Old Maps
A Childhood Obsession
I am a child of the eighties and nineties who enjoyed pirate stories and old treasure maps. I was first in line to listen if anyone was telling legends or stories about buried treasure. I am now an adult and…
Who am I kidding?
I still love those stories and I am still drawn to old maps!
Dr. Seema Patel (PhD), recently encouraged me to share my art. I enjoy working with mixed media, textiles, ink, and watercolor. I discovered watercolor paper comes in poster board size and I could not resist creating an old treasure map.
Merkanterre is the name I made up for the imaginary world in which this map belongs.
I used India Ink for the linework. For the aging, I sponged it with concentrated coffee and then ripped, cut, and set it on fire a bit. It is my first attempt at aging paper and I learned a lot from the process and know there are many improvements I could make.
Note to self, when doing art with concentrated coffee, wear gloves and strain the coffee.
Apparently, caffeine can be absorbed through the skin and cleaning up coffee grounds is like sweeping up sand. No matter how much you sweep, it still pops up everywhere.
I was sitting on the tiled floor of my bathroom at 11 pm, covered in coffee grounds and vibrating with energy. My husband walked in just as I was holding a heat gun and blowing out the fire of my art piece.
He glanced at me, the stained bath towels, the coffee grounds all over the floor, and then the bathtub full of coffee. The only comment was, “What are you working on?” When I responded “A treasure map,” he only smiled and said, “That’s nice,” and headed off to sleep.
I really do not think he can be surprised by me at this point.
