ARTIST (Maps): Matthew Picton

matthew picton is a british-born artist living in oregon, USA.his work is influenced by cartography and the inherent beauty of lines and forms that arise from natural topography and built environments. his series of 'city sculptures' look at the organism of the city as an entity which has been shaped by social, political, economic and topographic factors, illustrating a systemic pattern of human civilization. he explores roads at the micro level, tracing miniature byways in cracked sidewalks and alleys. a continuous visual narrative of a city's transformation, his sculptures are layers of history, documenting their early beginnings and depicting their contemporary state, expanding beyond their original forms.

RESEARCH: The Rorschach Inkblot Test

According to John Exner (1993), the first publication of Hermann Rorschach's 10 inkblots was in 1921 as a monograph, Psychodiagnostik. For the 1940's and 1950's, the Rorschach was the test of choice in clinical psychology. It fell into disfavor as many clinicians began criticizing it as "subjective" and "projective" in nature. Ironically, this was never the intention of Rorschach.

While working in a psychiatric hospital with adolescents, he noticed that certain children gave characteristically different answers to a popular game known as blotto (Klecksographie). In his original publication he characterized the blots as a "Form Interpretation Test, and cautioned that his findings were preliminary and stressed the importance of much more experimentation" (Exner, 1993, p. 6). Sadly, Rorschach died in 1922 at the age of 37. He had only invested just under four years in his inkblot test.

With no clear leader to take the helm, at least four separate "systems" developed to administer, score, and interpret the test. Needless to say, questions and concerns regarding the test's reliability and validity was eventually brought into question. Beginning in the late 1950's, enter John Exner. Exner (1993) reports that David Rapport, Bruno Klopfer, Marguerite Hertz, Zygmunt Piotrowski and Samuel Beck each played a roll in his desire to compile many systems into some sort of more cohesive whole. Exner's (1993) early work showed that each system "had considerable merit, but that each were also seriously flawed in one way or another" (p. viii). The result of addressing these concerns is the Comprehensive System. The "project" grew into a multivolume work that has spanned at least four editions. Exner has almost single handedly rescued a drowning beast and breathed life back into it. The result is the resurrection of perhaps the single most powerful psychometric instrument ever envisioned.

http://www.rorschach.org/

ARTIST (Maps): Charles Avery

Charles Avery Untitled (Flat Map), 2008 © Charles Avery

ARTIST (Maps): Justin Quinn

The distance between reading and seeing has been an ongoing interest for me. Since 1998 I have been exploring this space through the use of letterforms, and have used the letter E as my primary starting point for the last two years. Since E is often found at the top of vision charts, I questioned what I saw as a familiar hierarchy. Was this letter more important than other letters? E is, after all, the most commonly used letter in the English language, it denotes a natural number (2.71828), and has a visual presence that interests me greatly. In my research E has become a surrogate for all letters in the alphabet. It now replaces the other letters and becomes a universal letter (or Letter), and a string of 
Es now becomes a generic language (or Language). This substitution denies written words their use as legible signifiers, allowing language to become a vacant parallel Language— a basis for visual manufacture.

After months of compiling Es into abstract compositions through various systemic arrangements, I started recognizing my studio time as a quasi-monastic experience. There was something sublime about both the compositions that I was making and the solitude in which they were made. It was as if I were translating some great text like a subliterate medieval scribe would have years ago—with no direct understanding of 
the source material. The next logical step was to find a source. Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, a story rich in theology, philosophy, and psychosis provides me with a roadmap for my work, but also with a series of underlying narratives. My drawings, prints, and collages continue to speak of language and the transferal of information, but now as a conduit to Melville’s sublime narratives. 

http://www.cainschulte.com/artists/quinn.html

ARTIST (Maps): Lucas Monaco

The drawings that I have made over the last few years are chronicles of selected histories of a landscape. Using the map as motif, I have been able to select and overlay a number of concerns onto a single plane. Ideas of individuals and communities that have left their mark on a city and the architectural and physical structures that have persisted over time are combined with the impressions left by political and economic influences to form a cohesive unit.

The simplified plan facilitates a view that is a simulation of objectivity. Its mixture of patterns and unique visual events constructs a plane comprised of random as well as rational development. With it I can look at a group of events, or groups of groups of events on a level landscape, and create a non-linear narrative of the “place” specified in the drawing.

This abstraction gives me an artificial form of real or physical seeing and helps to present my perspective on a seemingly stable and still place. The plan makes it possible to gather multiple events or developments over time into one present moment. Time becomes a subject of the pictures, prompting the viewer to ask what happened first or second, what was the result of what, what else might of happened, and why has it developed in this manner.

Urban planning and development, architecture, and the role of socio-economic and community trends in forming an environment are my subjects of study, as they play the dual role of formal picture-making and individual concerns about the broad public landscape.

http://www.lucasmonaco.com/

ARTIST (Maps): Alighiero Boetti

ARTIST (Maps): Kathy Prendergast