Tag: Research

  • Holly’s Favorite Recipes

    Holly’s Favorite Recipes

    After a catastrophic fire at their historic schoolhouse and community center, the community of Holly, Washington was reeling. Local resident Paige Stockley approached me about producing a complete compendium of Holly recipes, drawing from the three historic community cookbooks from 1973, 1977, and 1990, plus new recipes from today’s Holly residents.

    The project grew from a simple reproduction to a passionate compilation of the community’s personal histories, photos, and family recipes. Proceeds from the sale of the cookbooks goes to support the rebuild fund.

    Collecting the history

    I started by collecting items from the community club, including historic photos of the town’s original families (many of which were lost in the fire), personal histories, stories, recipes, and the three community cookbooks. The objective was to bring to life artifacts passed down for generations, and to preserve those that were lost.

    Preparation and Design

    I scanned each page of all three cookbooks using a high-resolution flatbed scanner to capture color images of each page. Some pages were different colors, and because they were going to be reproduced in black and white, I had to normalize their contrast in Photoshop to make them readable.

    I also masked each page in Photoshop to remove the black scanner background. This involved masking around the edges of the page, as well as the holes for the comb binding. We chose to leave blemishes from use, as we felt this added to the character of the cookbooks—it preserved the reality that these recipes were made by real people.

    The final product

    The final product is a hefty book of nearly 300 pages with a soft-touch cover, over 50 years of family recipes, and over 100 years of photos and history.

    Community Debut

    Nearly 100 books were sold to the community and their family members in the weeks after the design was finished. Paige hosted a book launch party attended by many Hollyites. Guests were invited to make a recipe from the book and bring it to share.

    Details

    • Softcover with perfect-bound pages
    • Digital color printing on cover, black and white printing interior
    • W 8in x H 10in
  • Selective Sovereignty

    Selective Sovereignty

    Most people in the United States are familiar on some level with the existence of Native American and American Indian tribal entities, and to some extent the history of Native American/United States relations over the past several hundred years.

    However, there are a great many people who are unaware of the process by which over 560 tribal entities have gained federal acknowledgement of their sovereignty. Indeed, many people in the U.S. don’t know that Native American tribes with recognition are considered to have a country-to-country relationship with the United States government… that those tribes are sovereign nations in and of themselves.

    Furthermore, there are many people who don’t know that next to these federally acknowledged sovereign tribal entities, there are even more non-acknowledged tribal entities who do not have the visibility or benefits conferred by federal acknowledgement. They are not entitled to funds from the U.S. government targeted at bolstering dedicated tribal education and healthcare services; they do not receive the benefit of land reserved for that tribe. The federal government does not consider them sovereign entities.

    This project was the perfect combination of my interest in mapmaking, data visualization, and the social issue facing hundreds of tribes across the U.S. By delving into research surrounding the process and history of federal recognition, as well as the numbers and locations of many non-acknowledged groups, I was able to create a high-level view of the Pacific Coast and the locations of 114 different tribal groups which are currently not acknowledged by the Federal Government. Some of these groups—including the Dxw’Dəw?Abš (Duwamish) Tribe which is local to me here in Seattle—have received recognition, which was then rescinded. These tribes and many others continue to fight lengthy legal battles in order to gain that recognition.

    The map was created in Adobe InDesign using shorelines from data provided by OpenStreetMap, with additional elements from the USGS HydroSHEDS project. Listing of non-acknowledged tribes was based on research by Troy Johnson, Cal State, Long Beach, with geographic locations estimated by searching for registered addresses of each entity.

    Detail of entity listing.
    Detail of Puget Sound region.
    Detail of Southern California region.
    Detail of infographic map.

    Details

    Selective Sovereignty—American Tribal Entities of the Pacific Coast without Federal Recognition

    • W 18in x H 24in
    • Built using QGIS, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign.
    • Original version, 2017; last updated 2023.