“In 1987 when my wife Kathy Warinner and I moved from Ohio to San Francisco, we took the southern route across the country—it was, after all, February. One evening last November I was curious what the northern route would be so I used Google Maps to follow the freeways across the country as a way of reenacting the trip. In our 1987 trip we tried as much as possible to stay off the interstates so when I was conducting my virtual reenactment I did the same. And I came across a place called Little America in Wyoming. Fascinated, I took a photo of it off my screen and started looking for more interesting places. Solitude, Mt. Olympus, Nixon, and Last Chance followed and I was hooked.
“For the past few years I’ve designed new years announcements for the landscape architects SWA Group and for their 2012 announcement I pitched the idea of evocative place names. These are juxtaposed with landscapes of various kinds—the desert, mountains, agriculture, and the sprawl of cities and suburbs. All photographed off my monitor, visited without leaving my office.
“It was a great project. I even found a place in West Virginia called Bob.”
Bob Aufuldish is a Bay Area designer and educator. We invited him to share another moment of play with us.