After a busy two days, we have finished installing Jerry's Map at the Thomas Cole house in Catskill, NY. The show, River Crossings, opens on Sunday, May 3rd.
On the back of every panel is its pedigree. This one, the first generation of S10/E16, was reformatted on December 8, 2004 and retired in 2014. It has been shown four times: at MASSMoCA in 2012, in Edinburgh over New Year's 2014, in Concord, Massachusetts in the Spring of 2014, and in Frankfort, Michigan earlier this year.
Since this morning I have been Tweeting each panel that the random cards called up. Pictured above is S14/E6, the fourth selection of the day. Most of you know by now that I use a modified deck of playing cards to tell me which panel to work on next. These cards also have some instructions which tell me what to do once I arrive at the new panel. This particular one presents some fresh problems since I have never modified an airport before. Let's see what happens!
Jerry's Map
In the summer of 1963 I began drawing a map of an imaginary city. The work started as a doodle done in the spare time I had while working at a tedious job. I continued to add to that map through the years until, in 1983, I set it aside to put my free time to other use.
The Map was stored in the attic of our home in Cold Spring, New York. It gathered dust. My son, Henry, found it one day while rummaging around. He brought it down to me and asked what it was. Seeing it then triggered me to dust it off and continue the project.
It now comprises almost 3100 individual eight by ten inch panels. Its execution, in acrylic, marker, colored pencil, ink, collage, and inkjet print on heavy paper, is dictated by the interplay between an elaborate set of rules and randomly generated instructions.