32.7765°N / 79.9311°W · United States
Charleston is not where it was founded. The first settlement stood across the Ashley River, just beyond the left edge of this sheet; ten years later the town crossed the water to the point of land between two rivers, and it has never left.
You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.
The peninsula comes down from the top of the sheet and narrows to a blunt point. The Ashley River runs along its left side, the Cooper along its right, and below the point the two meet in a single broad harbour that opens towards the lower right. The old town is the point itself: a close weave of streets that ends on the water in a straight edge to the south-west and a small park at the very tip. Further north, the streets loosen and the motorways gather towards the bridges, one crossing the Ashley to the west, the other, longer, leaping the Cooper to Mount Pleasant on the right.
The salt marshes are in the data and take the green: ragged bands along the far shores of both rivers and around the islands. The mudflats uncovered at low tide are not drawn, since water has only one level here. On the western side of the old town, a small blue rectangle ringed with green is Colonial Lake. An island with a pale oval at its heart sits in the Cooper, under the long bridge. The rail lines in the north of the peninsula are drawn too pale to read.
Water surrounds the old town on three sides, so it colours the poster as much as the land does: a deep ink makes the point stand out sharply, a soft one lets the marshes and the streets share the attention. Green has a great deal to do on this map, because the marshes are in the data and follow every far shore in ragged bands. Choose a green that stays clearly apart from the water, or the shoreline will blur where the two meet. Inside the old town, everything is line work.
Portrait, centred a little north-west of the engraved point so that the peninsula runs from the top of the sheet down to its tip, with the harbour opening below and to the right. Mount Pleasant sits along the right edge, James Island along the bottom. The first site, across the Ashley, lies just beyond the left edge, and the mouth of the harbour beyond the lower right; bringing them in would shrink the old town to a few lines. Come closer and the regular streets of the old plan sharpen around Meeting and Broad.
The title, one line under it, the coordinates. On a town that ends where the land does, the caption can say how close to the water you were: a street by the river, the side of the peninsula you lived on, the year you crossed the bridge.
Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is not in the catalogue, but you will find it in the palette library, filed under its material.
Opens the colour workshop with these 16 inks in place: change one, keep the rest.
It will wait in your account, ready for any piece.
English settlers established the town in 1670 on the west bank of the Ashley, at Albemarle Point, beyond the left edge of this sheet. In 1680 it moved to its present location on Oyster Point, the end of the peninsula. A plan of that same year, the Grand Modell, laid out “the model of an exact regular town”, and set aside the land around the crossing of Meeting and Broad Streets for a civic square. That crossing is the point the engraved coordinates designate.
In 1768 an act reserved the vacant marsh land at the western edge of the town as a common, forever. Part of that ground holds the pond known since the summer of 1881 as Colonial Lake: the small blue rectangle ringed with green on the western side of the old town, one of the very few pieces of still water inside the city.
In 1881 the city set up a commission for the common and for an embankment along the Ashley, with the idea of a grand boulevard joining Ashley and Rutledge Avenues. Part of it was realised in the early twentieth century as Murray Boulevard. On the sheet it is the straight line that closes the old town along the water, from Colonial Lake to the tip.
Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.
From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.
Four, from the barest to the most dressed.
Making depends on the edition: 1 to 3 working days for Fine Art paper and wooden hangers, 3 days for the poster and the mounted frame, 3 to 5 days for the framed canvas. Transit depends on the country:
| Delivered to | In transit | In total |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | 5 to 7 working days | 6 to 12 working days |
| United Kingdom | 2 to 3 working days | 3 to 8 working days |
| United States | 4 to 6 working days | 5 to 11 working days |
| Canada | National delivery | Given at dispatch |
| Australia | National delivery | Given at dispatch |
These are standard delivery times and remain indicative. For a set date, order two to three weeks ahead.
Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece can be downloaded from your account as soon as you order, and an email lets you know the moment it is ready.
On this peninsula, most streets end at the water, on one side or the other. Hang the sheet where you pass it every day: it will go on telling you which river was yours.
Compose my Charleston poster
