COLLECTION NAME:
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Record
Author:
Price, Jonathan Reeve
Date:
2019
Short Title:
Big Bend
Publisher:
The Communication Circle
Publisher Location:
Albuquerque, NM
Type:
Book Map
Type:
Atlas Map
Obj Height cm:
61
Obj Width cm:
61
Note:
(Accompanying poem by author) -
Brothers, you who are alive so long
after us, don’t let your hearts go hard
when you see our skin eaten away,
here on the high cliffs, our bones
tugged apart by crows, sand, and wind.
If we call on you, do not look down on us,
or the brown water that led us on.
Forgive us for trespassing, and ask Our Lady
to grant to our scattered souls
Her path out of this hell.
Brothers, you who are alive so long
after us, don’t let your hearts go hard
when you see our skin eaten away,
here on the high cliffs, our bones
tugged apart by crows, sand, and wind.
If we call on you, do not look down on us,
or the brown water that led us on.
Forgive us for trespassing, and ask Our Lady
to grant to our scattered souls
Her path out of this hell.
Reference:
Copyright 2019 by Jonathan Reeve Price. For copies of the art work see https://www.museumz…
For copies of the printed book see The Liquid Border: The Rio Grande from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico, 2nd edition
Copyright 2019-2020 by Jonathan Reeve Price
Publisher: The Communication Circle
4704 Mi Cordelia Drive, NW
Albuquerque, NM 87120
Second Edition: 2020
ISBN 10: 0-9719954-6-X
ISBN 13: 9780971995468
80 pages
https://www.amazon.…
For a PDF of the book see https://rumsey3.s3.…
For the Artist's Statement see https://rumsey3.s3.…
For copies of the printed book see The Liquid Border: The Rio Grande from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico, 2nd edition
Copyright 2019-2020 by Jonathan Reeve Price
Publisher: The Communication Circle
4704 Mi Cordelia Drive, NW
Albuquerque, NM 87120
Second Edition: 2020
ISBN 10: 0-9719954-6-X
ISBN 13: 9780971995468
80 pages
https://www.amazon.…
For a PDF of the book see https://rumsey3.s3.…
For the Artist's Statement see https://rumsey3.s3.…
Region:
Rio Grande
Region:
Rio Bravo del Norte
Subject:
Art
Full Title:
The Liquid Border: Big Bend, 2019, Aluminum Print, 24"x24" (61x61cm), Jonathan Reeve Price, 29.2271, -103.7740
List No:
10420.011
Series No:
11
Publication Author:
Price, Jonathan Reeve
Pub Date:
2019
Pub Title:
The Liquid Border. A Museum Zero Exhibition.
Pub Note:
Welcome
I am exploring the liquid border—the imaginary line drawn down the middle of the Rio Grande as it passes between Texas and Mexico. Real, but invisible, the border floats away.
But what pain comes across that unmarked frontier, what desperation, what determination! Exploring the photos and satellite data of this mighty river may help us imagine the people struggling across the river, and the trackers from the Border Patrol waiting on the American side.
I live next to the Rio Grande. In summers, there are stretches of the river that go dry, drained to irrigate chile fields. But more streams pour in from Mexico, bringing the river back to life. It staggers as it gets near to the Gulf of Mexico, but persists.
In the center of the river, we have no flag, no wall, no barrier. But our Border Patrol motors through in small skiffs, deterring migrants, and, quite often, picking up the bodies of people who went into the river, but could not swim.
My neighbors go down to El Paso and cross on the Bridge of International Friendship, to buy antibiotics, get their teeth cleaned, celebrate with their cousins. Other folks came across long ago, and they are part of our community, not aliens. In fact, some families came here in the 15th century, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, passing for Catholic conversos, hiding out along this river, so far from the capital of Mexico, and the conquistadors, with their horses and priests.
When I look at maps of the border region, I recall the stories of all these people going and coming, the voices of the young men looking for work, the cries of the families fleeing gangs in Latin America, and the children we pull away from their families to put into cages. I hear their words as I work.
When there’s peace, the border can be invisible. But artists and politicians make it visible again. One example: To make the three-hundred mile Northern Irish border visible, Suzanne Lacy persuaded several hundred people to wear yellow, run horses through yellow pigment, and paddle around in yellow boats, leaving a yellow trail across the boundary that has been the cause of so much grief. She projected satellite maps marked with the yellow line onto the front of the Ulster Museum, in Belfast.
For the stateless, the border is transcendent. Having been forced out of her homeland, Mona Hatoun says that she now feels rootless. But, she says, “The nomadic existence suits me fine, because I do not expect myself to identify completely with any one place.” Instead, she seizes on the maps that airlines use to show their routes around the world, photocopies them, and adds her own colored lines, and squiggles, emphasizing the journey, not the territory.
Working on an iMac, I use a wide range of software to dig into LandSat Orbiter images, and U.S. Geological Survey topographical studies.
I distort the original, useful, scientific images, taking them apart and rebuilding them with half a dozen applications, just to see what I can discover in the bitmaps, vectors, color palettes, and the spray of code. I struggle with the counterpoint of paint and pixel, the contrast between the prose label and the visual detail, the interaction between what we know and what we see. My prints are markers on the trail, not final destinations.
I love the data. All those stacks of zeroes and ones add up to individual pixels, like dots of paint on a canvas, ready to be manipulated, distorted, shifted, and transformed. As I explore these artificial representations of the physical world, I get to view the scene up close, then far away; I soar to 30,000 feet, and then I wade through the reeds.
As I zoom in and out through so many levels, I carve paths through the imaginary space, to lead attention on. My goal is to bring out the patterns in the natural landscape, the odd unnatural beauty of its digital representations, and the unseen souls struggling below. Compassion, then, and, yes, an odd joy. I want to give your eyes the pleasure of repeated visual tours, and, along the way, to lighten your spirits with tiny beautiful sparks.
–Jonathan Reeve Price
I am exploring the liquid border—the imaginary line drawn down the middle of the Rio Grande as it passes between Texas and Mexico. Real, but invisible, the border floats away.
But what pain comes across that unmarked frontier, what desperation, what determination! Exploring the photos and satellite data of this mighty river may help us imagine the people struggling across the river, and the trackers from the Border Patrol waiting on the American side.
I live next to the Rio Grande. In summers, there are stretches of the river that go dry, drained to irrigate chile fields. But more streams pour in from Mexico, bringing the river back to life. It staggers as it gets near to the Gulf of Mexico, but persists.
In the center of the river, we have no flag, no wall, no barrier. But our Border Patrol motors through in small skiffs, deterring migrants, and, quite often, picking up the bodies of people who went into the river, but could not swim.
My neighbors go down to El Paso and cross on the Bridge of International Friendship, to buy antibiotics, get their teeth cleaned, celebrate with their cousins. Other folks came across long ago, and they are part of our community, not aliens. In fact, some families came here in the 15th century, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, passing for Catholic conversos, hiding out along this river, so far from the capital of Mexico, and the conquistadors, with their horses and priests.
When I look at maps of the border region, I recall the stories of all these people going and coming, the voices of the young men looking for work, the cries of the families fleeing gangs in Latin America, and the children we pull away from their families to put into cages. I hear their words as I work.
When there’s peace, the border can be invisible. But artists and politicians make it visible again. One example: To make the three-hundred mile Northern Irish border visible, Suzanne Lacy persuaded several hundred people to wear yellow, run horses through yellow pigment, and paddle around in yellow boats, leaving a yellow trail across the boundary that has been the cause of so much grief. She projected satellite maps marked with the yellow line onto the front of the Ulster Museum, in Belfast.
For the stateless, the border is transcendent. Having been forced out of her homeland, Mona Hatoun says that she now feels rootless. But, she says, “The nomadic existence suits me fine, because I do not expect myself to identify completely with any one place.” Instead, she seizes on the maps that airlines use to show their routes around the world, photocopies them, and adds her own colored lines, and squiggles, emphasizing the journey, not the territory.
Working on an iMac, I use a wide range of software to dig into LandSat Orbiter images, and U.S. Geological Survey topographical studies.
I distort the original, useful, scientific images, taking them apart and rebuilding them with half a dozen applications, just to see what I can discover in the bitmaps, vectors, color palettes, and the spray of code. I struggle with the counterpoint of paint and pixel, the contrast between the prose label and the visual detail, the interaction between what we know and what we see. My prints are markers on the trail, not final destinations.
I love the data. All those stacks of zeroes and ones add up to individual pixels, like dots of paint on a canvas, ready to be manipulated, distorted, shifted, and transformed. As I explore these artificial representations of the physical world, I get to view the scene up close, then far away; I soar to 30,000 feet, and then I wade through the reeds.
As I zoom in and out through so many levels, I carve paths through the imaginary space, to lead attention on. My goal is to bring out the patterns in the natural landscape, the odd unnatural beauty of its digital representations, and the unseen souls struggling below. Compassion, then, and, yes, an odd joy. I want to give your eyes the pleasure of repeated visual tours, and, along the way, to lighten your spirits with tiny beautiful sparks.
–Jonathan Reeve Price
Pub List No:
10420.000
Pub Type:
Artist Book
Pub Type:
Regional Atlas
Pub Maps:
16
Pub Height cm:
61
Pub Width cm:
61
Image No:
10420011.jp2
Authors:
Price, Jonathan Reeve
Big Bend
