The SOUTHERN STATES: USA Map-Drawings

I've just finished the Southern States Map-Drawings! Celebrating MLK Day. I imagine every one of these states saw Dr. King in his dynamic lifetime and yet feels his indomitable spirit of peace.https://www.etsy.com/shop/turnofthecenturies?section_id=14268693

Here they are - sort of geographically hung on my wall. Now, I waffled over Texas and Oklahoma. Is OK. in the Midwest? Is TX. its own region? Some (from Carolina) even say Virginia's not The South...  It's an exclusive club and membership and debatable. Well, here's The South as it settled out for me.
Each drawing features the state tree and a quintessential or common small house type found in-state, layered over the state's borders and topography, and highways.  You choose the location of a small red heart or house - where's special to you? Available in 8x10 Prints and Postcards. https://www.etsy.com/shop/turnofthecenturies?section_id=14268693 

LOUISIANA! (New Orleans hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163836450/louisiana-map-8x10-print

MISSISSIPPI! (Natchez & Starkville hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176118504/mississippi-map-8x10-print

ALABAMA! (Birmingham hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176121358/alabama-map-8x10-print

FLORIDA! (Miami & Jacksonville marked)
 https://www.etsy.com/listing/167598706/florida-state-map-postcard
https://www.etsy.com/listing/167609707/florida-map-8x10-print  

GEORGIA! (Atlanta & Savannah marked)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163903917/georgia-map-8x10-print

SOUTH CAROLINA! (Charleston hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163930899/south-carolina-map-8x10-print

NORTH CAROLINA! (Asheville hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175002215/north-carolina-map-8x10-print

VIRGINIA! (Charlottesville hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163923727/virginia-map-8x10-print

WEST VIRGINIA! (Charleston & Morgantown marked)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175992494/west-virginia-state-map-postcard
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175998867/west-virginia-map-8x10-print

KENTUCKY! (Lexington hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176028154/kentucky-map-8x10-print

TENNESSEE! (Memphis & Knoxville marked)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176042479/tennessee-state-map-postcard
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176027294/tennessee-map-8x10-print

ARKANSAS! (Little Rock hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175773895/arkansas-map-8x10-print

OKLAHOMA! (Tulsa hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175791815/oklahoma-map-8x10-print

TEXAS! (Austin hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175733667/texas-map-8x10-print

NYR 2014

I love the clean slate and fresh start and longer perspective of the NEW YEAR - and making goals! This year, I plan to make a lot of new drawings of places I love.

CITIES (and States and Countries) TO DRAW in 2014!

I've thought carefully about the places I've loved and want to get to know better, through drawing. Places I have visited and photographed with an eye to make drawings. Drawings emblematic their unique and ubiquitous qualities and evocative of the senses they conjured in me.  
CITIES (and States and Countries) TO DRAW in 2014 Mapped (above) and Listed (below)

CITIES (and States and Countries) TO DRAW in 2014!

Sottile & Sottile: From Savannah to the World

The reach of a small architecture & urban design firm in Savannah Georgia extends far, far beyond the bounds of the modest rowhouse studio on Chatham Square.

In addition to awards by the CNU, AIA and others, Sottile & Sottile ideas and projects have produced some standout covers on a few international magazines.

On urban design,
INTERNATIONAL NEW LANDSCAPE:
http://www.sottile.cc/International-New-Landscape-Sottile.pdf

see http://www.sottile.cc/International-New-Landscape-Sottile.pdf for full cover

On the singular SCAD Museum,
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST:
http://www.sottile.cc/Architectural-Digest-Sottile-SCAD-Museum.pdf

see http://www.sottile.cc/International-New-Landscape-Sottile.pdf for full cover

[The photo by Adam Kuehl in AD is otherworldly.  At night, it glows as a beacon. In the day, it welcomes learners and lovers of art.  It was a thrill to attend paper sessions of the SCAD Symposium in the SCAD Museum in February 2013. Having walked the galleries, halls and classrooms with pencil, pen and watercolor in the design stages, it was awesome to walk and use these spaces (and present a paper in them) in full living color and texture and space...] 

Valentine Map

Another clever, sweet and creative idea from a husband to his wife. He said to me: "I met my wife in Savannah, at Forsyth Park, while in grad school at SCAD. I want give her this map for Valentines day (it is our 10 year anniversary) and I was wondering if you could add in a little red heart near the fountain in the park. Nothing too big, a subtle touch of red."

LOVE it.

Wedding in Pulaski Square

I've waited many months to tell the story of Melanie and Kenny. It's a good one. 

Pulaski Square  Savannah GA

Today is their wedding day. A year and a half ago, they lived in Savannah, just a few blocks from my apartment and a few doors down from my office. I must have walked past their door several times a day. But we never knew each other. They enjoyed walks down Barnard Street, through some of the city's loveliest squares. Their favorite was Pulaski. I think it has the best trees. 

I moved to a very small town near Washington DC. Shortly after, I received an order through my etsy shop for a Savannah postcard pack. I was surprised to see the shipping address was in the small town I was in! In fact, while the order was made, I'd been out for a jog and ran right past that house. Uncanny.

Melanie and I had moved from Savannah to this small town about the same time, living within a few blocks of each other again. This time, we made the connection! She sent the postcards to her beau, Kenny, who was stationed in Afghanistan to remind him of their good times in Savannah.

One of the postcards featured the block where they'd lived. Some months later, we used this image to design save-the-date postcards for the wedding of Melanie & Kenny. The wedding would take place in Pulaski Square.

Save-the-Date postcards by turn-of-the-centuries

Marvelous moments were captured and created by photographers Jade + Matthew who documented the whole wedding in splendid sequence. This image perfectly captures the vows exchanged under the boughs of Pulaski Square.

Photo by Jade + Matthew Take Pictures

www.jadeandmatthew.com

Later, Melanie commissioned me to make a special drawing of Pulaski Square, featuring their names and wedding date. What a fantastic idea! She kept it hidden for several months until today when she will present it to her new husband as a wedding gift. See the little heart of branches at the top?

I love this Savannah love story! It makes me so happy to have been a small part of it.

Dec. 2011: This special Pulaski Square image later made great note cards for wedding gift thank-yous.

SCAD Museum of Art OPENING

Approaching Savannah from South Carolina, SCAD Museum Lantern in the skyline; Talmadge Bridge over the Savannah River (l) Oglethorpe Ave. into the West Boundary (r)

Main Entrance in one of the elliptical arch openings of the old freight house, directly below tower (l) Approaching main entrance on Turner Ave. (r)

The brick wall of the freight house, collapsed over time, gives way to the concrete wall beneath (l) Glass "jewel-box" encases another arched opening, Light sculpture by Stephen Antonakos mounted within (r) 

Museum facade along Turner Street. New concrete wall rides above brick, housing second floor classrooms. Entrance lantern, right.

Entrance lantern (l) View from terrace behind tower, overlooking courtyard to railroad stack beyond, the other skyline element in the West Boundary (r)

Museum galleries, a procession of large spaces, punctuated by brick walls of the old freight house. 

Student Green, courtyard between the Museum and the School of Building Arts, louvered wall of the "soft" gallery" beyond (l) within the "Soft gallery", sculpture by Kendall Buster

From Terrace, views west (l) and east (r) of the courtyard

Courtyard, south gallery, lanterns

Museum Courtyard during a Savannah Film Festival event, 10/29/11

This week marks the public reOPENING of the SCAD Museum of Art. Art and people fill the spaces of a former 1856 Central of Georgia railroad shed, abandoned for decades. The rugged ruin of the brick shed contains a new structure of concrete and glass suited for display, protection and education that carefully emerges from the brick walls to accent the formal beauty and natural, elegant weathering of the old building and announce its new function as a museum of art. Inside, the fresh new walls cut away at key moments to reveal the historic brick structure. The ruin, the outer shell, and the new interior shell are aesthetically opposite but in a dynamic complementary relationship: the interior concrete shell stabilizes the ruin and the ruin, the historic brick shell, lends context, variety and memory to the crisp new museum.   


The museum is a testament to the capacity and tenacity of the Savannah College of Art & Design President Paula Wallace and her team to get things done and do them right, staying true to a vision that emerged in an initial design charrette with architect Christian Sottile and his team at Sottile & Sottile in 2008. The evolution of the museum design, from charrette to final master plan, from concepts about the museum's place in the city to the paving materials for the public realm, is compiled HERE. The veracity and validity of these images now, at building completion, and their frequent reminders throughout the project, are a testament to the architects' process which emphasizes the civic, humanistic, material and memorable qualities the museum must embody. The building must engage in a dialogue of formal and material contrasts and honor the public realm by designing the pedestrian experience. The fruition of these design concepts now stands on the west side of Savannah's historic downtown. Just look for the semi-transparent glass lantern that marks the entrance like a beacon.


601 Turner Boulevard, Savannah, Georgia.
http://www.scadmoa.org/

Architectural Evolution of the SCAD Museum of Art

More information:
http://architectsandartisans.com/index.php/2011/10/in-savannah-contrasting-old-and-new/
http://www.scad.edu/news/2011/museum-exhibitions.cfm#

Revisiting SAVANNAH: SCAD Museum of Art

(top left) January 2011                                                                                 August 2011

One of many highlights of the trip was a hard hat tour of the SCAD Museum, under construction, by its architect, Christian Sottile.  I last visited the Museum [construction site] in January 2011 when the entrance tower was just framed. The welders were busy with their torches 60' above ground. Over the duration of my visit this week, I was fortunate to see the tower clad in semi-tranluscent structural channel glass. When I arrived, from the Talmadge Bridge, I was awed to see the tower punctuate the Savannah skyline, then its perfect - and serendipitous - alignment with Oglethorpe Avenue on entrance to the city - this time, in glass, about one-quarter installed.  By the time I left Savannah, the tower fully encased. 

January 2011                                                                                              August 2011

Though there are daily detail coordinations between the architects and the builders, it was amazing to see the Museum essentially just as designed while I was working in the office. To see the drawings we labored over - from the initial weekend charrette sketches to the beautiful hand-drawn plates which detailed how the 1850s brick ruin would be cradled by the smooth, modern concrete box, how the elliptical arch openings of the old train shed would be showcased in clear glass 'jewel boxes', how this civic building would bequest permanence and elegance to the public realm - come to life in restored original 'savannah grey' brick, concrete and glass was truly extraordinary. 
Working for client with a vision of excellence and a high regard for creative expression and problem-solving was key. Savannah College of Art & Design tells the story HERE.
Read MORE and watch the VIDEO on the Design of the Museum.

Revisiting SAVANNAH: Flaneurism

10 days in Savannah to Work, Visit dear friends and Enjoy being a flaneur in the best city in America to be a flaneur. {Thanks to Patrick Shay for introducing the french term which encapsulates the love we have for cities like Savannah with a rich pedestrian, architectural and cultural milieu.}

The beach is also nice...not as nice as Jamaica, but Tybee Island certainly has its charms - and always, its weddings.  Just like Savannah!

I enjoyed the always-inspiring Monumental Ideas in Miniature Book-Making traveling exhibit at SCAD's Alexander Hall, under the bridge, with a friend and fellow book-maker, illustrator, interior designer, fashionisto, Kipper Millsap.

Unpacking Treasures & RELICS

Since most of my things have been in storage for the past year, unpacking has been an interesting discovery of things saved, remembered, curiosities that were too curious to discard in Savannah, some things that probably should have been left at home in Savannah, pieces of Virginia back home in Virginia. And some things that could be called relics for their relative obsolescence...which makes me feel like time and me are passing each other at different speeds as we both move forward. A look backward...A very nice watch my mother gave me, not worn since the advent of cell phones that resides in a favorite candy tin - peanut butter ginger chews,

a good luck horseshoe from Reba,

a small steel origami model from first year studio that nested in another larger version,

a rusted quarter,

a handstitched ipod coozy from Afton,

a cupcake ballerina from Back in the Day,

an old clay pipe from Pamplin Virginia,

one of the sweet bridesmaids earrings designed by Julie,

pine-scented oil.

particularly good shells and rocks

a small collection of dead butterflies in a cassette

Walden, c. , from John LeBey's house

Colonial Williamsburg, c. 1936, from John LeBey's house

2010 planner with a spread created during a boring airport layover of saved text messages on a now-discarded phone

foreign money

TLR camera necklace pendant, vintage matchboxes

my grandfather's pens and measuring stick, acquired after his funeral

a "game" I designed in my college Building Sustainability class depicting climate-responsive vernacular building methods around the world

What are these? Slides!

What are THESE?? black and white file negatives! Several binders full of them... What to do with them?

prints and sketches of places in Virginia

my childhood stamp collection

a box of almost all of the letters and notes I've saved

In photographing these things, I can at least consider discarding some in my desire to have less possessions. But it is kind of nice to go through them and remember...