Sohei Nishino Diorama Maps

© Sohei Nishino, taken from NY Times.

I just came across these interesting "diorama maps" by Sohei Nishino on his website. They are constructed from the "enormous mound" of film photographs he takes when visiting various cities.

They were also mentioned in a January New York Times travel piece about maps and such in London.

Connections

Home is in that orange-shaded portion of California.
http://www.crew.org/science/pgaall.html

Days before the terrible earthquake in Japan, I'd had a conversation with a friend about the massive subduction quake that we are overdue for here in our part of the world. He'd taken a class from a famous geologist who specializes in earthquakes. He talked about how it will be around 9 on the Richter and how the shaking will go on for minutes, not seconds as in most earthquakes. The tsunami it will unleash will wipe out some of the lower-lying towns almost instantaneously. We will be cut off from the outside world for weeks afterward due to damaged highways and bridges, likely with no power and maybe no water. I expressed my desire to be long gone when this event occurs. The thought is too horrific to contemplate, even as we live every day with the knowledge that it could very well happen here at any time in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. And then...

When I moved to Humboldt County in the late 80s, I became friends with a woman who had two girls, the younger being 2 at the time. We were in the same anthropology class that required spending a chunk of the semester at the zoo watching the primates for a term project. I remember us meeting there. My friend spread out a blanket and we worked while the "baby" napped, then we took her around the zoo to look at the animals when we were done. While still a student I wound up living just behind them. We became good friends and kept in touch over the years. The toddler at the zoo is now a married university graduate. She's incredibly smart, creative and quirky in all the best ways. And bilingual too.

Kyoto

She is currently living with her husband in northern Japan, working with a cultural exchange program. After the earthquake, there were a couple of tense days here in California as we waited for news. Even her friends in Japan started posting notes on Facebook, wondering if she was ok. She doesn't live right on the coast, but isn't that far from the epicenter. She'd mentioned visiting Sendai before. It was, to put it mildly, an unnerving experience.

At last, she was able to get a line out--she and her husband were ok!

I've been to Japan once, many years ago to Kyoto. I arrived not sure what I'd think of the place, and left enthralled. Thinking about what's happening in that country now is painful.

Before the quake, I'd planned to briefly mention Japan in my next post. I have a link to something there that relates to a current project. Next time...

Map and Googleganger

I thought this map of US surnames was interesting. It shows the most common names in different parts of the country.

Mine is not a common name. In fact, there is only one other Ellen Golla who turns up prominently in searches. My Googleganger appears, like me, to be a Golla by marriage, be close in age, have the same middle initial, and live in California (she at the opposite end of the state).

Ellen J. Golla, if you've stumbled upon this, feel free to get in touch. I imagine that you have also been asked before if you are "the Southern or Northern California one."

1940 Map Model of San Francisco

From the National Archives...Via sfgate.com

An interesting map story appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle the other day.

A giant museum-quality three-dimensional relief map of San Francisco as it appeared 70 years ago has turned up in a UC Berkeley warehouse, stored in 17 wooden cases...

If assembled, the relief map would be 41 feet long by 37 feet wide and would show the whole city from the bay to the ocean, the Golden Gate to the San Mateo County line. It's an exact-scale model of San Francisco as it looked in 1940.

The model is carefully detailed, showing every street, and every building, all of them hand-painted. There are even tiny trees in the backyards and the parks...

Maps Cut in Paper

These all-white layered cut paper maps of rivers by Lauren Rosenthal are amazing (if you follow the link, click under projects to see more).

Detail from Upper Delaware River Watershed, 

2008 (c) Lauren Rosenthal, hand-cut watercolor paper.  

Maps as Art

The world's smallest atlas, made for Queen Mary's doll house.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

I've been pondering a potential project--a metaphorical atlas (for lack of a better description). I've long loved maps and map-like visuals, and have been wanting to use that kind of imagery in my artwork for as long as I can remember. I think the time is coming to do it as a book. We'll see if anything materializes. For now, it's mostly in the sketching and pondering phase. 

What made me want to mention this was stumbling upon this exhibition review on the BBC news site. The British Library and the Royal Geographical Society are both currently putting on shows that focus on the artistic aspect of maps. One of the items they show is the miniature atlas above.