Old Philadelphia Maps

I went the opening for Jennifer J. Lee's solo show Nowhere at Pressure Club last night and someone told me about this website where you can look at old Philadelphia maps overlaid on to google maps so addresses are searchable on it. I've spent most of my morning looking up different places in Philly.

I thought it was really interesting to see the location of Temple University from before it was founded to 1962. There was a cemetery that pre-dated the university on the west side of Broad. Monument Cemetery was eventually bought by Temple University for parking lots and sportsball fields. 8,000 bodies were claimed by families and 20,000 were placed in an unmarked grave at Lawnview Memorial Park.

Temple University 1808

Temple University 1843

Temple University 1855

Temple University 1862

Temple University 1895

Temple University 1910

Temple University 1942

Temple University 1962

I thought that the maps were also really interesting because you could see the movement of the names of areas like Northern Liberties. I thought that the Northern Liberties name just came from a developer brainstorming session, but it was actually used to describe North Philadelphia on the 1808 map and Northeast Philadelphia on the 1843 map.

1750

1808

1843

Mokuhanga

This semester I am taking a Japanese woodcut class. I really like it because it is such an accessible medium. All you need is some wood, paper, watercolor, rice glue, and tools.

The first project I made for the class was an accordion book. I don't like the typical accordion book format because it doesn't work when you hold it in your hand like a traditional book. It only works displayed on a table. I wanted to try to come up with a way to make it work both ways so I bound it with fabric and added a drawstring.

I liked how the book looked and this solved some of the problems I had with the accordion format but I would like to rework it more to make it less bulky and have the binding feel less intrusive when it is read like a traditional book.

I am excited for the next project for this class, which will be my last studio project as a Tyler student. It's bittersweet because I am excited for what the next chapter of my life will hold, but Temple has so many interesting classes that I wish I had the time to take.

Calligraphy

This semester I am taking Chinese for the first time. Immediately I got super into writing hanzi characters. I like the order that they have and how many of them have flourishes that are satisfying to try to get right. Because I was enjoying the characters so much I enrolled in my Chinese teacher's non-credit calligraphy class. It is the most relaxing part of my week since the process of painting the characters is so meditative and gratifying.

Taking the class made me remember being in Shanghai and seeing people in the park practicing hobbies like singing, tai-chi and water calligraphy. The water calligraphy was the most interesting to me because it's a mix of visual, performance, and literary art. There was something in the temporary nature of it as well. If you watched for a while you would see the lines of writing evaporating off the slate.

I did a little googling and found out that the practice is called dishu. The hanzi for dishu 地书 translate literally as "earth book." This article gives a lot of good background information on dishu. What I found most exciting was that most of the brushes are homemade with sponges or mops. I'd like to try making some and eventually base a lesson plan on it. I think that students would like being able to leave marks all over a sidewalk or playground and it would be a good way to mess around with mark making.

I definitely want to add this book to my reading list. The pictures look beautiful and I really want to learn more about how the practice started.