David Nuttall’s Hand Drawn Plausible Fictitious Maps

Sanksville and Annadega, set on the U.S. Gulf Coast

The first time I saw David Nuttall’s studio on the 3^rd floor of Huntsville's Lowe Mill Arts center, I was immediately drawn to it – I love maps! The studio was closed at the time, but I looked over the information posted on the windows. When I discovered that the maps were fictitious I lost interest and moved on (although my artist daughter did appreciate them). I thought I was only interested in maps of real places. Many months later I saw David Nuttall give a talk at TEDx Huntsville 2015. I had already found, through attending many artists’ talks with my daughter, that learning more about someone’s art often creates an appreciation for it. That was true for David’s work as well.

Not long after TEDx, David had an exhibit at Lowe Mill titled “Fragments” and he offered free, weekly guided tours. One Saturday I joined a few other people for a guided tour, which we all found so interesting that we asked a lot of questions and caused the tour to go on about twice as long as scheduled. The exhibit included maps done by David as a child (from 8 years old). He obviously had a passion for map drawing; even at that age his maps were extremely realistic and detailed. He talked about how he did lack some imagination in naming places back then though (using names very similar to the places around him in the UK). He would draw maps and then draw them in more and more detail, making large maps composed of many sheets of paper. He is especially interested in mapping down to the level of individual buildings, even establishing their functions. He also mapped fictitious train stations, including the multi-level pedestrian walkways between stations of competing train companies, just as was really the case at one time in England. At the age of 16 (when teens finish high school in the UK), he interviewed for a cartography job with the British government, using his fictitious maps as his resume, and he was hired. If I recall correctly, they also paid for him to attend college while working there. Later, he came to the U.S. to work in GIS (geographic information system).

The other focus of the “Fragments” exhibit was his maps drawn on close-up photos of surfaces (such as wood, brick, and rusted metal) found around Lowe Mill. You can go on a sort of scavenger hunt to find the surfaces he used, although I had a very hard time finding the location of the metal surface he used in the Sanksville and Annadega map even after he narrowed down the location for me (I bought a print of that one).

Arroco de Matadro, set in Central America

Some of the rusty metal surfaces outdoors at Lowe Mill:

   

When we finished up the tour in the 1^st floor gallery, we went up to his studio where one of the other attendees asked if we could see his original childhood notebooks. (He had recently re-discovered them in his attic and mentioned that they were currently in his studio, which he shares with his wife, painter Jodi Nuttall). What fun it was to see the actual notebooks after seeing some of the reprinted versions in the exhibit! We also saw some of his current project, “Human Terrain.” These are temporary maps drawn on human skin, using the shape of the person to influence the contours of the map. This project helps people look at scars differently by incorporating them into the maps.

Photo from David's website

His work was recently featured in "Celebrating Maps as Art" on OS, the British mapping agency's blog.