Amie’s Map Book

The second project I started right after Amie was born fared better than her now defunct Baby Journal, in that it is still up and running. It is a Map Book, or Place Book.

I love maps: topographical ones, city, architectural, personal, subjective, objective, three-dimensional, temporal… you name it.

From the beginning of Amie’s life I collected and drew maps of where we live and where ever we travelled. Depending on how busy I was, I would simply paste in a tourist map I had picked up, draw one myself, and/or add commentary. There are also spreads about the wildlife and the people, and anecdotes about how she reacted to the place.

This is the page about our visit to Billings Farm in Woodstock, Vermont, over a year ago:

Amie’s Map Book: Billings Farm, VT (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

This page chronicles our trip to Europe (Belgium and Italy) in June of last year, and locates everyone in our families on the globe:

Amie’s Map Book: Billings Farm, VT (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

Here’s the spread about a magical visit to the Hall’s Pond Sanctuary in Brookline:

Amie’s MapBook: Halls Pond (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

It’s not as much work as the Journal: I put in as much time as I want or can afford. I skip visits that we make regularly, like to the Pond or the Farm, except when something special happened that needs visual representation in the form of a map.

One day soon Amie will understand the concept of a map, and she’ll make her own maps. It’s one of those many moments that I look forward to.

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