The space I will utilize will be the outdoor patio in my family’s backyard. It’ll be a hanging mural with depth to it, along with LED lights on the rim of the interior, so it can light up and provide shadow against the landscape for a more dramatic effect during the evening hours. The fountain area already has LED lights, so the piece will complement the fountain space very well.

For the rim/mainframe, I plan to paint it blue in color to tie in well with the main fountain pots. This will help ground the piece in the space that it’s mounted in. This will take the form of a Texas shape. Both my parents grew up in very different regions of Texas, each having different lifestyles, and met each other in college.

Given that Texas is big, I will paint/raster etch some major landmarks/identifiable roads or other way-points for people to associate and ground themself in where the location is on the map, without labeling each city, keeping the design minimal. For each important city, a label will be created and a simple illustration highlighting the significance, personally, to the location in the narrative. I also want to include some labels of important cities/towns throughout Texas that mean something to us as a family--be it a tradition we hold, where family members live, or something of significance to us. Finally, the waypoints will be connected using “fairly twinkle lights” of two different colors, one representing the track of my dad, and another of my mom. LED lights will outline the interior rim to help illuminate the map in the outdoor space where the work will be installed.