Travel, Draw, Stitch, Repeat
Whenever I travel to somewhere new I always reach for a map - sometimes several. I love maps – I love the way they impose order on a chaotic world. I love the stories that maps tell of the places and people they describe. And most of all, I love their intrinsic beauty. Colour harmonies, line, tone, texture and pattern are balanced against graphics, letters and symbolic meaning.
For all my love of maps, they have never featured in my work. My drawings and stitched pieces often reflect the places I’ve visited; occasional landscapes but mostly architecture. That was until my most recent trip with Martyn and Drawing Escapes. Eight days, travelling through Estonia and Latvia seemed like the perfect opportunity to combine cartography with stitched textiles.
I started my first piece weeks before we left for the Baltic. I’d visited Riga on a previous trip and so armed with a tatty tourist map, my sketchbook and photos from the 2017 trip, I set to work.
Whenever I travel to somewhere new I always reach for a map - sometimes several. I love maps – I love the way they impose order on a chaotic world. I love the stories that maps tell of the places and people they describe. And most of all, I love their intrinsic beauty. Colour harmonies, line, tone, texture and pattern are balanced against graphics, letters and symbolic meaning.
For all my love of maps, they have never featured in my work. My drawings and stitched pieces often reflect the places I’ve visited; occasional landscapes but mostly architecture. That was until my most recent trip with Martyn and Drawing Escapes. Eight days, travelling through Estonia and Latvia seemed like the perfect opportunity to combine cartography with stitched textiles.
I started my first piece weeks before we left for the Baltic. I’d visited Riga on a previous trip and so armed with a tatty tourist map, my sketchbook and photos from the 2017 trip, I set to work.
Riga, Latvia
To be honest, this first piece was a struggle – overly complex, fiddly and heavily influenced by the illustrated tourists maps I’d seen.
I said at the beginning that, for me, maps bring order to a chaotic world; they tell a story and are beautiful. If you doubt this check out Piet Mondrian’s ‘New York Boogie Woogie’. Using nothing more than rectangles and four colours, Mondrian not only manages to show the basic layout of some small part of Manhattan but also expresses the excitement and vibrancy of New York City. My first Riga map, however, lacked order, and if it told a story, it was one of the tourist traps and stag weekends. This wasn’t my Riga – it was someone else’s.
I said at the beginning that, for me, maps bring order to a chaotic world; they tell a story and are beautiful. If you doubt this check out Piet Mondrian’s ‘New York Boogie Woogie’. Using nothing more than rectangles and four colours, Mondrian not only manages to show the basic layout of some small part of Manhattan but also expresses the excitement and vibrancy of New York City. My first Riga map, however, lacked order, and if it told a story, it was one of the tourist traps and stag weekends. This wasn’t my Riga – it was someone else’s.
Tallinn, Estonia
My next two stitch maps were based on Tartu and Tallinn, Estonia. I also added a third based on Kaunas, Lithuania, that I had visited as part of a Drawing Escapes ‘Secret Destination’ in 2019.
Tartu, Estonia
Kaunas, Lithuania
Although each stitched map has its unique characteristics, they share some common themes. I decided I need to keep it simple: a grid of streets, buildings, and green spaces; a river for Tartu and mighty city walls for the defence of Tallinn. Unlike the Riga map with its celebration of tourism, these maps, with their muted backcloth, limited stitch type (it’s all running or back stitch), and absence of colour, are rather sombre. Given the political history of the region, this seems rather appropriate. Kathy Olsson
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