this, friends, is an imaginary city called timony.  i live there. i was hesitant to write about it here on the blog, because it was in the works for so many months and secret, but now that it’s out in the open, i thought i’d share its story. a few months ago, i stumbled across an image that caught my eye right here on tumblr.  my friend marisa reblogged a picture of a map she’d found online.  it was a simple map and i felt myself drawn into it.  the artist, shane watt, was a “fictional cartographer” and artist residing in montreal.  he basically draws elaborate maps to places that don’t really exist. i was immediately drawn to his work and dove into his website, looking at these maps of imaginary cities.  as it turned out, the cities he drew all connected and were part of a greater country.  not only were they all connected, but each city was filled with little secrets - symbols and references to different things in his life and the lives of others.  as i was exploring, i saw on his website that he does commissioned maps.  upon reading this, you can probably imagine a big thought bubble that appeared over my head.  lauren’s birthday was coming up and i wanted the perfect gift.  living 250 miles apart meant that our entire relationship consisted of time spent in each other’s cities.  over the past year, i’ve been slowly discovering her world in philadelphia and she was discovering my world in richmond.  i wanted to make her a map that brought our two cities together.  a map of our relationship thus far. having never commissioned work from an artist before, i wasn’t even sure what to expect, but working with shane was really awesome and easy.  he asked me a ton of questions about our relationship, lauren’s favorite things, and our memorable places in our two cities.  i gave him an abundance of information.  he gave me a choice of city names from his country, and i chose timony. and then i waited.  for about a month and a half. then, one day i got an e-mail with this picture of timony.  it was so far beyond what i had imagined it would be.  i was seeing our entire relationship drawn out on paper.  the place we met, where we went on our first date, our street names, little landmarks in richmond and philly.. they were all there.  every time i looked at the map, i found some new little secret i hadn’t noticed before. the map finally arrived in the mail just before lauren’s birthday and when i gave it to her, she was completely shocked and loved it.  she immediately understood what the map was and set out to find all the little secrets. it’s now hanging in her room in philly.  but who knows?  maybe someday it will be hanging in a place we live in together. until then, we’ve got timony.

this, friends, is an imaginary city called timony.  i live there.

i was hesitant to write about it here on the blog, because it was in the works for so many months and secret, but now that it’s out in the open, i thought i’d share its story.

a few months ago, i stumbled across an image that caught my eye right here on tumblr.  my friend marisa reblogged a picture of a map she’d found online.  it was a simple map and i felt myself drawn into it.  the artist, shane watt, was a “fictional cartographer” and artist residing in montreal.  he basically draws elaborate maps to places that don’t really exist.

i was immediately drawn to his work and dove into his website, looking at these maps of imaginary cities.  as it turned out, the cities he drew all connected and were part of a greater country.  not only were they all connected, but each city was filled with little secrets - symbols and references to different things in his life and the lives of others.  as i was exploring, i saw on his website that he does commissioned maps.  upon reading this, you can probably imagine a big thought bubble that appeared over my head. 

lauren’s birthday was coming up and i wanted the perfect gift.  living 250 miles apart meant that our entire relationship consisted of time spent in each other’s cities.  over the past year, i’ve been slowly discovering her world in philadelphia and she was discovering my world in richmond.  i wanted to make her a map that brought our two cities together.  a map of our relationship thus far.

having never commissioned work from an artist before, i wasn’t even sure what to expect, but working with shane was really awesome and easy.  he asked me a ton of questions about our relationship, lauren’s favorite things, and our memorable places in our two cities.  i gave him an abundance of information.  he gave me a choice of city names from his country, and i chose timony.

and then i waited.  for about a month and a half.

then, one day i got an e-mail with this picture of timony.  it was so far beyond what i had imagined it would be.  i was seeing our entire relationship drawn out on paper.  the place we met, where we went on our first date, our street names, little landmarks in richmond and philly.. they were all there.  every time i looked at the map, i found some new little secret i hadn’t noticed before.

the map finally arrived in the mail just before lauren’s birthday and when i gave it to her, she was completely shocked and loved it.  she immediately understood what the map was and set out to find all the little secrets.

it’s now hanging in her room in philly.  but who knows?  maybe someday it will be hanging in a place we live in together.

until then, we’ve got timony.