So, it turns out I have a thing for cartography. I realized this putting the finishing touches on my newly updated Map of The Catskills print. (For sale NOW in my online shop!)
I realized this when I looked over at my studio’s bookshelf-of-my-books (this seems like a weird thing to have but I consider it a emotional trophy case/good Zoom background) and thought—hey, most of these books have maps!
For example, my upcoming book WHAT IS COLOR? The Global and Sometimes Gross Story of Pigments, Paint, and the Wondrous World of Art. (AVAILABLE ON THE 20th!)
As the subtitle makes clear, this book is global. So one of the first things I did when I was compiling pigment stories (from cow pee making yellow in India to crushed up bugs making red in Mesoamerica) was to make a giant map.
Because despite the non-European stories about pee and bugs that first had me thinking kids might like a book about how color is made, most of what people consider “art history” is verrry is European focused, hardly global at all. I found mapping out my examples made me literally look at empty spots and think—huh, how did people living there make pigments?
Thanks to this map I get to share stories about artists like Charles Edenshaw, a turn the century Haida sculptor from the Pacific Northwest whose work is inspiring artists all over the world today. (You can see that totem pole sculpture at The Met!)
But about those other maps: it turns out I put them EVERYWHERE…!
In the Wildsam Hudson Valley & Catskills Guide I illustrated. (I love this brilliant little book with the red cover!)
In the endpapers for the AstroNuts series I made with Jon Scieskza.
And here I am getting a book of maps from the library in my semi-autobiographical chapter book The Middle Kid.
Even in a kids’ book I made almost a decade ago called Fred & The Lumberjack. This is perhaps the first draft of my current Catskills map. I filled in a lot over the years!
And of course To Timbuktu, the the first book I ever made that’s written by my now-wife Casey. It’s an illustrated travelogue about us living from Beijing to Timbuktu as twenty-year-olds AKA basically a map over the course of 450+ pages!
So here’s to maps! I look forward to drawing many many more.
Wanna grab a Catskills one? You can get it in my online shop here, or in person in local spots like The Lost Bookshop in Delhi, Sundry in Tannersville, or Van Dusen’s in Lexington (the general store/bar where the map was first born as a giant mural on their wall) and of course in the bar at
!-Steven