toMAKE™ Press & Editions

Steven is an artist, mapmaker, geographer and teacher living in the intermountain west.

He works as an artist and teacher of the visual and observational arts, mapping ethics, lensless photography. His artist editioned prints, broadsides and maps use a variety of matricies; stone & plate lithography, relief, letterpress and silk screen.

An avid trail runner his personal and professional work explores the joyous and beautiful body of the earth … the beauty of the world.

He has a masters degree in geography and as a professor taught cartography, design, mapping ethics & geography … but more importantly de-educated through intensive exposure to the sun, the wind and the living and wet waters everywhere and in everything.

The toMake™ studio, pressroom supervisor and general manager.

“The most obvious characteristic of our age is its destructiveness.” TH. MERTON THE PROBLEM for the maker of maps being that our maps are, in part, engaged in the active and wanton destruction of the world. Thus AWAKENED, we VOW to take the right effort & engage in cartographic disobedience, map making “for a future to be possible.” T.N.HANH Unacceptable it is not to ACT.

REVERENCE; the first precept of right map making From the awareness that our maps are, in part, responsible for the great and unnecessary destruction of life taking place in the world today. We vow to map and comment on spatial relationships in a manner non-harming, with reverence and with respect, and to reflect and reveal the beauty of life in a manner non-objectified, where the economic, the non-economic, and the unseen elements are given voice. We vow to recognize and incorporate story with the arguments on our maps. In agreement with M. Gandhi, "first... non-cooperation with everything humiliating," we vow to refrain from economicism, the objectification of sentient beings, and cartographic pornography. Such mapping and maps reflect agreement with the first principle of right action; REVERENCE.

THE PRACTICE of GENEROSITY; the second precept From the awareness that our maps are, too often, in our self-interest, greedy consumptions of endless desire, human biased and nationalistic. We vow to engage in a mapping of that which desires to be mapped and shared, not taking that into map form that which does not belong to us; desiring to remain unmapped. We vow to be generous to all sentient beings on our maps and in our mapping. Where generosity is also the courage to leave blank on the page that which does not belong to us, not mapping to take what is not ours, and honoring the sanctity of the commons. Leviticus: "fields are not to be reaped to the border." Such mapping and maps show agreement with the second principle of right action: GENEROSITY.

COMMITMENT TO THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PLACE; the third precept From the awareness that our maps are, in part, reflective of a lack of relationship and commitment to the place in which we reside and map. We vow to resist the temptation to map places with which we have no intimate or committed relation. We seek to remember and honor our relationship to the place; mapping with an honesty of lines, colours, and shapes, the naming of places, the unnaming as well, without gossip or intent to harm, or to divide, but rather with a clarity of intent to all sentient beings with whom we are committed to with & in the relationship. Such mapping and maps show agreement with the third principle of right action: COMMITMENT TO THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PLACE.

ON BELONGING TO ONE BODY; the fifth precept for a future to be possible From the awareness that our maps are, in part, disconnected from the body of the earth. How can this be? Kabir says, "Whose Body is it anyway?" We vow to make our maps about the body living; our own body, the body in motion, ever-changing and interconnected, the body free from addiction and enslavement to the toxicity of drugs: ownership, objectification, disconnection, greed, capitalism, all the isms. We vow to map that delight in the body that serves to reduce suffering and misery. Maps, and the making of maps that respect all sentient beings; the living breathing air, the changing clouds, and the wind and the tides in motion, the soils, the interwoven rocks, the waterways and the water bodies entwined & circling, mountains rising & falling, compost building. Maps respecting and awakened to belonging to the OneBody without separation. Such mapping and maps show agreement with the fifth principle, oikos as the ecologic, economic and ecumenical whole of right livelihood: BELONGING TO ONE BODY.

DEEP LISTENING THROUGH DIRECT-CONTACT & STOPPING; the fourth precept From the awareness that our maps are, in part, a failure to deeply listen and have been made without stopping to directly contact and listen to the place we are mapping. We vow to refrain from mapping what we do not know to be the truth, to first stop to experience the interconnected, ever-changing and interwoven space we are privileged to map. These maps acknowledge the intimate Other, the desire for the awakened heart and mind with & in direct contact with the place itSelf. Such mapping and maps show agreement with the fourth principle of right speech: DEEP LISTENING THROUGH DIRECT-CONTACT AND STOPPING.

A Real Place. Before any edition is started a real place has been visited on multiple occasions, over and over, sometimes years … and until the experience reveals itSelf to speak. This is true if I am making a map or print. Lensless images are often acquired during these visits and can reflect changes to the place. Each and all of my responses reflect back to a place. The most important and difficult aspect of this is stopping. For this reason it sometimes is years before I feel I have heard a voice that asks to be spoken.

Observation, Counting, Measuring, Listening. To facilitate stopping and being able to experience I engage in a variety of practices; measuring the wind, the air, soil and water temperatures, determining the color and texture of the soil, the earth, noticing the clouds and counting things, all things, my breath and the passing animals and people. Taking slow, extended exposure lensless images on film. Sketching and making notes and scribbles. You can practice and the practice allows for the experience. You cannot say I am going to experience the ‘Other’, but you can stop and be ready, open, prepared and willing for the Other to speak withIN.

Observation, Counting, Measuring, Listening. To facilitate stopping and being able to experience I engage in a variety of practices; measuring the wind, the air, soil and water temperatures, determining the color and texture of the soil, the earth, noticing the clouds and counting things, all things, my breath and the passing animals and people. Taking slow, extended exposure lensless images on film. Sketching and making notes and scribbles. You can practice and the practice allows for the experience. You cannot say I am going to experience the ‘Other’, but you can stop and be ready, open, prepared and willing for the Other to speak withIN.

YA) . . .

. . . and you realize that there is something to say about this Beauty, this Joy, this livingness. And this something is a pressure from withIN that must speak. Practicing come to fruition and you put the tools to work.