these are beautiful.

Gorgeous, but how can you call it NYC and you're missing a borough. New York City has five boroughs, not four. It's just plain rude (and my borough is represented)!

Handcut?! I would shoot myself! They sure are pretty though!

why cut by hand when laser can do it? granted it would take time but the price tag is ridiculous.

seriously, laser cutting is the way to go.

@scmonkey and travislessness

That's like saying why draw someone when you could take a photo of them?

Or why buy a hand-thrown mug when you can get one cheaper at IKEA?

Sometimes convenience isn't the point. The awe of human craft and the small imperfections that leave evidence of a human hand breathe life into objects.

@akay

It's not like saying, "why draw someone when you could take a photo of them," at all.

Because this hand-cut map looks like it was laser-cut. 99% of people who look at it would assume it was made by a machine. It would be like somebody perfectly carving a dining chair out of an enormous block of plastic, meticulously polishing and finish it, when nobody will every know all the work that went into it. That is to say, when nobody *should* know all the work that went into it, because it is basically irrelevant.

Why buy a hand-thrown rug? Presumably because it is of a much higher quality. If it was a poorly-made hand-thrown rug, I would buy the IKEA one.

Handcraft is beautiful when it embraces nuance and imperfection. When it tries to emulate technological precision, it becomes a waste of time.

And I bet they used computers/printers to generate/print the map pattern to begin with. And if that's true, then, really, what is the point?

it would be insanely obvious if it was laser cut... just look for the insane burn marks you would get from that many cuts so close together. the paper would be half yellow...

joey, I appreciate your points, but your logic can't be so broadly applied.

Handcraft is beautiful when it embraces nuance and imperfection. When it tries to emulate technological precision, it becomes a waste of time.

The work of painter Richard Estes meticulously emulates photorealism, and its status as art is unquestioned. But, by your above definition, his work is a waste of time.

Is a handmade object that has no noticeable flaws suddenly no longer handmade? I, too, embrace the imperfections that signal human contact on a custom object, but that doesn't preclude that smooth, seemingly flawless objects cannot be the result of handicraft as well. To you, this might be less worthwhile, but that is your opinion rather than a stated fact.

Why buy a hand-thrown rug?* Presumably because it is of a much higher quality. *mug (not sure how rug-throwing works ;) )

What kind of quality? Its durability? Or its singularity and artistry? I think the latter. People put in extra effort to seek out objects that are unique and one-of-a-kind, or those that have an interesting style fits the buyer better than what is available on the mass market. To that person, the quality of the object resides in its singularity, not in how handmade it appears.

You're really raising the discussion of what makes art art.

I agree with Joey Joejoe and disagree with akay. If you can't tell the map was cut by hand or laser, there really is no point in doing it by hand. It's a waste of time to do it by hand if you will get the exact same results by laser.

Therefore, I do think Richard Estes' work *IS* in fact, a waste of time. Why buy a painting that is trying to look like a photograph? Why not just get a blowup of the photograph? His work is inauthentic because it's a fake photograph. It's like buying a fake antique, complete with fake dirt and fake rust, or anything "vintage" by Anthropologie. It's inauthentic.

She keeps raising her prices every time you guys do a feature.....

Do not buy her stuff that is just not right