I sometimes refer to these compositions as 'mapscapes' — part map, part landscape. I geometrize real life ridges and shorelines, tracing routes taken by early explorers (and last summer's vacationers). I use a knife to hand-cut the pieces, imagining that waterways carved through rock something like this but, obviously, much slower. Finally, I assemble it all like the jigsaw puzzles of our youth. Once under glass, I can lean in and examine this geographic specimen, the contours and shadows massaging my eyeballs in ways that Google Maps simply can’t.