Frederic Edwin Church, American, - Floorplan of a Cabin, Lake Millinocket, Maine - September - October v1 - T-Shirt

This is a pencil floor plan, not a landscape, drawn by Frederic Edwin Church of a cabin at Lake Millinocket in Maine.

Visual Elements & Composition

A long horizontal rectangle is divided into three bays, set against pale cream paper. The two outer rooms are each marked with the numeral 10, and a small circle sits near the centre between them. Two short vertical strokes with pointed ends mark the openings that separate the bays, and light construction lines define the walls. Above the plan, handwritten pencil names and place labels run in two lines across the top of the sheet, including Wm. E. Hafford, Stephen Fann and Hammett Ridge. The drawing is restrained and entirely graphite, with the plan dominating the page.

Meaning & Symbolism

Church is known for large canvases of the Andes, the Arctic and the Near East, but this sheet shows the working side of his time in the field. Catalogued for September and October, during the years he spent in the Maine lake country, it records the layout of a rustic dwelling and its rooms. The numbering and the scale of the bays point to a reference drawing, made to remember arrangement and size. Beside his wilderness studies, it documents the practical conditions of an extended stay.

Rendered on a Tee

A floor plan reads best from a distance of a few feet, where the walls and openings separate into a clear diagram. Printed across the chest, the rectangle of rooms sits at the scale the sketch was drawn to be read. Wearing it, you carry a record of a working camp, its two numbered rooms and its handwritten names, in the place where a graphic is seen first.