[map, art] A Club For Those Who Want To Map Like Jerry

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Back in 2013-2014, which I documented for the record, I documented my stumbling upon the organic life's work of a man named Jerry Gretzinger, who was creating, as he went, an imaginary world, 8 x 11 sheet by 8 x 11 sheet.

It's quite large now. over 50 feet long in one direction, and his world has toured the world, being shown in museums and art galleries. At first it was said to be called "Ukrania", but the name which has stuck is simply "Jerry's Map". Since it's been a while, here's the idea: Jerry began creating an imaginary city during lulls in a tedious job. The year: 1963. The original town, Wybourne (the original tile, pictured right) grew and grew from that beginning and then, as interests do, he moved on and shelved it. Eventually, a nephew discovered the stored map, asked him what it was, and he started growing it again. And never stopped.

This is something I've done and many aspiring artists and map affectionados such as myself have copied it. To us, Jerry is a hero because he's made a true commentary on the many forms art takes ... process, evolution, accomplishment. He operates on a set of basic rules controlled and governed by his own internal logic and directed by a deck of around 100 command cards fashioned from recycled playing card decks. These cards prompt for everything from introducing new colors to generating new tiles to creating new collages on the tiles to archiving and refreshing the world. So, to my mind, like no other artist, Jerry's Map not only chronicles the change in art over time, but it chronicles the changes the artwork makes on the artist, who folds that back into the process. The changer is changing the changed, and the changed is changing the changer.

Today I stumbled on a sub-Reddit called "Mapping Like Jerry!". It's a collection of similarly-inspired and aspiring artists who, seeing what Jerry has done, are moved to create their own versions of imaginary worlds. Jerry himself takes part, joyous as the friends he's obviously made along the way.

The sub-Reddit is at https://www.reddit.com/r/JerryMapping/.

[art, map] The Story of the Void in Jerry Gretzinger's Map

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Back last year I posted here about a most singularly delightful thing, Jerry's Map.

To recap, the story goes kind of like this: One day, in 1963, during lulls in what is only described as a tedious job, Jerry Gretzinger, a resident of New York State, started drawing a map of an imaginary city. The city reached the edge of the sheet; he attached another, and kept on going. He kept this up for 20 years.

In 1983, life offered sufficient distraction to cause him to put the map of Ukrainia on the shelf. Then, after 20 years of sleeping, the land awoke again when Jerry's grandson discovered the map and it lit the creative fire again. Since 2003, he's been expanding it even farther using a system of playing cards pained and decorated, that give him directions on what to do next.

The cards rule.

Over the past 51 years, Jerry's been working on the map for 31 of them. The map has expanded into areas of collage that are truly impressive. But some things of Jerry's world tend to stick harder than others, and the most haunting aspect is that of "The Void". See, when Jerry draws a certain card, areas of his map that aren't watched over by defensive works get transferred to The Void.

What exactly The Void is has been left as an exercise to the reader up until now. Some hint has been extended by the creator himself that The Void is not simply an oblivion where people disappear into utter annihilation. As noted in my earlier report on Jerry's map, when a section of the city of Fields West, pop about 700,000, was Voided, …

this largely unprotected city of over 700,000 souls saw the relocation of an estimated 15,700 individuals to the alternative dimensions inside the Void.  This portion of historic old town will be greatly missed by the remaining residents.

While the amazingness of Ukrainia itself is pretty entrancing, the idea of a Void incursion as an occasional thing has a hauntingness about it, and the author's evident idea that the victims within the Voided precincts actually go to another place is compellingly fascinating.

Jerry has begun posting YouTube videos about his process: the channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl07nZ3C1kGhnFiDW87EvBQ. This video, however, answers the central question about just what the Void is, while raising further questions, which Jerry is no doubt exploring as we speak:



Again, Jerry's blog about all this, which is interesting following, is http://jerrysmap.blogspot.com/