Maine Mapmaker

Jan Crosson

Jane Crosen discovered the world of maps while working at DeLorme Publishing in Yarmouth. For someone with a flair for editing and an explorer's curiosity about her home state, it was the perfect job. She learned a lot about researching and compiling, exploring, publishing, editing, and—by osmosis—mapmaking.  Later, after following some friend and family roots, she landed DownEast in Blue Hill. She decided to make a map of the Blue Hill region and people loved it so much she was encouraged to do maps of other Maine regions.  She designs everything—borders, symbols, graphic decorations—herself, by hand. The artwork for her two-color posters is large, labor-intensive, and fragile. Glide-Rule, X-Acto knife, light box, and proportional scale are the tools of her trade. Fine brush and black ink for coastlines, crowquill for ledges, forked brush for double-line roads, calligraphy pen for place names that are reduced, waxed, and painstakingly cut out and burnished down. . . . She pushes these hand graphic techniques—the previous generation of graphic arts, before the digital revolution—to the limit. Crosen loves the hands-on craftsmanship and low-tech independence of making maps this way, as a self-taught mapmaker.  Lisa-Marie’s carries larger prints as well as cards of Crosen’s unique maps.

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