CASE STUDY: SEATTLE STRATUS
This piece, a right brain/left brain project, tapped my architecture background and my fascination with layers and reveals. My client and long-time, dear friend Chris Mefford commissioned this work for his company Community Attributes, an urban planning consultancy that uses maps as a primary means of communicating key ideas.
Starting with a Kroll vintage Seattle map from the 1940s, I chose the concept of Urban Village Zoning to create colored energy zones (see orange, blue, green and tan), which were then overlaid with an abstracted street grid, a layer that represented major roadways, and finally the brightly colored connector lines representing the ways in and out of the city. Its title "Stratus" means "layered" in Latin, since I wanted to visually convey growth built on the city of yore. In wonderful word play, Stratus also defines low lying clouds of a uniform gray color – how perfect for Seattle! The pale layer reminded me of looking down at the city from the air. Seattle is grounded in its past, but expands into the future. What was largely brick and mortar is now dynamic energy coursing between the people and networks that are changing the world.
Huge thanks to Chris for the chance to give my city up-close-and-personal love – as I worked, I learned so much about what has changed over the years and what has remained! If you don't know Kroll Maps (found commercially at Metzger Maps in Pike Place Market), it's worth a perusal of their urban treasures there or online.
"Seattle Stratus," 26”x39.75”, acrylic and mixed media on vintage Seattle map laser print, private collection.