after work today, i’ll be pedaling up to the Steven A. Schwarzman Building (a.k.a. the main branch of the NYPL) to peruse their monstrous collection of maps. i can spend hours looking through old maps, but today’s mission does entail a focus: tattoo research. that’s right, TATTOO RESEARCH!
Frederick Law Olmsted, widely known as the founder of American landscape architecture and heralded designer of several dozen public parks, including Manhattan’s Central Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and Boston’s Emerald Necklace, has several early renderings of his projects housed within the library’s cartography collection. if i’m lucky, i might find one or two that i can use to base the artwork on for my two half-sleeves.
Olmsted was an early pioneer of creating public spaces that were not only picturesque, but invited and encouraged community interaction. he was also a champion of historic preservation and land stewardship. i’d like the piece(s) to hit on those themes of public vs. private land use and the collision of urban and rural landscapes.
okay, that’s enough nerding out. we are talking tattoos here. speaking of, do you have any tattoos? let’s see (photo reply).
