Personal Cartography
Your Place. Your Story. Made Into Art.
Some places remain with us.
The city where you met. The coastline your family returns to every summer. A childhood home. A favorite trail. The streets of a place that changed you. A collection of destinations that, together, tell the story of a life.
Personal Cartography commissions transform those places into original works of art.
Each painting begins with real geography. Maps, roads, waterways, coastlines, neighborhoods, architecture, landmarks, and natural features create the foundation. From there, I layer color, texture, pattern, history, memory, and personal details until the map becomes something uniquely yours.
More Than A Place.
What makes a painting
A Personal Cartography commission begins with a location, though the finished painting holds much more than geography.
We might begin with the street where you grew up and the river you crossed each morning. A honeymoon destination and the small restaurant you still remember. The cities your family has called home. The coastline where generations have gathered.
During the commission process, I learn about the place as you experienced it.
Together, we consider the memories, history, architecture, natural features, colors, routes, landmarks, and small details that give that geography meaning.
Meaningful Places
Hometowns, travels, family homes, honeymoon destinations, favorite landscapes, coastlines, cities, islands, and the places you return to again and again.
Layers of Story
Maps and geography are layered with landmarks, waterways, architecture, cultural references, history, personal memories, and details drawn from your experience.
Abstract Expression
The geography becomes the framework rather than the final destination. Color, texture, mark-making, and movement allow the painting to hold the feeling of the place as much as its physical form.
Made for You
Every commission is created individually. Scale, composition, palette, geography, and personal references are considered in relation to your story and the space where the artwork will live.
Portfolio
Reserve a Commission
A hand-painted map of a place that became part of your story.
CLR Creations accepts a limited number of Abstract Cartography commissions each year for collectors, families, hospitality spaces, and commercial interiors.
Each painting begins with a real place. It may be the city where you met, the coastline you return to every summer, the destination of a meaningful journey, your childhood home, a wedding location, or a landscape that simply feels like yours.
From that geography, I create an original abstract painting that explores not only where the place is, but what it means to you.
The Artwork
Every CLR Creations commission is 100% hand-painted from a blank surface using professional oil or acrylic paints. No printing, digital painting, or photocopying process is used in the finished artwork.
Your painting may incorporate recognizable elements of the location, including coastlines, waterways, roads, neighborhoods, topography, landmarks, or coordinates. These geographic elements become the structure for layers of color, texture, movement, and material inspired by your experience of the place.
The finished work exists somewhere between map, landscape, and memory.
Your Story Shapes the Painting
The commission process begins with conversation.
Along with the location, I want to understand what happened there and what you remember about it. A particular sunset may influence the palette. The blue of the water from a favorite trip may move through the composition. Local plants, architecture, food, history, geology, or cultural traditions may inspire color and texture. A road traveled repeatedly may become an important line within the painting.
For commercial and hospitality commissions, the process can also explore the history, landscape, architecture, community, and identity surrounding the property.
Research is an important part of my practice. Maps, historical references, ecology, photographs, and stories help me understand the character of a location before it is translated into paint.
Throughout the process, you are invited into key moments of collaboration. References and progress images help guide the work while leaving room for artistic interpretation, intuition, and the natural response of the materials.
Materials
Choose from:
Cotton Canvas
Linen Canvas
Birchwood Panel
Each painting is created using professional, archival-quality materials selected for longevity.
Oil or acrylic paint may be used depending upon the desired surface, scale, layering, and character of the commission.
Sizes
Small
9" × 12" to 11" × 14"
An intimate study of a meaningful location, ideal for a favorite destination, hometown, honeymoon, or personal milestone.
Medium
12" × 18" to 18" × 24"
Offers greater space for geographic detail, layered storytelling, and the relationship between landscape and memory.
Large
24" × 30" to 30" × 40"
A statement piece designed to hold a more expansive geography and become a focal point within a home or interior.
Gallery
36" × 36" or larger
Large-scale cartography created for collectors, hospitality environments, commercial interiors, and spaces where the artwork can become part of the architecture itself.
Reserve Your Commission
This listing reserves a place on the CLR Creations commission calendar. It does not represent the full purchase price of the finished painting.
Your reservation begins the collaborative process and is applied toward the final cost of your artwork.
After reserving, you will be invited to share the location you would like painted along with the memories, colors, experiences, photographs, and details that make it meaningful to you.
What Happens Next
1. Reserve your commission.
Secure a place on my painting calendar.
2. Tell me about your place.
Within 24–48 hours, I will reach out to begin the collaboration. You may provide an address, city, state, country, coordinates, map, or another geographic reference.
3. Share the story behind it.
We will discuss your connection to the location, meaningful experiences, preferred colors, landscape features, memories, and any details you would like considered.
4. Establish the artwork.
Together, we will determine the final size, surface, composition, palette, and artistic direction. Final pricing will be confirmed according to the scope of the commission.
5. Your painting begins.
Once the commission details are approved and the required payment is received, I will begin translating your place into an original work of art.
Timeline
Most commissions take approximately 6–8 weeks from execution to delivery.
Painting Time: Approximately 6–7 weeks
Shipping Time: Approximately 2–8 business days
Timelines may vary according to scale, complexity, materials, research requirements, drying time, and the overall scope of the commission.
Large-scale, gallery, hospitality, and commercial projects may require an extended production schedule.
Production & Shipping
Delivery is determined by the size, surface, destination, and installation requirements of the finished artwork.
Small and medium works are generally shipped flat and fully protected.
Larger works on flexible surfaces, including cotton and linen canvas, may be shipped rolled when scale or destination requires it. Final stretching or mounting can then be completed by a professional framer or installer upon arrival.
Birchwood panels are shipped flat with rigid protection. Large-scale panels and architectural works may require custom crating, freight shipping, white-glove delivery, or coordinated installation.
All delivery methods are selected with the protection and long-term preservation of the artwork in mind.
Commission Policy
Every commissioned painting is individually created for the collector. Because of the personalized nature of the work, commissioned artwork is final sale and cannot be returned or exchanged.
Collaboration is an important part of my process. Before painting begins, we will establish the location, scale, surface, palette, and overall artistic direction of the piece. Progress updates are shared at key stages so you can experience the work as it develops.
The final artwork remains an original CLR Creations interpretation of your location and story. Natural variations in color, texture, mark-making, and abstraction are part of what makes each painting unique.
Begin With a Place
Think of somewhere that has stayed with you.
A city you once called home. A coastline you return to each year. The place where you fell in love. A journey that changed you. A landscape connected to your family. A destination that still feels vivid years later.
Reserve your Abstract Cartography commission and transform the geography of a meaningful place into an original painting created around your story.
[Frame not included]
A hand-painted map of a place that became part of your story.
CLR Creations accepts a limited number of Abstract Cartography commissions each year, transforming meaningful places into original works of art. Each painting begins with real geography, perhaps a hometown, coastline, wedding location, family landscape, or destination that changed you, and builds from the memories and experiences connected to it. Using maps, photographs, research, and your personal story, I translate coastlines, roads, waterways, landmarks, and other geographic details into layers of color, texture, and movement.
Every piece is 100% hand-painted in oil or acrylic on archival-quality cotton canvas, linen, or birchwood panel, with sizes ranging from 9" × 12" to 36" × 36" and larger. The collaborative process includes choosing the location, sharing your story, establishing the size and artistic direction, and following the painting through key stages of its creation.
Most commissions are completed within approximately 6–8 weeks, with additional time possible for large-scale or commercial projects. Your reservation secures a place on the CLR Creations commission calendar and is applied toward the final cost of your artwork. The result is a painting that exists somewhere between map, landscape, and memory, created to give a meaningful place a lasting presence in your home.
Personal Cartography commissions can also be created as meaningful gifts for weddings, anniversaries, retirements, housewarmings, milestone birthdays, and other significant moments.
If the painting is intended as a gift, I can work with you privately to gather the geography, references, and personal details needed to create the piece.
For commissions tied to a specific date, early booking is recommended to allow time for painting, curing, and delivery.