I started Turn-of-the-Centuries in 2007 while I was very busy working in an architecture and urban design firm in Savannah Georgia. I moved to Savannah because it was an amazing place to draw. Historic buildings - not always the "George Washington slept here" variety, but the real places people live and work, the walls and windows that have seen the passage of time, the odd embellishments owners have added to express themselves - these have a special allure for me. I loved my job, but I craved my own imprint. So, at night and on weekends I made drawings of Savannah's streetscapes.

I also made drawings as a way to capture other places I travelled, like Portland OR and New Orleans. I try to capture the essence of what I felt there. I "feel" a place as I walk it, through its building facades, streets, trees and its urban plan. The concept of Architectural Map-Drawings, a unique combination of architectural facades and maps, or plans, emerged as a quintessential expression of the character of a place.

After I'd lived in Savannah for seven years, I moved to Alexandria Virginia and became a happy tourist of the Washington DC area, making new streetscape drawings. I immersed myself in graduate school to learn more about these buildings I love to draw, as well as the history of architectural drawing and mapping. (I wrote a thesis on maps of Savannah! "you can take the girl out of Savannah, but you can't take Savannah out of the girl" my mother said.) I learned about the amazing drawings of the early Renaissance, as artists, architects and cartographers combined plan, elevation, section, perspective and cartography to visualize their designs and to synthesize perceptions of their cities and places. I studied (and made) bird's eye view drawings in Rome.

Now, I am taking up this long tradition of chorography to describe, document and cherish great places. I hope to foster and support the appreciation we have for special places and the desire for mementos of these places - to frame, to hang, to send a greeting. I'd love to map your special place. Please contact me or peruse the Commission Listings here in my Shop to determine the right size for your map, the boundaries that are significant and enjoy ruminating over what color the place evokes for you. It's YOUR MAP! : )

Follow me on Instagram (@turnofthecenturies) to see what I'm working on and looking at, and where I live and travel.