The United Plates

It was instant love when we encountered artist and illustrator John Holcomb's latest project, The United Plates, an interpretation of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, as popular food items. Think Michigan as a sunny-side up egg, D.C. as a Pop-Tart, spaghetti and meatballs piled high like Oregon, and bundled asparagus resembling Indiana. State pride has never made us so hungry. We asked him about his inspiration for the project.

How did you first start thinking about interpreting U.S. state maps into food illustrations?

I was working on an idea of taking each of the state's boundaries and making them into an object of any kind but I quickly realized that idea lacked a conceptual element - one of the most important ingredients in art. After sketching thumbnail after thumbnail looking for a common theme, I began to see a lot of food elements in the sketches, so from there I focused in on the food concept. I would say 50 percent of them came fairly easy, 30 percent took multiple approaches and 20 percent of them almost killed me to the point where I never thought I'd figure it out.

The United Plates

Backlink: http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/2010/11/the-united-plates.html