Watercolor Map of Fire Island, NY
This is a scan of a watercolor map that I created for a couple of friends. Most of my early maps were hand-drawn as it was the only way I knew to capture the uniqueness of the geography and make larger maps (most printers were limited to letter or tabloid paper).

One of the reasons I make maps is to create records that reflect someone's specific experience of a place. Most commercial maps show common landmarks but leave out little known places that may have been key to your personal experience. We each come away from a place with our own unique string of experiences and I think maps are an excellent way to record this. My friends Jill and Steve met on Fire Island, dated there over the summers and finally got married there a week after 9/11. I created the map as their wedding present. Though not visible at this size, it shows a few of the specific places they frequented... their house on G Sreet in Seaview, the F.I. lighthouse, the ferry routes and the bars and restaurants of Ocean Beach.

One of the themes I like to explore in my maps is that maps are subjective records of a place. Maps seem objective to the layman but all maps are subjective and reflect the editorial decisions of the map maker. In some cases, this may mean mapping commercial landmarks, other times, the editorial decisions reflect the politics of a place. Although most of the Earth has been mapped, there are still an endless set of editorial variations to be created.