Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Book Review (and a giveaway): Personal Geographies

I introduced you to Jill K. Berry here - she's an amazing mixed media artist and I am greatly attracted to her work. Lettering, maps, beautiful colors, collage? I love it. I wonder if those things tie into my college days as an architecture student?


I'm rambling. To the point. Jill has the most amazing book out titled

It's part project/technique, part inspiration, and ALL eye-candy and 
I get to give away a copy to one of you who
comment on this post!
You have until Dec 10th to tell me about your favorite map and what it means to you.

Campomigliaio Head Map by Giavanni Cera
My favorites? All of them.

There is something that intrigues me about maps of every kind. I can stare at them for hours. I have large laminated world and US maps on my wall that I'll drag the kids up to any time a "where" question comes up. I save every single National Geographic map insert and would paper my walls with them if I could get away with it. (Wait a minute - why wouldn't I? Hmmmmm - dangerous thoughts arising here!) 

Heart Map by Jill Berry

I love maps even more when they are of imagined worlds. I a huge fantasy and ski-fi literature freak and the maps of those worlds are some of my favorites. 

Maps as ART? Oh be still my beating heart. I've had a series of "map" quilts in my head for ages, waiting and waiting for me to get around to working on them. This book might just push them right to the front of the line.
Flipping Trip by Jill Berry


This book is full of those wonderful interior and imaginary maps, beautiful galleries of work from many different artists in different media.

I think perhaps one of the reasons I'm so drawn to mixed media work is that the techniques are very applicable to textiles. I can do almost anything on fabric these days that artists can do with paper or collage or paint. I can print stuff on fabric (isn't that the coolest thing!?!?) or even collage paper to it. (QA magazine has a number of articles that detail how to make "paper cloth.")

While I don't pick up project books intending to follow along a copy someone else's projects - these ideas are all so inspirational that they are sparking all kinds of images in my minds eye. This fold-up map box could just as easily be made with cloth on a stabilizer like craft fuse or timtex.

Cartographic Reliquary by Jill Berry
If you want even more yummy map type stuff - check out the blog that Jill started to further inspire you with more mapmaking beauty and wonderfulness.
There you will find links to book reviews, podcasts, other cool map links.
Carved copper hand map by Jill Berry

Don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win!

Each of these blogs still has a giveaway of Jill's book open. Visit each and leave a comment for more chances to win your own copy of Personal Geographies. All the winners will be drawn on December 10th.
fine print: the publisher is only willing to ship to domestic US addresses. :-(

Friday, Nov 25 Aimee Myers Dolich http://artsyville.blogspot.com/
Mon Nov 28 Carla Sonheim http://carlasonheim.wordpress.com/
Tues Nov 29 Diana Trout http://www.dianatrout.typepad.com/
Weds Nov 30 Gloria Hansen http://www.gloriahansen.com/weblog/
Friday Dec 2 Jane LaFazio http://www.JaneVille.blogspot.com 
Tues Dec 6 Lisa Engelbrecht http://lisaletters.blogspot.com/
Weds Dec 7 Lyric Kinard http://lyrickinard.blogspot.com/
Thurs Dec 8 Orly Avineri http://oneartistjournal.wordpress.com 
Friday Dec 9 Tracie Lyn Huskamp http://thereddoor-studio.blogspot.com/

Jill Berry's map of her wedding day
And if I hadn't already bought my copy the minute it came out, I'd certainly buy it now.

During the Blog hop, there is a also a great deal here from the publisher.
Get FREE Shipping and 35% off retail price for PERSONAL GEOGRAPHIES! 
Visit ShopMixedMedia.com and use promo code SMM106 to claim your savings.

[Fine Print: Offer expires 12/09/11 at 11:59 pm EST. Offer applies to standing shipping in the US only. Please note that additional discounts and shipping offers are not available on products that ship directly from the manufacturer: see product pages for details. Thank you for shopping at ShopMixedMedia.com!]

70 comments:

letterlady said...

I love the carved copper hand map! It's beautiful. I love the colors and texture and that it's made of copper.

Cedar Ridge Studio said...

Tha book looks very interesting. I would love to add this to my library. Love you blog Lyric

gatheredthreads said...

Wonderful! Thank you for the opportunity. I love to see maps drawn by kids; there's nothing quite like seeing the neighbourhood through their eyes.

DebiKibbee said...

her postcard box is an awesome idea, would love to win her book.

Mary C. Nasser said...

My favorite map is my geologic map of Kilauea. I love it so much that I cut it up and collaged it into my paintings!

Love your website and your theme of giving this December.

All the best,
Mary
Mixed-Media Map Art

Kathy said...

I've been collecting map fabrics for a little while and now I have some great inspiration for using them. I love, love, love the map box!

Sarah Ann Smith said...

Lyric...don't include me in the drawing, as I already have my copy...and ordered another to give to a friend and if I hadn't already bought something for my mini-group friends I'd buy a copy for them, too... I just LOVE this book and wanted to add my comments since it'll be a bit until I review it on my blog!

Midge said...

I NEED this book! I am planning my very first international trip ..to Italy .. as a 70th BD gift from my husband and would this book every be helpful for me to visually record this once in a lifetime journey. Perfect timing.

Anonymous said...

My favorite map in an overhead view of Paris with the roads as stars leading to the Arc de Triomphe. I could be inspired by this book. Tha nks for the opportunity.

Unknown said...

Lyric, I love your blog. Jill's book really interests me. Would like very much to win it.

Unknown said...

I love looking at maps of Alaska. I went to college there and started pouring over maps before I went. That habit continued while I was there in school. I still like looking at Alaska maps wondering what each place looks like now and yearning to go back.

Kristin said...

I also love maps. My favorite map is of Talbot County, Maryland. If I am remembering correctly, it has the most miles of shoreline than any county in the US! It has lots of tributary rivers from the Chesapeake Bay. I know about this area because my father lives in Easton. MD, which is in that county.

BeckyR said...

I bought one for a gift, but would love to win one for me.
Thanks for the chance to win this fabulous book!

Pam L. said...

I have two favorite maps in my stash of actual maps. One is actually a AAA Trip Tik from many years ago when I drove by myself to Florida. I was moving there and it was a huge adventure for me. Now with GPS, I wonder how many people use Trip Tiks? My other favorite is actual a postcard of a map of Deer Isle, ME, where I spent a glorious week at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Such a wonderful experience! (Which of course, I'll have to map!)

Normajean said...

I love working with maps and try to incorporate them into all my travel journal pages. I would love to see how others use them.

Sandy in CA said...

I love old maps of the world -- from when I was in elementary school.

Nicky Stevenson said...

I am from the UK and I love looking at maps from previous generations. I have just ordered and received a map of how the area I live in now looked in the 19th century. It is fascinating and I love the olde worlde names that places were called then and how they have evolved to what they are called now.

Unknown said...

I have two favorite actual places maps at present. One is a map of Chile. I've always wanted to go to Patagonia and to the island of Chiloe. My next favorite is a map of New Mexico. I have fallen in love with Northern NM and go there at every opportunity. Thanks for the opportunity to win a copy of this very cool book!

Creative Soul Juice - Hobby Parent said...

I have to agree... I love them all. My favorite is the map I just painted... a journey from my heart to yours. I'll post it on my blog this week. Love to you, Lyric, and Jill for inspiring me! ☆¨(✿◠‿◠)❀♫❤ ☼ ☯~Hobby

Catherine said...

My favorite map is any map that includes Canna Island (off the coast of Scotland). It is a dream map really, a place I greatly desire to visit, it is the name of my daughter and the home of my ancestry. How fun would it be to make an altered journal of this place? Even if I were never able to visit, I could spend hours creating a dream journal of a possibility. Ah yes........

Becky Schuck said...

Wow Jill!! There are so many creative and diverse ideas in the book previews! No wonder it's Amazon's #1 HOT NEW RELEASE!

Lyric; Do you have ideas on your blog about what you have done with your Nat Geo maps? I have a stack of beautiful maps just waiting for the perfect project.

Deb said...

My favorite maps are the two large, framed maps on our guest room walls -- one of the US and the other of the world. We have pins designated for my husband, me and our two sons, one of whom teaches English in Seoul, South Korea and goes backpacking around the world when he's on break. Our other son travels all over for business and pleasure, so it's fun to keep track of where everyone has been. Since our sons don't live near us, it's a great way to feel connected to them and to remember and talk about all the places we've all been.

Julie said...

I've been following each day's giveaway posts and am enjoying seeing the variety of maps shown in the posts. The heart map feature here is a favorite for sure. So much inspiration here! Thanks for the chance to win the book. :)

colorific said...

Oh wow!! I so love all of these. Trevor has drawn maps since he could hold a pencil. I use his rejects in my journals and scrapbooks. What fabulous ideas you show here. I will show him so we can do some collab. art!! Thanks!!!

Dotti said...

I've spent hours pouring over old maps and envisioning travels to exotic faraway fictional lands. This seems to be a book to inspire such travels.

Anonymous said...

Love the book! Am so intrigued by the idea of physically mapping one's mental journeys! Would love a copy... thanks for a chance to win!

Jeannie said...

My love of maps began when I learned to read. We took summer vacations every year and my Mom cannot read a map. I would sit behind Dad and be the navigator. Fun memories. My favorite maps are topography maps. I love the designs of all those lines. Thanks Lyric and Jill for a chance to add this to my library.

Lisa Chin said...

I love old maps. Especially the really old ones where they thought the world was flat and there were monsters on the edges of the world. ;)

Cheryl said...

Just bought a copy of this book for my sister for her birthday.....and wished I had one myself. Perhaps I can win one! Thanks!
cheryl(at)inspirations-studio(dot)com

Wildflowerhouse said...

There are so many ideas in this book that I want to try. Living just east of Seattle and west of Cle Elum I found the copper one facinating. Thanks for the chance Lyric.

Linda Kunsman said...

I cannot wait to get this book-hopefully I'll win one!! Love that hand and all the ideas I'm certain to be inspired by. My favorite map is my atlas map of France .I was born there and have family there and I'm always checking out places thru out the country.I even follow the Tour de France every year with my book :):)

Mary said...

I like pulling out our maps from vacations in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Thanks for the opportunity to win. Mary R

robin michelle said...

My favorite map is a map of Middle Earth. I actually have an entire book devoted to maps from Tolkien's books.

Linda Kittmer said...

I love the copper hand carved map! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll win this one!

Linda

Penny said...

I would love this book, Ilove books that have maps as their end papers, The Hobbit and the Milly Molly Mandy books come to mind, I always draw maps on any trips I make.

Dianne said...

The old historical maps are my favourites especially old maps of Australia before they realised it was an island and called it Terra Australis (love that name). Would love to win Jill's book for inspiration.

Vee said...

My favorite map is an old world map that hangs in my living room. My husband knows that I have a little secret love of maps and globes, so when we moved into our new place he surprised me with this map.

dcgboulder said...

My favorite map is one I made in Jill's class - a timeline of my life

Monkey Mind said...

Yippee Maps! I love maps of exotic places that I have never been- China, Africa, places with beautiful and poetic names.

susan in seattle said...

I sure hope I win this book...it's very inspiring to me. I think my favorite map of all time has got to be an old Paris street map. It was absolutely thrilling to walk on the actual streets there thinking about that map. 2nd favorite is anything ancient that was mapped...the flat world maps for instance. Love maps!

Noelle V. said...

I am so in love with the concept & practice of personal life mapping! My favorite kind of maps are energetic body maps - like illustrations of the chakras. I created many such maps while learning about alternative healing techniques. It was great to be able to view myself through that different lens, and would be super cool to incorporate mixed media. Thanks for the opportunity to win a copy of this book!

Artifice said...

Jill's carved copper hand map and her wedding map are so incredible! There are so many different techniques and media you can use to create personal maps. I am so inspired!

Linda
greiss@bellsouth.net

Judy said...

I love all kinds of maps but my fav by far is in the British Library in London a real map showing the known world at the time. It's hand drawn of course and so amazing.

Melody said...

That looks like a fun book. I love geography. There are so many things we can map.

melodyj(at)gmail(dot)com

donna joy said...

This book looks wonderful-count me in too!

kringie said...

The first map that came to mind for me was a map of Washington state that a friend and I picked up for a foray from Seattle to the Pilchuk Glass School for their "open house" weekend. It was a cold drizzly day, but we got to see some really amazing glassblowing (albeit at a small studio off the beaten path rather than at Pilchuk). We got stuck in a traffic jam, and Leslie started idly studying the map, in case a shortcut would show up. She noticed a notation for a Lake Champlain, which reminded us both of a favorite song by the Austin Lounge Lizards, that has a stanza that goes "I'm standing on the shores of Lake Champlain, in the placid acid rain." So we decided we wanted to find this Lake Champlain and get a photo to send to the Lizards. However, it is evidently a private lake, because we drove up and down the road more than once, never finding the road that the map showed. Oh well. It was still a pretty excellent adventure.

Annemarie O'Brien said...

One of the most interesting maps I've ever seen is the Napoleon's march on Russia. It shows a map of the route they took on the way in and shows along the way how many men started and how many men survived. I liked how much information you could get from the map structure.

Jane S. said...

I love maps. It doesn't matter whether they're old or new. It doesn't matter whether they're flat or in globe form (don't get me started on how much I love globes!)

Back when I was a newlywed, we DID paper our wall with maps. They were laminated and we just put them up with double-stick tape, but they made a dandy wall covering. We would look at them and talk about all the places we wanted to go to.

Thank you for having the giveaway! It looks like a wonderful book.

BeckyR said...

Ha! The Flipping Trip map (book) made me smile. Jill is so creative and talented. I ordered a book for my friend for Christmas and would love to win one for me.
Thanks for the chance.

DD Wilson said...

Three years ago I went to Italy. For the notebook cover that I made to keep all my memories I searched for an old world map of Italy. My love of maps started then. I love her heart map. Wonderful.
Hope to win her book, great ideas.

woodenspade said...

favorite map . . . my aaa map of Kentucky . . . my grandfather's birthplace. Never got to visit it while he was alive, though.

The Spiritual Existential Nihilist said...

Headmaps - I'm all about the brain!

Cheryl Goyer said...

I love maps that tell a story and show paths traveled. And I love treasure maps too! Especially colorful ones.

Andria said...

This illustrations in this book look amazing...I had not seen the reliquary before...very cool! I love incorporating maps into my artwork, and I love to create handmade envelopes and cards from maps. I have always loved the maps that are sometimes included in children's books with fantastical locales. I also used to have my middle school students create maps of their lives as a precursor to our memoir writings. Thank you for this opportunity to win a copy of this amazing book for myself!

Leslie said...

The more I think about the concept of mapping myself, the more intriguing it becomes. So hope I win one of the copies... Thanks for the chance.

Madalene Axford Murphy said...

My favorite map is one my son drew of our neighborhood over twenty-five years ago when he was five. It seemed to symbolize how independent he was becoming. He was very proud of it--and so was I.

Anonymous said...

I love, love, LOVE maps. Always have, especially for decoupage projects. My favourites are aeronautical charts for pilots. Have ever seen one? They're gorgeous! They're like a regular map, but have translucent lines, in different colours, running all over them. I think these are flight paths. They are often chart-like circles printed over the maps, too. All in all, they look like a map that somebody has covered with image transfers. Yummy.

Sewz4fun said...

My favorite map is also a graphic of Napoleon's march to Moscow during the war of 1812. It not only shows the path of the march, but also the size of the army as soldiers deserted and died all on a timeline. So many dimensions of measures in a beautiful document. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard
Enjoy your blog! Denise.

Merrie Jo said...

There's something wonderful about holding a map in your hand and setting out on an adventure.

Anonymous said...

My favorite map is the one I used to get myself to what has become my spiritual home. Since that day, 12 years ago, I've been back there many, many times, and could drive that route in my sleep, but I still keep that map, with the destination circled in red, in my car.

lizzie said...

that carved copper hand map is fabulous

lynn said...

I have always loved maps. I often pick up old ones at used book sales and thrift stores.
The hand map looks amazing! I am eager to see this book and would sure love to win a copy! Thanks very much Lyric and Jill for sharing this book and giving us a chance to win!

Wise Owl said...

My favorite map is found in the Milly Molly Mandy story books that I had as a child in England. My mom drew a large map to go above my bed and each night when she read from the book we would follow Milly Molly Mandy's journey on the map. Lots of happy memories.

Thanks for offering this. Lorna

LouBird said...

I love maps... I have very fond memories of my father teaching me how to read a map during a family vacation.

søren said...

The artist Hannah Hinchman draws amazing maps of her days, natural phenomena and other cool stuff ...

HeARTworks said...

I keep those Natl Geographic maps too! Maps of ALL kinds intrigue me but my favorites are the hand drawn ones! Patsy from
HeARTworks

Gwen said...

I save all kinds of maps, but I enjoy old maps that are not geographically correct. Especially the ones that show sea monsters and have a complicated compass rose.

funkycrafter said...

the copper hand is wonderful. i have been doing the daily hop and enjoying all the inspiration.

pfstuff said...

My favorite maps are the fold out maps in very old books or a two -page spread which I sometimes take out, very carefully, if the book itself isn't valuable, and photocopy them for use in collage and other artwork.

Lani Gerity said...

Such a beautiful blogroll adventure! Even if I don't win the book, I've had a lot of fun! Now I need to go work on the map of this adventure!