wealthy family lived in this large house built for her, with her own staff, on the grounds a short walk from the main building. Streets or lanes named "Raintree" typify a healing by nature ethic of the institution.

The western edge is the site of the massive new Coast Guard headquarters, currently under construction. A bald eagle nests in the forest on the left and is known to fly down and watch the workers on occasion.

While St Elizabeths continues to operate as a much smaller mental health facility on the eastern portion of the campus, the western 176-acre campus was abandoned in 2003. The site is a National Historic Landmark District. The buildings were stabilized by GSA and are now beginning renovation to house the consolidated Department of Homeland Security, with about 14,000 employees. It's a massive undertaking in Preservation and Renewal and the process is documented HERE.

Venezia. Il Canal Grande La Piazza S. Marco. 1828

2011-03-14T11:22:00.010-04:00

I've found a treasure.

A gentleman, a fellow appreciator of streetscape drawings, purchased This is Savannah Vol. 2 at the SCAD Scholarship Gala Auction. He wrote to tell me of his acquisition. He also mentioned this book which he purchased in Venice.

I could pore over it all day. The comprehensive and beautiful drawings in their lithographic detail completely overwhelm me. I especially appreciate the design of the pages, artful composition of text and drawing, all in the same language: varying strokes of the pen.

Of course, Venice is the ultimate "street"scape drawing city: from one side of the Grand Canal, one can see clearly the other with very little clutter except the passing boats which present a compelling addition to the drawing. Only...it's rather a "Canal"scape.

I would like to take you to Fairlington

2011-03-14T06:50:00.004-04:00

Fairlington is well-documented, not only on its historical marker signs, but HERE and HERE and HERE, thanks to dedicated residents who really love this historic community.

So, I'll focus on my perceptions, as a (transitory) resident.I've been planning to write about Fairlington for a while; as is often the case with something close to home, I finally will, now that my time here is drawing to a close and I've learned a little more about this epic 1940s planned community by living here for eight months. I inhabit a small top-floor bedroom in a three-story brick townhouse. I call it the baby's room; envisioning the young families moving to the area at the onset of WWII, it's the only bedroom beside the master. It is a cozy perch from which to work, with two windows and the constant white noise of I-395. I can check the traffic in a glance while sitting at my desk. Fairlington is equidistant from Old Town Alexandria and the District. I can drive into the District in less than ten minutes, depending on traffic, and bike there in about 45 minutes via the excellent trail network that converges on Shirlington. Good restaurants abound in Shirlington, as well as my favorite local paper shop, and groceries and post offices are within a ten minute walk here and on King Street. The neighborhood has a friendly, relaxed which is nowhere more apparent than strolling above 11 lanes of highway on the Abingdon Street Bridge.
Noted architects Franzheim and Mills used high-quality materials, employed architetural variety and got the traditional details right.

Two schools, a fire station, and a church in matching neo-colonial red brick and white trim round out the 3500 dwellings in the Fairlington community.

Fairlington's homes, in almost thirty different varieties, are built on the hills, on either side of 395. The high-density mixed-use development at Shirlington is in the distance, across 395 (photo above). The architects took advantage of the topography to maximize capacity and dwelling entrances. Take your eyes from the house at right (above) to house at right (below, same house) It's a two-story duplex townhouse. Walk down the steps to the left and another dwelling occupies the basement. A duplex cottage is attached at the rear. Below the cottage, another entrance from the side. That's one building, about six units. But it does not look like a typical 6-unit apartment building at all.Traditional townhouses moulded to the landscape. It is seldom that the front door actually fronts the street to which it is addressed which makes for interesting directions when inviting friends over to your house. My door fronts a lovely wooded path (above)

I would not have been inclined to choose a home that did not have a proper street address or a neighborhood whose street network was so circuitous and "suburban." But my first impression was lots of big leafy trees and well-designed dwellings. I've enjoyed calling Fairlington home for the curiosity of its era, 1940s wartime, as well as it location. The whir of helicopters so common over Fairlington is a result of its proximity to the Pentagon and a reminder of its origins as WWII Defense Housing.

Enjoy the "Reminiscences" of older folks who called Fairlington home throughout the decades.

I would like to take you to Parkfairfax

2011-03-11T18:28:00.008-05:00

Parkfairfax was built in the early 1940s by the MetLife Corporation. Like adjacent Fairlington which was built on the mandate of President FDR by the Defense Homes Corporation, Parkfairfax housed workers and families coming to the capital region at the onset of World War II. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford lived here while serving in Congress, but they were too late to presidency to get a Parkfairfax floor plan named after them.

Much has been recorded of the National Landmark.

I stumbled upon it as a runner and cyclist, looking to explore the neighborhood I'd recently elected to live in. It took months to understand the street patterns. I am still perplexed about the architectural patterns but pleasantly amused. Eclecticism is much more interesting than rationalism. Here are my thoughts as I roamed the neighborhood...

The {Southern Vernacular} Dogtrot meets Colonial Williamsburg

...Meets 1930s elements of Modernism

Here is what happens when you shove all those stylistic forces together, literally. As its name is a conglomeration of "park" (used throughout MetLife's portfolio of projects: Parkchester in the Bronx, Parkmerced in San Francisco) and "fairfax" (the area was part of Fairfax County in the 1800s), the buildings are architectural conglomerations.

The front facades are decorated: engaged pilasters, shallow columned porticoes, roof vent, cupola, shutters and other applied deco.
Small windows don't line up with the doors, like a child's abstract drawing of a house: doors and windows all thrown together loosely within the boundary of a roof and walls. What are they like, inside?

Where are the windows?

I found them - on the back, opting for private views over the street view.

But this one was lost on me: "front" facade on left faces a steep hillside while the "rear", windowed facade faces the street. The front doors are accessible from the parking lot by a sidewalk winding up the side of the building, cut into the hillside. This is the rule on Gunston Road, cutting through the center of Parkfairfax. "Rear" facades face the street. I imagined the "front" facade addressed another street. Nope.

Consistent colonial-inspired signage unifies the neighborhood and likely helps lost visitors find addresses. most of which do not front the street. Curious, indeed.

Family Seas, Trees & Charts

2011-03-10T14:29:00.006-05:00

FAMILY SEA

Family Names in an undulating sea, buoying up the ships...some life metaphors here, surely.

FAMILY TREE

Sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, and even great-grandchildren branch out from the trunk, where it all started, with one sweet union. Framed by a home-spun cross-stitch border and family name plate.

GENEOLOGICAL CHART

Family Name Crest, surrounded by ancestor names and birth dates, charted back as many generations as you have information. Family photos or quotes make a nice addition.

I enjoy making these Family Sea, Tree & Chart drawings for my own family, friends, and for clients.

{Grandma's 80th Birthday Gift}

Please CONTACT me in you are interested in a Custom drawing to honor your family.

Arla: 80 Years Young

2011-03-06T10:58:00.003-05:00

I know. My Grandma is hot. In addition, she has a heart of gold, works like a mule, and is ever steadfast in her love of God, commitment to the gospel, and love of family. Best wishes for her birthday today!

Captain's Row: Cobblestone Composition

2011-03-03T13:01:00.006-05:00

Cobblestones, Ballast stones, are good for holding down the empty ship across the ocean to port, for paving streets, for balancing a drawing composition.
Thanks to Mr. Otto for the idea!

Captain's Row: 100 BLOCK Prince Street

2011-02-26T22:55:00.007-05:00

100 BLOCK Prince Street Alexandria VA; Rough Draft

After photographing each building, measuring widths (with my own feet, in heels, admittedly), I drew "Captain's Row", the 100 Block of Prince Street in Alexandria. I was happy to draw with my Parker 51, recently resurrected after getting clogged with ink; I thoroughly washed and soaked and dried it back to action.

The block was selected after much deliberation and walking around town. The slope is interesting and a challenge. I like the way the rowhomes shift with the slope; Sill and rooflines do not align between neighbors. Because of the slope, however, the drawing does not appear to be at rest. A solution - and final drawing - is forthcoming...

Letterpress: Questions, Answers, Inspiration

2011-02-19T14:10:00.003-05:00

It is a New Year's Resolution: LEARN LETTERPRESS.
I have been gathering inspiration: perusing paper shops like Le Village Marche - Paris is just down the street!, as well as the mother of all paper shops, Paper Source. I've been delighted to find artists whose work I adore. Many are featured in this book, a compilation of the work of 30 contemporary Letterpress Artists by Charlotte Rivers, from Chronicle Books. I've even found some clues about how to learn Letterpress in Alexandria and a host of videos, including this one which takes a tour of Hatch Show Print, Letterpressing since 1879 in downtown Nashville.

"Preservation through Production"

- Hatch Show Print Manager, Jim Sherraden

I loved the comment by RayDAidler:
A Graphics Art student asked the instructor,
"What is the difference between offset and letterpress printing?"
The instructor told him, "When a girl kisses her handkerchief then presses it against your lips, that's kinda like offset printing. But when she presses her lips against yours, now that's LETTERPRESS ! "

Lithography: 2011: Alexandria VA

2011-02-17T23:33:00.003-05:00

I took myself on a field trip to a class at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria tonight to try to get a visual understanding of traditional printing techniques. Master Penny was gracious to explain the differences between Lithography, Offset Lithography, Etching, Photogravure. I was trying to understand the technique, for my own curiosity as well as discern if traditional printing could be a way to print my drawings, for a hand-made feel, the impression of ink on paper by sheer force rather than inkjet. I am seeking a way to print in a tradition that shares history with the types of drawings I am making, that preserves an honorable art, that is more tactile.

I watched two students laboriously and methodically make a lithographic print: rolling the oversized brayer back and forth through the almost-dry black ink puddle on the table, then five times over the illustrated stone, then ink, then stone, then ink, then stone. Fresh paper on the inked stone, scratch paper for padding, top cloth. Set the large metal handle of the large metal roller, then rotate the handle and guide the stone down the table and under the essential weight of the roller to push the ink from the stone to the paper in just the right proportion.

The machines and the stones were made and used in the 1800s. The drawing is produced, backwards, on the stone's surface, no engraving, with a variety of fountain pens feeding a special greasy ink. The greasy ink holds the printing ink as it is rolled over the surface and imprints the paper when pressed. The stone I photographed (above) shows the backwards drawing and epitomizes the level of detail that can be achieved with fine point greasy ink pens. When litho printers closed shop in the later 1900s, stones were thrown in the river. These are very heavy and hard to come by these days (so are the presses.) When a stone is put out of commission, it is recycled by grinding the drawn image from its surface through a series of granular concoctions rubbed over the surface increasing from relatively coarse to the finest granularity, like sandpaper without the paper. Then a new drawing can be created on the stone.

A description of the Process of Lithographic Printing can be found on the internet but seeing the prints was essential to really make an impression, for me. Kind of like the difference between inkjet and hand press.

The Athenaeum Centerpiece

2011-02-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

I've been looking over Old Town Alexandria with my drawing eye for some months now and finally have landed on my pick. As it goes so often, your first impulse is usually right. My first taste of Alexandria in 2008 was bustling King Street in the height of summer. Ducking away from the crowds, just one block south, I found respite and intrigue on Prince Street. The block between Union and Lee Street, closest to the Potomac River is known as Captain's Row. The next block is Gentry Row. Between the two rows is the Athenaeum. It is home to Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association and it's vaulted space swathed with light from huge windows is used as a gallery and educational venue. Originally, it was built as the Bank of the Old Dominion, served as Chief Commissary's Office during the Civil War, reverted to a bank, then an apothecary factory, then a church. That is the beauty of a "dumb" - and beautiful - building: to live multiple lives and thus retain, even increase, in value in the community. It the is Centerpiece of the new Alexandria Streetscape Drawing...to be continued...

I would like to take you to Lincoln's Cottage

2011-02-12T18:33:00.005-05:00

In honor of the President's birthday, we visited his Cottage. Walking into the front door felt like walking into a church. About 3 miles northeast of the White House, Lincoln slept here in the summer, retreating to this home in the evening and commuting by horseback each morning, alone. Imagine the American president ambling through countryside into the city, speaking to soldiers and citizens along the way. Eventually, he was all but coerced by the Secretary of War to allow a military escort of 25-30 men.
The Cottage was built for a banker named Riggs and his family in the 1840s and within a decade became the property of the US Government. The Armed Forces Retirement Home grew up around the cottage (note the stuccoed bell tower and water tower just within the frame of the photos, right next to the cottage) and still operates as such today.
Other presidents stayed here but it has been preserved as it was during Lincoln's tenure. The Emancipation Proclamation was written here as well as many other significant events. The house is very sparsely furnished which makes it easy to both appreciate the architecture and imagine the space as Lincoln's family abode. The design of the house is heavily influenced by Gothic Revival country home plans in Andrew Jackson Downing's Victorian Cottage Residences (1842).

Find out more and book a tour of this National Trust site.

The Capitol: Underground and Under the Dome

2011-02-05T11:32:00.002-05:00

Organized by the DC Preservation League, we were guests of the Architect of the Capitol who, with the senior VP from RTKL gave us a great tour of the new visitors center by RTKL as well as the historic Capitol. The visitors center in under the plaza. The elevators are visible in the photo above, aligned with the light posts. A huge excavation project and challenging addition to an internationally renowned and historic edifice.

Threshold between new visitor's center and historic Capitol.

The plaster cast for the Statue of Freedom which tope the Capitol dome is fittingly displayed facing the new light-filled underground atrium of the visitors center.

Two-story dome under the north light monitor, on the Senate side.

The Capitol Dome. The Apotheosis of Washington painted in the true (plaster) fresco style in the center by Constantine Brumidi who painted it during the last year of the Civil War. The light-flooded passageway along the peristyle. The layers of ornament that build on one another up to the oculus.

The half-dome room under the south light monitor used originally as the main Congressional Meeting Room, now for events such as the Inaugural luncheon.

I was struck by this statue perched over the dooway from the Rotunda to the former Congressional Meeting Room and interested to learn that she is Clio, the Greek goddess or muse of history. I love how she is casting her eyes about the world, taking notes on her tablet while traversing time and space in her winged shiplette.

First Ever T-O-T-C SALE

2011-02-01T08:14:00.005-05:00

SHOP HERE

The Exploratory Drawings of Andrea Palladio

2011-01-29T17:43:00.000-05:00

One last visit to the National Building Museum to see these incredible, ancient drawings made for an architect at study, seemingly searching for the code to the classical architecture of the Greeks and Romans. His measurements and notes, sometimes tentative and exploratory lines, variety of drawing types on a page are evocative. At the National Building Museum exhibit, material listed for these drawings listed not only the drawing surface, all of the inks, but also the tools (compass, etc.) To walk your eye through these spaces, rooms...

Wearing its Structure on its Facade

2011-01-29T11:26:00.008-05:00

I was struck by this building last night, somewhere between ice skating at the National Sculpture Garden and tapas (7th Street NW between D and E). It's a drawing that turns from elevation to section. It's what if the section sliced through this building but not its neighbors. It's a building turned inside out, wearing its structure on its facade. It's exhibitionist, baring its bones to the street.
Modern in concept, Traditional details, true to form. What is it? More, please.

Business Correspondence

2011-01-28T08:44:00.004-05:00

BUSINESS CARD

MAILING TAG

LETTERHEAD STATIONERY

Starting the New Year with New Business Stationery for Turn-of-the-Centuries.

NEW YEAR 2011

2011-01-27T19:02:00.010-05:00

I celebrated the NEW YEAR in NEW York City. I thought about my New Year's Resolutions. I made one: to LEARN LETTERPRESS. Then the deadlines and travels came in waves and my to-do list overwhelmed my perspective a bit. This week I am settling in, surrounded by snow, to work and to envision this year in work. Here are some images that inspire my percolating ideas:

CORRESPONDENCE & TYPOGRAPHY

MAPS THAT INCORPORATE VIEWS & ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS

ANALYTIQUE

So, in addition to learning the art of LETTERPRESS, I want to make Architectural and Map Drawings that combine and shift views, continuing the From the Birds Eye series to include Streetscapes and Cityscapes in: Savannah, Brooklyn, Alexandria, Georgetown, Detroit, Maine, and Frederick MD. I want to make Geneological Charts and Drawings. I want to use Typography in unique ways to design Stationery. I am ready to start the NEW YEAR!

Christmas Card 2010: Inspired by Handel's Messiah

2010-12-16T18:11:00.011-05:00

I've enjoyed a (well-deserved) break today. I'll call it a SNOW DAY because, indeed, it snowed today in Washington DC! I haven't witnessed this phenomenon in a long time, living in Savannah. I didn't know whether to be excited or worried. I was too chicken to drive on snowy streets so I enjoyed a white walk to the post office to mail t.o.t.c. packages today (with the added bonus of talking with my friend in Paris while I walked the winter wonderland.) So, I took some quiet time to design this year's Christmas card.

I have been listening to Handel's MESSIAH for the past several months. Lately, it's been an obsession. When I'm not listening, the epic phrases from Isaiah and Matthew, Luke and Malachi run through my head along with the dynamic melodies. For the past five years, the evergreen Christmas tree has been a constant element in my cards. So...how to combine the Messiah and the quintessential evergreen? While listening to Handel's masterpiece, I arranged the most powerful phrases into form. Voila. In the spirit of thrift and efficiency, these are 5 1/2" x 8" postcards.

The trees of Christmases Past

The story of Handel's composition of MESSIAH is also quite inspiring: Click HERE to read.

Vol. 2 UNFURLED up the Jepson Stairs

2010-12-07T22:08:00.002-05:00

I explained the book to people all day by saying...when the open it up, you can flip through the pages like a normal book. But it's an accordion signature, so you can take the last page and unfurl it - I looked directly in front of me - up the Jepson stairs! The image of that possibility stayed with me and, upon asking, the staff at the Jepson Center were gracious enough to let me in on their closed day to take these photographs.

The First Ever TELFAIR MUSEUMS Cool Yule Holiday Trunk Show

2010-12-07T21:58:00.001-05:00

After a delicious breakfast at the Casa de Cat, including a big rich mug of hot chocolate, I was on my way Saturday morning December 4 to the Telfair Museum's Jepson Center for the Holiday Trunk Show. Unloading curbside, I heard the announcer one block away at the start line of the Savannah River Bridge Run where I could be found in past years. I felt the same nervousness as he announced "30 seconds to start."

It was a whirlwind of making and preparing for this show, then driving to Savannah from Washington DC. I was sleep-deprived and excited and a little anxious about whether my borrowed display props would work - including some vintage dishes from Cat and two bricks removed and washed from her patio. The frantic hour of setup was over and people began floating into the glass atrium to see the work of eight local artists and craftspeople. I lit up and stayed so for seven hours while engaging with friends and colleagues and new friends, speaking about my work and theirs, finding common interests - and of course common acquaintances because in Savannah, one degree of separation is the rule. I LOVE this part! My sometimes introverted nature takes a vacation and I enjoy talking about Savannah and architecture and drawing and preservation and architectural history and craft and Telfair and SCAD and Washington DC and Baltimore and maps and what's next for turn-of-the-centuries. I particularly enjoyed introducing the new book, 2 1/2 years' work, This is Savannah Vol. 2 - Jones Street. This was the perfect debut.

The Show was also a reunion of sorts for me, coming back to Savannah. Hugs from my friends and colleagues were precious. Meeting the other talented artists and admiring their work was inspiring. The Telfair staff and volunteers were helpful and gracious, even helping the artists unload and reload their cars. I was the last one out by about half an hour. It look me longer to shut down. Though bittersweet to see it end, I soon realized how exhausted I was and was only too happy, after a nice long visit at shopSCAD, to relax at circa with Cat and eat a huge hamburger - after making a calculated dash through the Christmas parade on Broughton Street. Savannahians love their parades!

I managed some quick photos - and one quick bathroom break - during a brief lull.
The "seconds" bin proved popular as always: $1 each or 10 for $5. At one point four ladies were huddled around the corner of the table. I joked that I needed a second table to adequately accomodate their intense bargain hunting. They promptly took over the nearby table earlier occupied by kids' crafting, spreading all the cards out for better hunting.

THANK YOU to everyone I was lucky enough to see and to meet at the Telfair Trunk Show and to Lisa Ocampo and the Telfair staff for their excellent organization and hosting!

Savannah Streetscape PRINTS

2010-12-03T08:05:00.007-05:00

Introducing...13" x 19" PRINTS featuring several of the Savannah streetscapes I've drawn over the past four years, paired with A Map of Savannah, Georgia.
Here are the Jones Street blocks featured in This is Savannah Vol. 2. For posting purposes here, I've arranged the prints by block, north side of the street and south, side by side. It may be a nice way to hang them, ultimately. Available blocks include:
Jones Street: 200West, 100W, 10W, 10E, 100E, 200E, 300E, 400E, 500E
Whitaker Street: 500, 600, 700, 800
Broughton Street: 10W - south, 100W - south
Oglethorpe: 100E - north
Congress: 600E - north
State: 500E - south
Taylor: 200E - south
Gaston: 100W - south
Charlton: 200E - south

Available for purchase in MY SHOP.

Red Patterned Endpapers

2010-12-02T22:04:00.005-05:00

This is Savannah, Vol. 2 is available with a variety of choices for endpapers on the front inside cover. In addition, I have a dull red German Ingres paper and a bright red Lokta handmade paper with some nice texture (not photographed). Take your pick! But don't take too long. There are 38 (of 50) Books left available...and I am on my way to Savannah to sell them at the Telfair Museum's Trunk Show this Saturday, December 4, 10-5 at the Jepson Center.

Drayton Hall: Palladio in America

2010-12-02T07:51:00.007-05:00

I took a break from "book-binding my life away" to attend a lecture at the National Building Museum, Drayton Hall: Palladio in America last night with my friend, MB. (And I witnessed the President's 20+ vehicle motorcade on my way down.) MB and I were neighbors and friends in our beloved Savannah and have both recently relocated to Washington DC and enjoy exploring our new city together. The lecture was a unique opportunity to experience the merging of our new and familiar loved places, the Lowcountry and our Nation's Capital. For me, also the merging of my favorite historic house, Drayton Hall, a plantation on the Ashley River near Charleston which I enjoyed visiting numerous times while living in nearby Savannah - and my favorite museum, the National Building Museum. (image below) Executive Director George McDaniel described Drayton Hall as a time line, not a time capsule. This is precisely why I am drawn to the house. It is preserved, not restored; open as a protected ruin reflective of its 275-year lifespan, not a closed, secure re-creation of a certain period.

Touring the house five times has only led me to scratch the surface of Drayton Hall's history and mystery. I learned, among a myriad of interesting ideas and connections, that found within John Drayton's books was his detailed account of the furnishings of the White House which he visited while in Washington DC! Also of noteworthy discussion was the watercolor rendering, recently gifted to the house, of Pierre Eugene DuSimitier who painted Drayton Hall in the 1700s, along with plantation architecture in Jamaica and a few other notable houses in the new world. The painting shows a semi-circular colonnade joining the main house and flanking outbuildings (now gone) which is the basis for recent archaeological digs. I appreciated the archaeological approach by Director of Preservation Carter Hudgins, like the clues found within the proportions of the rooms. Drayton Hall's room proportions of 1:1, 1:2 and 3:5 follow the pattern of Palladio's designs.

The lecture is coincident with the Building Museum's phenomenal exhibit, Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey which exhibits the work of Italian architect Andrea Palladio in models and his own drawings and explains the repercussions in the UK and America of his aesthetic, the result of rigorous study of classical Greek and Roman architecture. Which brings us to Drayton Hall, arguably the first example of Palladianism in the newly formed United States of America. McDaniel explained the Palladian significance of Drayton Hall in the fact that no precedent had been found for the design of this house in either England or America and put forth Palladio's Villa Cornaro in the Veneto with its double portico. Palladio's books were found on John Drayton's library list. And this is just the beginning of the Architectural Detective Work...

THIS IS SAVANNAH, VOL. 2

2010-11-28T11:37:00.008-05:00

THIS IS SAVANNAH, VOL. 2
DRAWINGS: 2008 - 2010
PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 2010

Limited Edition: 50 Books
This is Savannah, Vol. 2 is the second Volume in a series of drawings which combine elevations and perspectives to illustrate the architectural edges of the streets of Savannah, block by block. Vol. 2 is comprised of 18 blocks on both sides of the famous Jones Street, from Tattnall to East Broad. Jones Street is praised for it rich architecture as well as its lush tree lawns. It's almost decadent, just to walk down the street under the magnificent branches of the live oaks, dappled sunlight filtering through to cast shadows on the facades, building details, garden gates and walls that form the street wall. The details, often hidden from view by the wonderful canopy of street trees, emerge in these ink drawings. The original drawings are made freehand at a scale of 1"=20' to 1"=6' with a 1949 Parker ink fountain pen and printed onto natural cardstock. The "signature" (the book's pages) is bound into a hard cover under a sheet of patterned red paper in a variety of designs, some handmade. A pouch on the back inside cover holds a folded print of A Map of Savannah, Georgia.

Bonus Material!

This is Savannah Vol. 2, like Vol. 1 is an Accordion Book. However, this accordion signature is attached at the front only, so it can easily function as a standard book, turning page by page - Or, position the book in a super long hallway and gently pull the last page, pull, pull, pull to unfold the pages into one long continuous streetscape! At 9" x 12", Vol. 2 is larger than Vol. 1 and the drawings are larger and, if I may say so, better. You'll enjoy finding familiar buildings and appreciate the rich context of historic architecture - and details - in this renowned city. This is Savannah Vol. 2 is also a perfect souvenir, to remember Savannah and to share her with the folks back home.

Available in Savannah at the Telfair Trunk Show, December 4. Come see me!

Also Available at shopSCAD and in MY SHOP - or just send me an email.

The Vol. 2 Solution

2010-11-22T20:26:00.002-05:00

I spent some quality time (racking my brain) with the insightful and provoking comments from my friends, revising the Jones Street page layout. Here are the issues and resolutions:

1. The test prints proved the grey bar unsuccessful. The ink was not crisp around the white sketches, and it is impossible to print full bleed and retain the 11" width of the paper. I also agreed the grey fill lent itself to a digital feel, rather than the look of a printed page. And - I preferred the white space beyond the streetscapes, uninterrupted.
2. I recognize that the column of sketches, as it was, seemed a little rigid. I wanted to vary the scale of the sketches, but none seemed to work well large, as they were drawn at such a small scale, and the variation ultimately drew the eye from the streetscape which needed to remain dominant. So I varied scale selectivly and subtly, but kept the vignette sketches quiet, in their column.
3. The column seems at odds to the row of the streetscape drawings, surely. Once I looked at the block layouts in context with their neighbors, the columns appeared to mimic the cross streets between blocks, and they finally had a place, a reason for being as they were, in seeming opposition to the row.
4. Most of the blocks (those that are a full 300' long) worked well with the column layout but I was still at a loss on the three shorter blocks and one extra-long block at East Broad.
5. So, I focused on the necessarily wholistic design of an accordion book layout, not simply 11x17 pages, but (19) 8x11 pages that form a 160"-long layout. With this in mind, I shifted the first block right and allowed a gradual entry - and a subtle introduction - to Jones Street. I rolled the last three blocks together, slightly tightening the space around 300 and 400 blocks to allow for the 500 block (the extra-long one) to be a little bigger, though still not the same scale as the other blocks.
I think it was a good compromise, in that it honors the book's format as an accordion and also creates a pleasing composition, page by page. I'm glad design in a vacuum did not prevail - THANKS, friends!

Help me make it Perfect for the People

2010-11-15T07:44:00.011-05:00

version 1click to enlarge

version 2

click to enlarge

I'm a little nervous about doing this: It seems a bit unprofessional, perhaps. But - Help! The book covers are ready for their signatures, and I am still waffling about page layout. Do the architectural detail vignette sketches work better in a column or in a row?

Often, when you design something, you are just too close to be your best critic. It is really important to me that This is Savannah Vol. 2 be Perfect for the People.

So - If you please...Which page layout do you prefer: 1 or 2?

Thank You, Miss You, Happy Occasions

2010-11-14T03:34:00.006-05:00

Introducing...

NEW Stationery!
...fun, hand-drawn designs for lots of occasions.

Available in MY SHOP

individually and in sets THANK YOU

Spinning Chandeliers

Folded Note Cards

Mandalas, Snowflakes, Doilies...Beautiful...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Folded Note Cards

More Cakes! Inspired by my favorite bakery and the goddess of cake

MISS YOU
Folded Note Cards
front (above) & inside (below)

THANK YOU
THINKING OF YOU

Folded Note Cards

Vintage wallpaper paired with accountrements of home, in pale pastels

HAPPY NEW BABY
Folded Note Cards

Boy, girl, or undetermined as of yet...baby nestles under a mobile hanging from a felt cloud.

Remember Pat the Bunny, anyone?

TEMPLE WEDDING

Folded Note Cards

It's good to take a break from straight lines and architectural drawings on occasion. I spent an intense and wonderful week designing all of these new note cards in preparation for the Stationery Party & Open Studio this Saturday. With help from my business partner, My Mom.

Stationery Party & Open Studio

2010-11-14T03:27:00.000-05:00

Thank You, Veterans

2010-11-11T09:18:00.000-05:00

This is Savannah, Vol. 2 - Available December 4!

2010-11-10T09:26:00.003-05:00

This is Savannah, Vol. 2 Jones Street is in the making. The hardbound 9" x 12" book features cardstock accordion pages and a fold-out map. The pages exhibit eighteen Jones Street blocks intricately ink-drawn by hand. In addition to the streetscape drawings, one architectural detail from each drawing is featured larger on the page. This is Savannah, Vol. 2 will be available DECEMBER 4, in Savannah at the Telfair Trunk Show and at shopSCAD. Also available online in my shop.

Great Holiday gift! Please contact me to reserve one now or if you are interested in carrying the book in your shop.

The University (of Virginia)

2010-11-07T22:51:00.002-05:00

It is not visible in the dark, but behind the pediment is the Rotunda.from the portico of the Rotunda, across the Lawn flanked by the Ranges. Looking back across the lawn toward the Rotunda. The contrast of light and darkness manifest Jefferson's classical spaces in their essential relationships of solid and void, proportion.
Student rooms occupy the Ranges that extend from the Rotunda to enclose the Lawn. A rocking chair and a stack of firewood seemed to be standard issue at each door.Here, at the School of Architecture - Campbell Hall, I felt like I time-travelled back ten years to Cowgill Hall where I worked in studio for five years at Virginia Tech. Both Campbell and Cowgill are tucked away behind the venerable halls which define the dominant architecture of the campus (or, "the Grounds") - Jeffersonian neo-Classical at U.Va and Gothic rendered in limestone at VT. Both are modern, with egg carton concrete, a full glass wall on the second (administrative) floor and glass bays on the upper (studio) floors. The "feel" inside was similar, with almost every wall surface covered with student work, students and faculty engaged and excited about architecture. There were models and travel sketchbooks, both rendered by hand - I appreciated seeing these, in particular. The new wing at the School of Architecture by W.G. Clark, who gave a tour and explained that: Design decisions were made to accomodate student pin-ups with large doors, easy to open with a shoulder while one's hands are full with drawings and models, concrete walls on the south to block the light from the President's back yard at night and glass walls on the north to admit light into the pin-up spaces during the day and spill the interior light onto the plaza at night so the buildings speaks its use to passersby. Clark said the President, passing by one evening, appreciated seeing the building in use, students working. A patchwork of transparent and translucent glass in the stairwell casts moving bodies through the space as unwitting actors on a stage, at night.

Telfair Art Fair 2010

2010-11-03T02:04:00.003-04:00

Madison Square was finished just in time to be accepted for exhibit in the grand atrium of the Jepson Center for the Arts, in the Open Art Category of the Telfair Art Fair.

The Library of Congress, in Stone (and Bronze)

2010-10-31T00:09:00.000-04:00

The Library of Congress became one of my favorite sources online for historic images. I felt like I knew the LOC. Then I met the real live Library of Congress, situated on Capitol Hill just east of the Capitol dome.I was lucky to have an insider guide to explain the circumstances of its creation in the late 1800s. He said, If you are impressed (as I was) with the exterior you'll be amazed inside! I was.He explained that the project came in under budget, the extra funds used to adorn the building. Craning my neck to take in the mosaics and frescoes within the vaulted halls, stained glass skylight, stone carvings, I thought, Here is our American equal to the incredibly ornate carved stone Hindu temples of India: As those temples stand for the religious and cultural narratives of Hindu mythology, the Library of Congress expounds the moral and intellectual ideals of our American society.

Human scale is manifest not only in the materials and their proportions but throughout the building as human forms carved in stone and bronze: babies with props represent various noble professions, sculpted heads mounted at the keystone of window arches represent various ethnic societies of the world, the busts of great thinkers and an abundance of mythological figures are nestled into the architecture. Each tells the narrative of our American moral and intellectual ideals.

A Map of Savannah, Georgia: 1916 / 2010

2010-10-20T19:56:00.008-04:00

I've been in Savannah, deep. In my mind. Perpetuating my quest to draw maps patterned after the lithographic techniques of 1800s maps, I present a map of the city core, north of Forsyth Park. The hand-drawn lines are rusticated. I hope they look like pressed ink. The building footprints and street patterns represent the City's structure in 1916.The map features eighteen blocks of Jones Street around the perimeter. The "bonus" sketches within the borders of the lithographic maps are one of my favorite features, like in this map of Lisbon. (I have a long way to go, Lisbon...) The final print size is 16" x 18". A few more glimpses -

This map will be part of the BOOK exhibiting all of the Jones Street block drawings, This is Savannah, Vol. 2.

The Print is also Available in my Shop.

Books, Unchained

2010-10-19T23:46:00.008-04:00

click to view larger

I "got familar" with The Unchained Tour while taking on the challenge from its local organizers to design a postcard featuring the independent bookstores of Savannah. The Tour consists of authors, storytellers, raconteurs, and a few musicians performing in support of independent bookstores, and it lands in Savannah this weekend. If you are in Savannah, check it out!
As founder George Dawes Green explained, “We’re embarking on our tour to spread the message that indie bookstores should be the vital center of communities. Nights of storytelling and music, of book groups and talent shows, are at the heart of any living town. It’s time to break the chains of the Internet, and of addictive shallow surfing, and get back to books and deep reading and sharing evenings with living breathing people.”
On that note, why don't you shut down your computer right now and get out - or into a book!

I Heart Autumn

2010-10-17T08:44:00.004-04:00

I am soaking up Autumn, my first in the Mid-Atlantic in seven years. The seasonal orange vegetables and apples at Eastern Market, the scent of leaves working their way back into the ground, decomposing by moisture and sun; boats put up at Fletchers Cove signal the end of summer. I saw the paddle boats stacked at the tidal basin wistfully; I'd wanted to go out on one of those...maybe next year.

Madison Square Postcards, Too!

2010-10-15T19:19:00.001-04:00

Introducing Savannah No. 6...

2 Squares drawn, 3 more as I document the jewels of Bull Street: Johnson, Chippewa, and Monterey.

MADISON Square: Savannah, GA

2010-10-15T10:04:00.001-04:00

Sergeant William Jasper guards Madison Square, sword in hand, holding aloft the flag he nobly planted before British lines. The Revolutionary War hero was killed in battle near this spot in the 1779 Siege of Savannah. Like Wright Square, Madison is endowed by phenomenal buildings along its perimeter, including the Savannah Guards Armory {shopSCAD}, the Scottish Rite Building, St. Johns Episcopal Church, the Green-Meldrim House (temporary home of General Sherman when he occupied Savannah during the Civil War) , the Sorrel-Weed House, the DeSoto Hotel, and the Eliza Jewett House {E. Shaver Booksellers.} The DeSoto is rendered in retrospect and appears as a shadowy "watermark" in place of the present DeSoto Hotel which replaced the old magnificant and once state-of-the-art original DeSoto Hotel.This print is second in a series of Architectural Map-drawings of Savannah Squares, along the renowned Bull Street, from the river to Forsyth Park. It is companion to WRIGHT SQUARE.

Frederick Postcards, too!

2010-10-12T11:01:00.004-04:00

FOR SALE at The Muse on N. Market Street, Frederick as well as online at my etsy shop.

Frederick, Maryland: 200 N. Market Street

2010-10-06T14:38:00.006-04:00

Among all the architecture-rich blocks in downtown Frederick, I chose the block between Second and Third on Market Street for its incredible architectural variety, seemingly undervalued. This block faces the 1890s Houck Mansion which now houses the tres-chic restaurant Volt, which I'd also like to draw.

I couldn't find a high-quality historic map with good lines and texture to fill the backgound for this first print showcasing one of Frederick's great urban blocks on Market Street. So I created one using available maps and hand-drawn cross-hatch patterns. The additional background layer is a multiplication of the beautifully scroll-cut wooden vents common in Frederick above gateways between buildings. You can find one in this block.

Now, Terracotta - or - Slate?

Both are FOR SALE at The Muse, on N. Market Street, Frederick as well as online in my etsy shop.