Several of my books have come out of projects that started badly — or at least off kilter. So I really enjoyed Harriet Bart‘s description of how her book Ghost Maps happened.
In 2010 I was a Resident Fellow at the Virginia Center for creative Arts in Amherst, Virginia where I had time to research, and develop new work. I brought a few basic art materials and several books to read, among them Italo Calvino’s fantastic and evocative tale Invisible Cities.
Settling into VA5, my assigned studio, I noted the light was good, the ceiling high, the white walls ample, but the paint-splattered and stained concrete floor was a distraction.
I requested—and was denied—permission to repaint the floor. That seemingly insignificant chance encounter marked the beginning of a series of new projects.
I started to see the encrusted floor as a palimpsest, a cartography of the creative process, even an archive. Attending to color and repetition, I marked off sections of the floor with tape, scrubber the spaces between them and took aerial photographs.
See her other books on her website.
I have recently started experimenting with maps used in unusual ways. I love the idea of making maps of unusual things!