Alex Wing: Graphite on ruled paper, c. 1991
My son was around eight years old when he drew this, at about the time we began making our big loops around the Southwest each summer. After we got on the road, a theme would come to us – one year, dinosaurs; another year, Native ruins; another year, caves and peaks; another year, natural bridges and sand dunes.
What strikes me now about this map is the precise detail of Northern California, where Alex learned to swim, floating high in salt water, and to sail, ghosting along a rocky shoreline in light airs. And on the East Coast, the hook of Cape Cod, which he later came to know in his twenties during his time in Boston among its eighteen colleges and universities.
(I am inspired by his handling of the Great Lakes – a free synthesis of art and fact.)
Alex’s map brings to mind my own childhood. When I was around eight, one of our tribe (none of us can recall exactly who) wrote the legend “U-N-T-I-E-D S-T-A-T-E-S” on an elementary school map project. At home, that brought a laugh and became a meme to be recited every time we saw our country labeled on Dad’s huge map of the world on the living-room wall.
When that mis-spelling occurred, I’m sure that the teacher insisted on a correction.
But now, that child’s original labeling seems 100% cartographically accurate.