I have been working nearly constantly - it seems — and it is looking like things are beginning to pull together..

Looking through books for examples of design that I like. I still think the Corliss books are pretty much perfect — and they are absolutely charmless. 

In progress - at last! Spent two productive days at the archives of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff back in October. These images come from scans of materials in the archives.

Some photographs of day two at the arcchives — went through dozens of near grey boxes, each filled with piles and piles of interesting and unexpected stuff. So very very many little round images of things seen from such a great distance. 

These are the kinds of things I am looking at in the archives — drawings, notes, sketches, etc — all related to Mars. Slipher made thousands of photographs and sketches of the planet. While some of his drawings were reproduced in The Photographic Story of Mars, but seeing the original sketches in person is a real suprise: they are incredibly delicate and detailed, with extremely fine lines and shading. I am seeing years and years of tiny sketches of a disc criss-crossed by lines and patches of light and dark — the observations are remarkably consistent. You can even get a feel for the rotation of the planet from these tiny drawings. 

I’ve arrived in Arizona — flew to Phoenix, then drove up into the mountains to Flagstaff, where the Lowell Observatory is — on Mars Hill Road. I am working in the library & archives at the observatory — looking at the files related to the work of Earl C. Slipher, and, in particular, his book “The Photographic Story of Mars”