Dear friends,
Welcome to the first installment of a new blog series, brought to you by our summer intern and second Alex, Alex Halaby. Even more than we love celebrating Alex’s, we love stories, maps, and the intersection between the two. This blog is about just that, and we’ll begin with Kurt C, from Massachusetts, a long-time supporter of Treeline Terrains.
Kurt first encountered Treeline Terrains at the Big-E fair in West Springfield, MA. “I remember walking up the stairs to the art showcase and being stunned by the Treeline Terrains booth. I’d never seen anything like that before, and I thought it was so cool hearing these guys talk so passionately about their art. I always thought I was from a pretty flat part of Massachusetts, but their map of my home state proved me wrong. I actually ended up buying it! It’s awesome to see mountains and land features in places you don’t expect.”
After living with the Massachusetts map, Kurt began to think about placing a custom order of São Miguel, Azores, where his parents were born. “The size of the map was really important, because I wanted it to be big enough that all of the topological details would be preserved, but small enough that when someone sees it for the first time, they’d want to step closer. Jacob suggested a size which did that really well.”
Admittedly, upon receiving and seeing the map for the first time, Kurt realized it might be too hard to give up. “When I first saw it,” he remarked, “I was just shocked by the level of detail. I can literally see every mountain, ridge, and bump on the island. I knew there would be water surrounding the island, but I wasn’t expecting the map to show every small lake and reservoir as well. I remember looking at it, sort of baffled, thinking they must’ve had to use a tiny pipet for some of these water features!”
Kurt laughed over the phone explaining that “Coincidentally, I proposed to my wife on São Miguel, so I thought ‘can’t I just give it to her?’” Luckily, there were no hard feelings. Kurt’s São Miguel map now lives on the wall facing his front entrance, and makes for a proud talking point whenever his parents visit.
“It might sound corny, but I see my map every single day and I love it every single day.”